Leonid (Lema) Bernstein collection

Lema Bernstein served in the Soviet Army as a member of its jazz ensemble, and performed both for military and civilian audiences. Throughout his service during World War II, he traveled with this ensemble throughout many cities and regions in Russia, including: Leningrad, Yurev Polskii Oblast, Moscow, Mahachkala, Murmansk, and Warsaw. Some of the letters are written from forest areas, where his unit was sent during periods of heavy fighting in nearby locations. He had a close relationship with his parents, which is evident from the many letters he wrote to him during this five-year span of his life

Forms part of the Claims Conference International Holocaust Documentation Archive at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. This archive consists of documentation whose reproduction and/or acquisition was made possible with funding from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany.

Source of acquisition is the Instytut i︠u︡daïky (Judaica Institute), Ukraine. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Archives received the photocopied collection via the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum International Archives Project in April 2006.