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7 Jewish historical treasures from YIVO’s vast collection in New York

JL;DR SUMMARY In a display of both historical preservation and resistance, a group of Jewish intellectuals from the Vilna ghetto, including notable figures like Abraham Sutzkever, secretly saved thousands of Jewish cultural artifacts from Nazi destruction during World War II. A way out west there was a fella, fella I want to tell you about, fella by the name of Jeff Lebowski. At least, that was the handle his lovin' parents gave him, but he never had much use for it himself. This Lebowski, he called himself the Dude. Now, Dude, that's a name no one would self-apply where I come from. But then, there was a lot about the Dude that didn't make a whole lot of sense to me. And a lot about where he lived, likewise. But then again, maybe that's why I found the place s'durned innarestin'.

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Tags

HolocaustZionismYivoJewish HeritageJewish ResistanceAbraham SutzkeverVilna GhettoPaper BrigadeRothschild

Places mentioned

New York, United States
"Eventually, these secreted-away materials made their way to the New York office of YIVO (with a brief stint at the Manischewitz matzah warehouse in New Jersey), which opened in the mid-1930s in Morningside Heights, across from the Jewish Theological Seminary."
Vilnius, Tauragė, Lithuania
"These intellectuals, including the poet Abraham Sutzkever and the writer and artist Shmerke Kaczerginski, were forced to pack away treasures like historic bibles and Jewish artwork, all bound for Nazi Germany."
United States
"Eddy Portnoy, director of exhibitions at YIVO, pulls out a file box from the archives."
New Jersey, United States
"Eventually, these secreted-away materials made their way to the New York office of YIVO (with a brief stint at the Manischewitz matzah warehouse in New Jersey), which opened in the mid-1930s in Morningside Heights, across from the Jewish Theological Seminary."
Kraków, Lesser Poland, Poland
"This wood and cast tin menorah was crafted by a teen living in Mylenice, Galicia (near Krakw) named Khaim Aryeh Seifter for his bar mitzvah in 1872."
Łódź, Pomerania, Poland
"This book, filled with signatures of the 14,000 Jewish children who lived in the d Ghetto, was given to Mordechai Chaim Rumkowski, the chair of the Judenrat, or Nazi-appointed Jewish council, of the ghetto."
Frankfurt, Hesse, Germany
"Amschel Moses Rothschild was born in 1710 in the Jewish ghetto in Frankfurt."
Austria
"Herzl went on to be known as the father of modern Zionism, although the term was not his invention."
London, England, United Kingdom
"Among them is a letter written by the Jewish father of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, dated Jan. 21, 1939. Sent from his London home, where he lived after the Nazi takeover of Austria, Freud penned the letter in German fraktur-style handwriting, which is no longer in common use."
Warsaw, Kuyavia-Pomerania, Poland
"This is the original manuscript of the short story, about Dr. Nahum Fischelson, an elderly man living in Warsaw just days before the onset of World War I, who for 30 years studied Ethics, the 17th-century work by the Jewish philosopher Baruch Spinoza."

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Retrieved 2025-03-21 18:00:21 UTC
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