Abraham Atsmon papers

The Abraham Atsmon papers consist of identification papers, biographies, correspondence, reports, narratives, photographs, newspapers, protocols, and minutes documenting Atsmon’s family and pre-war life in Poland, his participation in a partisan brigade in the areas of Słonim and Brest during the war, his organization and leadership of a Holocaust survivor group (Sh'erit ha-Pletah) in the American occupation zone of Germany after the war, his support for the state of Israel, his emigration to Israel in 1948, and his subsequent efforts to record the Jewish resistance during the Holocaust. Biographical materials include identification papers, membership cards, a resume, a brief biography, andrequests for copies of Atsmon’s medical school diploma. Materials about the 51st Brigade primarily consist of historical narratives compiled in the early 1960s about a partisan group active in western Belarus during World War II. This series also includes meeting announcements and minutes, histories of the Słonim region, correspondence with Yad Vashem about the Brigade, and a list of Brigade members who died during the war. Photographs depict Abraham Atsmon, his family members, friends, fellow partisans, and David BenGurion. They document his family, military service, sports activities, university education, partisan activities, meetings of Jewish political groups, and the ORT school in Munich. Two photo albums document Atsmon’s partisan and refugee friends and the Second Congress of the Central Committee of Liberated Jews in the American Zone of Germany. Printed materials primarily consist of issues of Yiddish and Hebrew newspapers published by Jewish groups in displaced persons camps after the war. Additional printed materials include a 1935 Gestapo chart of political affiliations of Jewish organizations in Germany, invitations to the 1946 Conférence Européenne de la Resistance, a memorial booklet about the Jewish community of Łomża, a pamphlet about the ORT vocational school in Munich, an account of a Jewish partisan in the Słonim area during the Holocaust, and an account of the extermination of Jews in Lithuania. Materials about Sh'erit ha-Pletah (“surviving remnant”) consist primarily of reports and meeting materials documenting the political organization of Holocaust survivors in the American occupied zone of Germany after the war and are arranged in four subseries: 1) Central Committee of Liberated Jews, 2) Second Congress of the Central Committee, 3) Third Congress of the Central Committee, and 4) Subject files. Central Committee materials include correspondence, reports, and election materials documenting the work of the Central Committee and Atsmon’s participation in that work. Second and Third Congress materials include reports, programs, and speeches. Subject files include appeals between former partisans in Germany and Palestine to support each other’s causes and an unattributed manuscript describing the organizational activities of survivors after the Holocaust. Abraham Atsmon was born Abraam Isak Blumowicz in 1909 in Łomża, Poland to Jakob and Gola Blumowicz. He studied medicine at the University of Vilnius. His family was killed while trying to escape Łomża during the German invasion of the Soviet Union, but Atsmon survived, found his way to the Słonim ghetto, and joined the ghetto underground. He organized the ghetto’s medical services and served as the director of its hospital and surgical department. He escaped the ghetto, joined a partisan group in Belarus, and ran a field hospital. After the war, he found his way back to Poland and then to the American sector of Germany. He intended to emigrate to Palestine and entered the Landsberg displaced persons camp. Atsmon was a political and social leader in the camp and helped create the Central Committee of the Liberated Jews in the American Zone of Germany. The Committee worked to improve conditions within the displaced persons camps, establish the political legitimacy of survivors, and promote emigration to Palestine and the creation of the State of Israel. In 1946, the American military government in Germany recognized the Committee as the legal and democratic representation of liberated Jews in the American zone. Atsmon married Rebecca Distenfeld Bodek in Landsberg in 1947, and the couple emigrated to Israel in June 1948 and changed their name from Blumowicz to Atsmon. Atsmon served as Surgeon General of the Israel Defense Forces from 1949 to 1956.