Joseph Berger papers

Identifier
irn676234
Language of Description
English
Alt. Identifiers
  • 1994.A.0187
Dates
1 Jan 1943 - 31 Dec 1990
Level of Description
Item
Languages
  • English
  • German
  • Polish
  • French
Source
EHRI Partner

Extent and Medium

folders

6

Creator(s)

Biographical History

Joseph Berger was born in Lemberg (L’viv) in 1907 to Jakob and Syla Berger and worked in the lumber industry. He married Anna Lax in 1936 and had two daughters, Janina (b. 1937) and Celina (b. 1940), and his family was forced into the local ghetto following the German occupation. His wife and older daughter were killed, but his younger daughter was smuggled out and survived the Holocaust in hiding under the name Mary. Joseph escaped in 1943 with Anna Astman, whom he married in 1944. He found Celina after the war and immigrated to the United States in 1947 with her, his new wife, and their son Kesil (b. 1946).

Archival History

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Acquisition

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of Joseph Berger

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of Joseph Berger

Funding Note: The cataloging of this collection has been supported by a grant from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany.

Joseph Berger donated his papers to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 1994.

Scope and Content

The Joseph Berger papers consist of a brief memoir, identification papers, ration tickets, business permits, immigration documents, restitution paperwork, and a photograph documenting Joseph Berger and his family, the Lwów ghetto, surviving the Holocaust under a false identity, and immigrating to the United States. The brief memoir describes the Lwów ghetto, the murder of Berger’s first wife and older daughter, saving his younger daughter by giving her a false name and abandoning her in a park, escaping from the ghetto with his second wife, surviving the rest of the war using false identification papers, and finding his younger daughter after the war. His memoir also describes a six week transfer to Buchenwald, being marked with a prisoner number, and surviving a selection, but these events cannot be confirmed. The remaining material documents Berger’s survival of the last two years of the war using false papers, his status as a Holocaust victim, efforts to retrieve property, his postwar life and work in Berlin, his immigration to the United States, efforts to receive compensation for lost property, and his return visit to the Lwów/Janowska camp.

System of Arrangement

The Joseph Berger papers are arranged as a single series.

Subjects

Genre

This description is derived directly from structured data provided to EHRI by a partner institution. This collection holding institution considers this description as an accurate reflection of the archival holdings to which it refers at the moment of data transfer.