Tombstone Inscription for Rabbi Menashe Klein of Ungvar

This multi-page list, dated May 15, 1991, provides an inventory of archival materials by or related to Elie Wiesel. It details various documents such as memorial messages, book blurbs, articles, original French manuscripts, speeches, reviews, and interview transcripts, frequently noting Wiesel's handwritten corrections and publication venues like Radio-France, New York Times, Boston University, and Liberation. The content covers a broad spectrum of topics including literary works, political commentary on figures like President Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev, historical events related to the Holocaust, Anne Frank, Nuremberg Code, and the Barbie Trial, as well as religious and philosophical discussions. The list specifies dates for individual entries, including his Nobel Prize acceptance lectures in Oslo and an address in the Reichstag in Berlin. Many entries highlight that the original document or its translation contains Wiesel's handwritten edits or that they are original French contributions.

Max Roisman was born July 25, 1913 in Warsaw, Poland. In 1939, before the German invasion of Poland, he and his wife left Warsaw to go to Russia. Stopped at the border, he remained in Slawatycze and worked with a local tailor for German SS border guards. Warned by an SS officer, who had made a deathbed promise to his Jewish grandfather never to kill a Jew, Max and his wife hid in a nearby town, then went to Wohyn posing as a Gentile. Using a sewing machine smuggled out of the Warsaw Ghetto, he worked as a tailor with a non-Jewish partner until he was ordered to work for the Germans as a tailor in Suchowola, an open labor camp. On May 3, 1943, the camp was liquidated and workers were evacuated to Majdanek. Max, with his wife and her brother, signed up to go to Auschwitz unaware of the nature of the camp. He was sent to Buna to work as a slave laborer for I.G. Farben Industry, then on a forced march to Gleiwitz where they borded a train to Oranienburg (a satellite camp of Sachsenhausen) to work in a brick factory. Later he worked as a tailor for the commandant of the camp, Major Heydrich and was put in charge of four other tailors. He obtained food and clothing for other inmates and himself by trading stolen supplies. In April 1945, Max was wounded during an air raid. He received excellent medical care due to the intervention of the camp commandant. He hid when the camp was evacuated and the German military ran away. The remaining survivors organized to get food and water until the Russians liberated the camp. He describes conditions at Oranienburg, help from the Russians, and how he traveled East, across the border and was separated from his wife. He was sheltered by a Polish family who had hidden him once before and was reunited with his wife. They lived in his wife’s hometown, moved to Reichenbach where he opened a shop, then briefly in Israel. He returned to Austria, worked as a tailor for USEC, and later emigrated to the United States with his wife and children in January 1956. Interview: ROISMAN, Max Date: April 22, 1985

This letter, dated May 22, 1984, is from Eli Pfefferkorn of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council to Professor Leo Eitinger in Oslo, Norway. Pfefferkorn sends Professor Eitinger a copy of the Dubnov lecture delivered at Yale University in November 1982, stating it makes an outstanding story in the 'long journey into darkness.' He mentions that this lecture is sent 'in lieu of the Oslo speech that has not been recorded.' Pfefferkorn also states his current capacity as a researcher with the Council and encloses an article of his on a subject previously discussed with Professor Eitinger in Haifa, recalling their conversation fondly.

Myra Davis, nee Miki Heller, was born July 12, 1936 in Kovno, Lithuania, the only child in an affluent Jewish family. Her parents were Franz and Fanny Heller. After the Russian invasion in 1940, her family was forced to move from their large home to much smaller quarters. In 1940, they immigrated to Japan with transit visas and visas for Curacao, which were not used. Instead, they went to Shanghai, in 1941, after a year in Kobe, Japan, where Myra attended a French Catholic school. In the French quarter of Shanghai, they lived comfortably until the Japanese occupation forced them into the Hongkew Ghetto. Her father, despondent about their impoverishment, committed suicide. When the war ended, her mother worked for the American Army and met a Jewish colonel, David Bare (phonetic), whom she married in 1947. The family lived in Beijing, China, Linz, Austria and South Carolina, United States. Myra became a translator for the American government, married Arnold Davis and they live with their two children in Boca Raton, Florida. Recorded at the Rickshaw Reunion - a meeting in October 1999 at the Holiday Inn in Philadelphia of refugees who found refuge in Shanghai during World War II.

Inge Karo, née Heiman, was born in 1926 in Essen, Germany. Her father was part owner of a business. Her parents were active in the Jewish community and belonged to a conservative synagogue. Inge belonged to a non-Zionist youth organization and was educated in a school for Jewish children until the schools were closed by the Nazis. The effects of the Nüremberg laws, passed in 1935, are briefly de‌scribed. The Jewish community of Essen and the Heiman family experienced the destruction of Kristall‌nacht in 1938. Nazis threatened to burn down her family’s house and then confiscated it. Inge was affected by the pervasive Nazi propaganda, the persecution, and her family’s attempts to escape from Germany to the United States. The family emigrated to the United States in December 1939. Inge briefly talks about life in the United States as a refugee, including her experiences in public school.