During a "Gathering the Fragments" collection day in June 2021, Sara Snir (née Bartfeld) donated to Yad Vashem the private documents belonging to her late uncle, Szymon Schachter. The collection donated by Snir includes certificates from 1940 and 1941 testifying to Szymon's completion of a course in film production.
Sara knew little about how her mother Fanni and uncle Hanina had survived during the war, but she did know that their brother Szymon had escaped to the east to avoid the Nazi onslaught. As with all items donated to Yad Vashem, experts at the World Holocaust Remembrance Center endeavored to find out more. Through a Page of Testimony filled out by his uncle Israel Schachter in 1955, they discovered that Szymon was born in Borszczow, Poland in 1923 to Samuel and Gittel. He was a radio technician, and a bachelor. During the war he fled to Tashkent, Uzbekistan. Sadly, according to Israel, Szymon was killed in a traffic accident in Tashkent on 3 September 1944.
Szymon Schachter's private collection is now housed in Yad Vashem, like many other small collections that are incorporated into the holdings of large Holocaust archives. Indeed, many local Holocaust memorial institutions and museums consist mainly or entirely of materials donated by individuals and families. As they become more accessible, such "micro-archival collections" are an additional source that contribute to the mosaic of the Holocaust narrative.
This important issue formed the basis for presentations and in-depth discussions at a virtual workshop conducted by Yad Vashem's Archives Division in December 2021, entitled "Personal and Family Archival Collections: Connecting the Pieces in the Complex Puzzle of the Holocaust Story.” Some 40 archivists, researchers, historians, educators and curators from Europe, the US, Australia and Israel (as well as an interested audience) gathered online to share their approaches and thoughts on the incorporation and use of these materials in Holocaust research, education and commemoration.
In her opening remarks, Dr. Andrea Despot, CEO of the Foundation “Remembrance, Responsibility and Future” (EVZ) who supported the project, underscored the educational importance of accessible family collections:
“Personal letters, photos, diaries, memoirs, artifacts, drawings and any official documents from personal archives are invaluable access points to explore, and to make tangible the individual fates of those persecuted and murdered by the National Socialists, especially to young learners.”
In a session on methodologies and challenges in collecting personal and family materials, Laura Brazzo of CDEC (Foundation Jewish Contemporary Documentation Center in Milan, Italy) explained how, as a research institute tasked with investigating specific aspects of the Holocaust, CDEC would collect individual documents pertaining to the research topic. Later, when the archives were separated from the research department, CDEC strove to obtain the full or partial collections from which the documents were extrapolated, sometimes contacting survivors or their families decades after receiving the initial documents.
Addressing the topic of the contribution of these collections to the wider historical context, both Israeli historian Prof. Dalia Ofer and Dr. Hannah Holtschneider (University of Edinburgh) used collections of family correspondence to demonstrate how a case of one family can be an expression of the Jewish cosmos under Reich rule, and how perspectives and experiences of Jewish migrants as expressed in personal letters (micro-history) impact the macro-historical trajectories of refugee history in relation to the Holocaust.
Other topics discussed included personal collections as the basis of community archives and memorial centers; projects and initiatives for online accessibility; as well as the use of personal and family collections as tools for education and for shaping memory.
"It is precisely collections of personal items like those belonging to Szymon Schachter that will help these important efforts," says Masha Pollak-Rosenberg, Director of the Yad Vashem Archives Division. "As Sara Snir said when she donated the collection,
'It is clear to me that Yad Vashem is its home. The next generations would not be able to decipher it.' Here we can put the pieces of the puzzle back together."
The workshop was held with the support and cooperation of the Foundation “Remembrance, Responsibility and Future” (EVZ).
