Dr. Eliezer Yerushalmi Collection: Documentation from the Siauliai Ghetto

Dr. Eliezer Yerushalmi was born in Gorodishche (Horodyszcze), Belorussia, in 1900. He studied Science and Hebrew Literature at Kaunas University, and worked as a teacher, always conducting his educational activities in Hebrew. An active member of the Zeirei Zion movement and Hechalutz, he served as a teacher and principal at the school in the Siauliai Ghetto from 1941. He described his work in the ghetto in his book, "Children of the Holocaust". Dr. Yerushalmi served as a technical advisor to the Judenrat, collecting testimonies from refugees and survivors of the "Aktions" who arrived at the ghetto, and establishing an archive in the ghetto for Holocaust related material, including protocols, documents, and reports prepared by various ghetto institutions. Information regarding the existence of the archive was reported to the Soviets who confiscated the archive, and the archive has remained in their possession until the present day. The only item rescued from this archive is "The Siauliai Notebook", which was handed over to the prosecution during the Nuremberg Trials, and published by the Yad Vashem Publishing House. In 1944 Yerushalmi escaped from the ghetto during an air-raid; he reached Vilna where he organized a school for Jewish survivor children.

In 1945 he moved to Lodz where he was active in the local Jewish Historical Committee. He went to Italy with Bericha, living there from 1945 to 1948 and establishing an educational network for Jewish children and continuing educational training programs for teachers. He served as the representative for Italian Jewish cultural personalities at the World Jewish Congress that took place in New York in 1948.

Dr. Yerushalmi made aliya to Israel in 1949, and settled in Haifa, where he established the Beit Chinuch High School and a Teachers Seminary for the workers' movement. At a researchers conference in 1962, Yerushalmi warned against the neglect of Holocaust literature. He took an active part in the documentation work at Yad Vashem and in the committee for the development of a Holocaust Studies Program.

Dr. Eliezer Yerushalmi died in January 1963. In his will he requested that all his writings relating to the Holocaust be donated to Yad Vashem.