Archives personnelles de Fela Perelman

Fela (Félicie) Liwer, the wife of Chaïm Perelman, was born in Bedzin in Poland in 1909. She migrated to Belgium to pursue university studies in history at the ULB. She also obtained a degree in educational psychology, an education that would be of use during the war. As a student she was active in the Jewish student association at the ULB, before working for the secretariat of the Conseil des Associations juives de Bruxelles with Léon Kubowitzki. She married Chaïm Perelman in 1935. During the Second World War, Fela Perelman was in charge of the Jewish children excluded from public schools and grouped together in nursery schools. She entrusted these children of the Nos Petits schools to the Comité de Défense des Juifs (the first meeting of this organisation was held at the Perelman house in Uccle). These children were then hidden to avoid deportation. Fela Perelman was the president of the Secours Mutuel Juif, an organisation linked with Linke Poale Zion, at the request of Abusz Werber. After the war Fela Perelman provided relief to war orphans and was also active for the Alyat Hanoar. She became one of the main organisers of the Aliyah Bet, the clandestine immigration to Palestine from Belgium in 1946-1948, an operation that was notably covered by a front organisation created by the Perelmans, titled Jewish Refugees Welfare Society. Her house, in the rue de la Pêcherie in Uccle, developed into a kind of Israeli embassy avant la lettre. As an ardent and active Zionist, she built a large network of diplomatic, intellectual, artistic and scientific contacts. She was also heavily involved in the association les Amis belges de l’Université hébraïque de Jérusalem. Her PhD thesis in history, titled Révolution belge et la Pologne en 1830, was published in 1948. In 1967 she created, with Léo Maiersdorf, the association Solidarité avec Israël, aiming to overcome divisions and organise support for the threatened Hebrew state. The funds collected for Israel exceeded all expectations. Fela Perelman was also a writer; she notably published Le ventre et la baleine (Brussels, 1947). She died in Salt Lake City (United States) in 1991. (J.-P. Schreiber, "Fajga Estera dite Félicie ou Fela Liwer-Perelman", in J.-P. Schreiber, Dictionnaire biographique des Juifs de Belgique. Figures du judaïsme belge, XIXe-XXe siècles, Bruxelles, De Boeck, 2002, pp. 274-275.)

One part of this fonds was recovered by Olivia Mattis, granddaughter of Fela Perelman, in 2005 and donated to Foundation of Contemporary Memory / Fondation de la Mémoire Contemporaine.

The extend of the total collection is 1.5 linear metres. More information on this collection: see here

The Archives of the Université Libre de Bruxelles / Archives de l’Université Libre de Bruxelles has an important archive, donated by Fela Perelman in 1984, following the death of her husband. This collection contains a set of documents linked, to a large extent, to Chaïm Perelman's scientific activity. The description and development of the "Chaïm Perelman" collection is part of the "Perelman Archives" research project, financed by the F.R.S.-FNRS and directed by Professor Emmanuelle Danblon (edanblon@ulb.ac.be) at the Université Libre de Bruxelles. More information on this collection: see here

J. Deom, Inventaire des Archives privées de la baronne Fela Perelman, 2e éd, FMC, 2006, 26 p.

J.-P. Schreiber, "Fajga Estera dite Félicie ou Fela Liwer-Perelman", in J.-P. Schreiber, Dictionnaire biographique des Juifs de Belgique. Figures du judaïsme belge, XIXe-XXe siècles, Bruxelles, De Boeck, 2002, pp. 274-275.