Hans Michaelis samling

Hans Michaeli’s papers comprise one box of documents covering the period 1935-1967, primarily documents left by his father Wilhelm Michaeli, a German Jewish legal expert, and his work helping refugees for the Jewish Community of Stockholm. However, there is also material concerning Hans’s mother, Sophie Michaeli, and her work as director of the Tullgarn boys’ home in Uppsala.

The archive includes various circular letters about raising money for Hjälpfond för Tysklands judar (Relief Fund for the Jews of Germany) (May and November 1933), the Jewish Community of Stockholm’s emergency relief committee (1934-1935), its relief committee (1935-1938) and others. Several have financial reports and accounts of their aid operations attached.

The collection also includes a series of memos about refugee aid organized by the Jewish Community of Stockholm (1934-1942). One is about the relocation of chaluzim (16 May 1940), but the majority relate to specific collections. For example, two memos signed by Franz Arnheim are about a special collection for ‘Sommarglädjen’ (‘Summer Fun’) for German Jewish children to holiday in Sweden (March and April 1938). Others are financial, including a memo signed by Mauritz Grünberger about relief fund operations to help the Jews of Germany (5 March 1934), another also signed by Mauritz Grünberger about the state of the relief fund in 1937 (10 January 1938), and the relief committee’s budget for 1940 (7 December 1939).

There are two undated annual reports on aid operations, two undated accounts of the relief committee’s work, the refugee section’s budget for 1943, the refugee section’s annual report signed by Gunnar Josephson and Franz Arnheim (17 May 1944), a message for the Jewish Community of Stockholm’s support committee (1943) and two documents about the refugee section’s income and expenditure (1942-1943).

The archive also includes an undated letter from the Foreigners Bureau of the Swedish Board of Welfare about applications for residence permits for German citizens of Jewish descent currently resident in Germany, an account signed by Marcus Kaplan of money collected and clothing made for the German Children and Youth Aliyah (2 November 1939), a copy of letter from the Refugee Section of the Jewish Community of Stockholm signed by Gunnar Josephson and others (October 1937) and a list of chaluzim in Sweden in 1933-1939 signed by Emil Glück, the organizer of vocational training in Sweden for Jewish refugee youth within the frames of the Hechaluz movement (8 January 1940).

There is also a document addressed to the government’s Refugee Council (31 October 1940) with attachments and Wilhelm Michaeli’s annotations and corrections; a copy of a letter about Wilhelm Michaeli’s employment, signed by Gunnar Josephson and David Köpniwsky (12 May 1943); a letter certifying that Wilhelm Michaeli had received the ‘Ehrenkreuz für Kriegsteilnehmer’ (5 February 1935); and a letter from Georg Stjernstedt, member of Sweden’s Bar Association, to recommend Wilhelm Michaeli for Swedish citizenship (9 June 1943).

The papers concerning Sophie Michaeli include the manuscript of a lecture about Jewish refugee children in Sweden (1935). There is also an undated letter to Sophie Michaeli from the Women’s Institute in Bondkyrko about appearing to speak about refugee children in Sweden (13 November n.a.); a letter from Jeanette Ettlinger to Sophie Michaeli (26 September 1933); a draft of a letter from Sophie Michaeli to an unknown recipient (31 July 1933); and a copy of a letter signed by Fanny Valentin and others (13 May 1943).

There are items from the Judisk Krönika such as the special issue with Wilhelm Michaeli’s article ‘The Immigration and Refugee Movement Since 1933’ (1950) and offprints of Fanny Valentin’s ‘Det judiska pojkhemmet i Uppsala’ (1940, ‘The Jewish Boys’ Home in Uppsala’) and Klaus Tarnowski’s ‘Beskrivning av mitt hem’ (1940, ‘Description of my home’). There is also a discussion paper about Hans Lindberg’s doctoral thesis on Swedish refugee policy in the 1930s (1967).

The papers also include a collection of newspaper cuttings (1935-1939). They primarily concern Swedish Nazism and refugee policy. They are taken from Swedish daily newspapers such as Dagens Nyheter (1935, 1939) and Svenska Dagbladet (1936) and trade papers such as Svensk Specerihandelstidning (1935) and Manufakturisten (1937). There is also an undated manuscript about anti-Semitic newspaper articles.