73135 research outputs found
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AHC Interview with Rudolph Friedlander.
No full textRudolph Friedlander was born in Graz, Austria, on October 22, 1915, where he lived at Schiesstattgasse 55. After the Nazis' rise to power he emirgated via the Netherlands to the USA. He did different manual jobs until he established his own business.Austrian Heritage Collectio
AHC Interview with Irving Templeman.
No full textTranscript includedSeptember 5, 2003Irving Templeman was born in Vienna in 1922 where he lived on Malzgasse in the second Viennese district. He was a member of the Misrachi-Party, a youth zionist organization. He left Vienna on 12/20/1938 by train to France, and by the ship "Aquitania" to New York, USA. He worked as a cake-baker.Austrian Heritage Collectio
World War II through my eyes : An Austrian refugee in the United States army /
No full textEdited letters sent to his family while he served with the US Army in the US and in Europe from Oct. 1941 to Oct. 1945. The letters had originally been written in German during 1941 and then in English. Stewart describes his experiences in wartime California, fearing a Japanese invasion; in wartime England; in recently liberated France and Belgium; and in occupied Germany.Hans Stein was born in Vienna, Austria. He was was drafted into the US Army before he acquired US citizenship and changed his name to John Stewart. He served for 2 years in the US and then in Europe, where he fought in the Ardennes, Central Europe, Normandy, Northern France and in the Rhineland, receiving several decorations
AHC Interview with Lydia R. Popper.
No full textLydia R. Popper, née Parnes, was born in Vienna on January 26, 1920. From 1930 until 1938 she went to school at Mariahilfer Maedchengymnasium, located at Linke Wienzeile 4 in the sixth Viennese district. She fled Vienna in 1939 and went to England where she stayed until 1947. Then she moved to the USA. From 1978 until 1982 she went to law school at the University of Vienna and received a doctoral degree.Austrian Heritage Collectio
Shasha, Alfred and wife Hanina Shasha nee Zilkha, interview
No full textDigital recordingDigital finding aid available
[Mein lieber Schwager sowie auch liebe Schwester].
No full textPhotocopy of a personal letter, dated 1848, from Gustav Gans in New York to his sister and brother-in-law in Hannover. Photocopy of the original letter is accompanied by a transcript of the German-language portion of the letter.digitize
To 'bear witness where witness needs to be borne': Diary writing and the Holocaust, 1939--1945.
No full textThis dissertation examines Jewish diarists' attempts to comprehend the unimaginable genocide as it unfolded around them and of the meaning of their own lives in this radically altered world. It explores the function and meaning of diary writing within Jews' meaning-making struggles. Alternating between close analyses of individual diaries and larger thematic perspectives, it examines the different impulses---historical, theological, familial, and ethical---that compelled individuals to record their experiences. Moreover, it details how Jews' goals for their diaries changed over time, in response to mounting knowledge about the ensuing extermination. For most Jews, simply keeping a diary in the first years of the war demonstrated their participation in a widespread European trend, as well as their belief that their wartime experiences would be familiar and thus narratable. After 1942, however, when many diarists began to hear news of mass killings and extermination or had first-hand experience of the killings, they shifted their narrative frameworks. Thus, this study marks out what was particular to Jewish diary writing during the Holocaust as well as how it connected to the broader European histories of diary writing, of reading, of subjectivity, and of the family.Focusing largely on unpublished diaries, this study adds a wide range of victims' voices to Holocaust historiography, including those of Jews in hiding in Poland and little-known diarists from Germany and France. Beyond unearthing new individual stories, this dissertation creates new ways of categorizing Jewish wartime experiences based on their strategies of interpretation. Looking at the variety of ways that Jews attempted to make sense of the unimaginable gives us an alternative means of categorizing Jewish experiences from this period, one which highlights both the shared experience of being a Jew under Nazi occupation---as meaning-makers rather than passive victims---and the diversity of modern European Jewry in the mid-twentieth century. Furthermore, this study reveals the genesis of issues that would become central to postwar thought, including the limits of representation, the relationship of memory to history, the concept of a fragmented self, the potential impossibility of mourning trauma, and the moral fallibility of Western science and democracy.Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of California, Los Angeles, 2003.School code: 0031
Creating America on stage: How Jewish composers and lyricists pioneered American musical theater.
No full textTheater critic Clive Barnes once argued that the musical "was never a particularly sophisticated form of theatre" and "was not intended to stir deep emotions". This dissertation disproves the claims that American musical theater has had no bearing on culture and no legitimate argument to make. Musical theatre has been an integral part of American society since its inception.Further, this dissertation argues that it was Jewish composers and lyricists specifically who created and defined America on the musical theater stage. These writers were either European-born, came from immigrant families, or grew up as second-generation Jews in a land troubled by anti-Semitism. Interestingly, these "marginalized" Americans were the ones who considered America a worthwhile topic for the stage.Chapter One provides the historical and cultural context for the thesis, highlighting the attributes of "Jewish" music and lyrics and a brief chronology of anti-Semitism in the first half of twentieth-century America. Chapter Two focuses on Irving Berlin's transition from Russian immigrant to the composer of the great musical of Americana, Annie Get Your Gun . Chapter Three describes the collaboration of Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II, and argues that their Show Boat became an early example of presenting racism in the American musical. Chapter Four studies how George and Ira Gershwin utilize Jewish music and lyric to create their jazz opera, Porgy and Bess. Chapter Five examines the work of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, who explore American discrimination in South Pacific and invigorate the American landscape in Oklahoma!That these Jewish composers and lyricists were marginalized themselves gave them a unique insight into American culture. In essence, they wrote about their own experiences of discrimination; in all these musicals, the Jewish composers and lyricists made it a priority to champion the marginalized people of America. By doing so, they prove that the American musical moved from being a casual diversion to a serious cultural influence that has underwritten American theater and thought.Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Claremont Graduate University, 2003.School code: 0047
Jewish fringes Texas fabric: Nineteenth-century Jewish merchants living Texas reality and myth.
No full textMany historians of American Jewish history focus their studies on the area spreading along the eastern coast of the United States and on large urban areas. Such emphasis leaves undocumented the experience of American Jews who settled in the South, the West or in small towns. This work begins to fill that gap by focusing on the Jewish entrepreneurs who made their way to the frontier of Anglo-European society while settling in Texas.This story begins with the Jewish pioneers, mostly men, who recognized the opportunities available in Texas and immigrated to the emerging Republic of Texas and later to the state. The majority of the original settlers were European immigrants who left the security of a nurturing Jewish culture seeking economic success, political rights and, at times, adventure. These brave men found a home in a land that allowed them to integrate into the Texas society. These immigrants found more than success: they found respect. The study explores their economic successes, such as their involvement in the development of railroads, their involvement in the burgeoning fraternal movements such as Masons and Odd Fellows, their service in the Civil War, their political achievements, and their social integration in such towns as Galveston and Victoria. The document recounts the story of how these men found a home complete with economic achievement and social acceptance in the rugged Texas society.Thesis (Ph.D.)--Texas A&M University, 2003.School code: 0803