Syma Crane papers

Syma Crane (b. 1921) was born in Vilnius, Lithuania (Wilno, Poland) to Chaim and Basia Minc. Syma’s parents and sisters Sonja Minc Lipofsky and Chaya Minc Chodos perished in the Holocaust. Her brother Czalel Minc survived in hiding in Belgium. Syma and her husband Marcus Klok fled Vilnius in 1941 and used ten day Japanese transit visas obtained via the Jewish Labor Bund under the false names Syma and Marcus Miller to travel via Vladivostok to Kobe. They were relocated by Japanese authorities to Shanghai, where they lived in the Jewish ghetto for about a year. In 1942 they obtained places on a British diplomatic ship that was leaving Shanghai as part of a prisoner exchange between the British and Japanese and sailed to England via Cape Town. Syma studied English and child development in London, and Marcus joined a Polish unit of the British army under General Anders. After the war, Syma joined the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA). She worked as a child welfare officer in Wolfsburg and at the children’s homes at Leoben and Bad Schallerbach. Her responsibilities including locating unaccompanied children and requisitioning money and resources for the children’s homes. She helped establish a separate home for older children near Bad Schallerbach named Camp Leitendorf. She also accompanied a transport of fifty children to Yugoslavia in 1947. She immigrated to the United States in 1950, divorced Marcus, and married George (Katz) Crane, a fellow Holocaust survivor from Vilnius, in 1954. The Syma Crane papers consist primarily of photographs documenting Crane’s service as United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) director of the children’s homes at Leoben and Bad Schallerbach in Austria. The collection also includes an autograph book, biographical materials, correspondence, and printed materials documenting her escape from Vilnius in 1941 to Kobe and Shanghai and eventual arrival in London. Contains certificates, correspondence and documents of Syma Minc Klok a.k.a. Syma Miller relating to her escape in 1941 from Vilnius, Lithuania first to Kobe, Japan and then in 1942 to England via Shanghai, employment with the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA), the International Refugee Organization (IRO) and the Preparatory Commission for the International Refugee Organization (PCIRO), and her work with unaccompanied children. Photographs depict Syma Crane, children, staff, and facilities at the Leoben and Bad Schallerbach children’s homes as well as Syma Crane’s family members. The autograph book contains poems, greetings, autographs, and artwork by children from the Leoben children’s home. Biographical materials document Syma Crane’s refugee status in Shanghai and England, her work for UNRRA and IRO in Austria, and her immigration to the United States. Records include vaccination certificates, registration papers, identification papers, travel papers, and a declaration of intent to become a US citizen. Correspondence includes postcards Syma received in Kobe from relatives in Vilnius in 1941 and 1942 as well as official correspondence regarding her work for UNRRA and IRO from 1946-1950. The Vilnius correspondence hints at the difficulties of life under Soviet and German-occupied Vilnius and as an exile in Kobe. The official correspondence primarily documents Syma’s employment and civil status working for UNRRA and during the transition to the IRO, letters of recommendation, and her resignation and repatriation in 1950. Printed materials include three August 1947 issues of the Wiener Kurier and clippings related to Syma Crane’s work with refugee children.