From the Alfred – Alf Schwarzbaum collection: two letters sent by Margot Hammerschmidt (nee Gutmann) from Brazil to her mother and grandmother in Germany and Ukraine, September 1941

From the Alfred – Alf Schwarzbaum collection: Two letters written on the same date, 26 September 1942, by Margot Hammerschmidt (nee Gutmann) in Sao Paolo, Brazil, to her grandmother Lina in a hospital in Berlin and to her mother Irma in Stryj, Ukraine. She sent those letters to Schwarzbaum asking him to forward them to their respective destinations, and asked the recipients to reply in a similar way. In her letter to her mother, Margor wrote that she had married Oswald Hammerschmidt. The fact that these original letters were found in Schwarzbaum's collection suggests that they were never actually sent. 5 pages, typewritten and handwritten original, in German About Alfred Schwarzbaum: Alfred (Alf) Schwarzbaum was born in 1896 in Sosnowiec, Poland. He later moved to Bedzin, became a businessman and started a family. In late September 1939, following the German occupation of Poland, he sent his daughter to England. In November 1939, he was jailed for several weeks in Myslowice and was interrogated by the Gestapo. After his release, he turned down an offer from Mosheh Merin, head of the Sosnowiec Jewish council, to be his deputy. Using his connections and his fortune, he was able to obtain visas for Switzerland. In April 1940 he left Poland and settled in Lausanne. Schwarzbaum soon started sending out food, clothing, money and papers to Poland. He managed to navigate between the often uncoordinated Jewish and Zionist organizations based in Switzerland, to transfer financial help to Jews in Poland. He sent hundreds of parcels to German occupied localities, via Lisbon, Sweden and Turkey. He visited refugee camps in Switzerland, and corresponded with persons living under the Nazi rule. He also produced passports, which led him into trouble with the Swiss police, who feared for violation of the country's neutrality policy. In 1946 he immigrated to Mandate Palestine. In Israel, he supported funds and provided stipends for students in need, in several Israeli institutes for higher education. He died in 1990.