Horst Biesold collection
Extent and Medium
folders
oversize folder
5
1
Creator(s)
- Horst Biesold
Biographical History
Horst Biesold (1939-2000) was a German teacher for the deaf in Bremen, German. Horst was hearing, but had many deaf friends through various sporting activities. In 1975, after discovering that one of his deaf friends was sterilized by the Nazi government, Horst decided to do research on the sterilization of the deaf during the Holocaust. He interviewed more than 1000 deaf victims and published Crying Hands in 1999. He was married to Ilse and had two sons, Lars and Sven.
Archival History
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Acquisition
Horst Biesold donated the collection to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 1992.
Scope and Content
The collection includes original and photocopies of documents relating to Bertholdt Jacobs and Margarete Crohn who lived in Berlin, Germany and fled to Shanghai, China and to Otto Gantz and his family including correspondence, certificates, and court proceedings. The collection also includes photocopies and originals of documents and copyprints of photographs pertaining to the treatment of deaf children during the Holocaust. Documents include correspondence between Nazi officials, lists of names, documentation of laws, memorandums, forms, statistics, and descriptions of experiments. The copyprints in the collection are of the negatives also included in the collection. Negatives are kept in cold storage and require additional time before they can be served for researchers.
System of Arrangement
The collection is arranged as a single series: Folder 1: Family documents, circa 1921-1988 Folders 2-3: Treatment of deaf children, circa 1934-1941 Folders 4-5 and OS 1: Photographs, circa 1935-1942
Subjects
- Deaf--Government policy--Germany.
- Medicine--Germany--History--20th century.
- Eugenics--Germany--History--20th century.
- Deaf--Nazi persecution.
Genre
- Document
- Photographs.
- Correspondence.