Union of Berlin Zionists Berliner Zionistische Vereinigung (Fond 713)

The Berlin Zionist Union (BZU), a local chapter of the Zionist Federation of Germany, was founded in 1897 at the initiative of Heinrich Lowe. According to its charter, the BZU aimed to support the creation of a Jewish national home in Palestine. The union sought to assist in the settlement of Palestine, strengthen Jewish national selfconsciousness, and propagate Zionist ideology in Germany. Membership in the BZU was open to any Jew who in his or her application indicated agreement with the basic principles of the Basel Platform. The BZU was led by a board, composed of a chairman and between five and seven board members and elected by a delegate assembly (Vertretersammlung). Together with the delegate assembly, the board decided the personal composition of the finance committee, the Palestine committee, the committee on the Hebrew language and cultural work, the propaganda committee, the committee on work with Jews from the countries of the East, and the committee on youth work. The BZU was reorganized in 1932. The union was led in the interwar period by B. Cohen, S. Chertok, and A. Schwarz. It published the weekly newspaper, Nachrichtenblatt der BZU (1922), and the weekly Berliner Jüdische Zeitung (1929-30). The BZU was disbanded in 1938 soon after Kristallnacht. [Source: “Nazi-Looted Jewish Archives in Moscow. A guide to Jewish Historical and Cultural Collections in the Russian State Military Archive”, ed. by D. E. Fishman, M. Kupovetsky, V. Kuzelenkov. “Nazi-Looted Jewish Archives in Moscow. A guide to Jewish Historical and Cultural Collections in the Russian State Military Archive”, ed. by D. E. Fishman, M. Kupovetsky, V. Kuzelenkov. Scranton : University of Scranton Press in association with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and The Jewish Theological Seminary, 2010]

Rossiĭskiĭ gosudarstvennyĭ voennyĭ arkhiv

Forms part of the Claims Conference International Holocaust Documentation Archive at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. This archive consists of documentation whose reproduction and/or acquisition was made possible with funding from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany.

Source of acquisition is the Russian State Military Archive (Rossiĭskiĭ gosudarstvennyĭ voennyĭ arkhiv), Osobyi Archive, Fond 713. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Archives received the filmed collection via the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum International Archival Programs Division in 1993, and accretion in 2002.