Jewish Labor Committee Collection Photographs.
Extent and Medium
12 boxes (ca. 3,2 l.m.).
Creator(s)
- Jewish Labor Committee
Scope and Content
This collection is of great interest for this guide. It contains photographs on aid, cultural activities, the children adoptation program etc. provided by the Jewish Labor Committee in the immediate postwar years. In “Subseries B: Holocaust and Jewish Life in Europe under the Nazis” of “Series I” we find photographs and “mixed materials” on Belgium, 1939-1945 (box 1 folder nr. 9). They mostly consist of poor quality copy prints of news service photographs. Box 1, folder nr. 26 of “Subseries C: Postwar Aid Activities” consists of photographs and “mixed materials” regarding “Belgium, Left Poale Zion and miscellaneous postwar Jewish activities”, for the years 1945-1959. They depict the aid of the JLC to survivors in Europe and other aspects of the postwar reconstruction of Jewish life and culture. Especially relevant is the larger “Series III: Aid to Children”. Its “Subseries A: Child Adoption Program, United States” contains a folder (box 5, folder nr. 26) on the “Child Adoption Program – for children in Belgium” (1948-1949). In “Subseries B: European Orphanages and Children's Homes and Other Child Aid Activities (Excluding France)” we find several folders containing dozens of photos on Jewish life in Belgium: “Left Poale Zion children’s summer camps in the Brussels area” (box 6, nr. 6), “Children’s summer camps at [Braine-le-Comte] and other places in the Brussels area” (box 6, nr. 7), “Workmen’s Circle Summer camp at [Middelkerke]” (box 6, nr. 8), “ [La Hulpe] summer camp” (box 6, nr. 9), “Children in dramatic performances, Friends of Children Society, Brussels” (box 6, nr. 10), “Children in dramatic performances, S. Mendelson School, Brussels” (box 6, nr. 11), “Children at meals and in dramatic performances, Y. L. Peretz School, Brussels” (box 6, nr. 12) and “Children in unidentified dramatic performances and miscellaneous” (box 6, nr. 13). Lastly, “Subseries C: Children's Homes and Orphanages and Other Child Aid Projects in France” contains a file on the children’s home in Ophem [Wezembeek-Oppem] (box 7, nr. 9).
Finding Aids
A detailed finding aid is available online at http://dlib.nyu.edu/findingaids/html/tamwag/photos_048/ .
Process Info
The EHRI project, in cooperation with the National Archives of Belgium, selected Holocaust-relevant archival descriptions from the finding aid G. DESMET & P. FALEK-ALHADEFF, P.-A. TALLIER (dir.), Bronnen voor de geschiedenis van de Joden en het Jodendom in België (19de-20ste eeuw) - Sources pour l'histoire des populations juives et du judaïsme en Belgique (19e-20e siècles), Brussel, Algemeen Rijksarchief, 2015. Please note that this guide focuses on Belgium-related archival materials in the respective descriptions.
Gertjan Desmet
This archival description was created in the framework of the cooperation between EHRI and the Yerusha project.