Fürth family papers
Extent and Medium
9 Boxes
Acquisition
9 boxes material re Fürth family + envelope 20.7.2010
Donated June 2010
Donor: Richard Millward via Helene Schumertl
Scope and Content
This collection consists of correspondence, documents and personal papers of the Fürth family, a family with Jewish roots, which has it's origins in the town of Susice, near Pilsen in the Czech Republic. They founded a paper mill in 1869, which was later run by Emil Fürth, grandfather of Peter Fürth, the main character of this family history, who was himself the son of paper manufacturer, Eugen Fürth.
With the annexation of Austria and the Sudetenland, Emil and his wife Sophie, Eugen and Peter fled to France and their paper factories were confiscated along with property in the Czech Republik and Austria in addition to all the family's assets. Other family members like Helene Fürth (Eugen's wife) and her mother Henrietta Pollatschek stayed behind in Prague and were later deported to concentration camps (see 1659/7/1). Peter's uncle, Stephan Fürth, managed to escape to England and Peter himself returned to the Czech Republic after the war. He had been refused compensation and had to take out German citizenship to qualify for restitution payments.
Besides documents about the papermills and property, and correspondence between family members and papers about the various family members, the collection contains a large amount of correspondence by its donor, Richard Millward, documenting his efforts to gain compensation payments for the family and papers about his attempt to restore the history of the Fürth family.
The collections starts with documents, correspondence and papers of Peter Furth (1659/1), continuing with the other main characters of the family history (1659/2 - 6); followed by papers regarding all the lesser characters and distant relatives (1659/7). 1659/8 contains various documents about family property in Austria and the restitution claims about it. 1659/9 includes claims and documents about the property in the Czech republic and 1659/10 comprises various documents and papers (mainly about restitution payments).
Readers need to book a reading room terminal to read a narrative account of the family history written by the donor
The language of the collection is in German, English, Czech and French.
The following items, also part of the deposit, will be catalogued in the books and pamphlets catalogue.
Manuscript "Liebe Alte Elbe by Peter Heinrich, Manuscript to the book "Fidermutz by Pierre de Vecoux alias Peter Fürth (= Memoirs of Peter Fürth)
(German)
Book "Fidermutz by Pierre de Vecoux alias Peter Fürth (= Memoirs of Peter Fürth)
(German)
Book by Maurice Druon "The last detachment (The author wrote about his time in WWII and refers to his friend Peter Furth as "Cyrille")
(English)
Book "Kriegsbriefe gefallener deutscher Juden"
Book "A Thousand Kisses. A Grandmother's Holocaust Letters by Renata Polt
Book "Dejiny Povrlu by Marta Cvrkova, Vlastimil Jaros etc. (Czech)
Book "The History of The Jewish Community in Usti nad Labem"
Conditions Governing Access
Open
People
- Fürth, Sophie
- Fürth, Eugen
- Fürth family
- Fürth, Emil
Subjects
- Family documents [doc]
- Unpublished memoirs
- Restitution
- Refugees
- Documents
Places
- Vienna
- Ústí nad Labem
- Sušice
- Plzen
- Nestedice
- Czech Republic [1993-]
- Austria
- Obereggendorf
- Nice
- France