Alexander Schenker papers
Extent and Medium
folders
4
Creator(s)
- Alexander M. Schenker
Biographical History
Alexander Marian Schenker (1924-2019) was born on 20 December 1924 in Krakow, Poland to Oskar and Gizela Schenker. His father Oskar (1900-1986) was born on 15 May 1900 in Krakow and was a judge. His mother Gizela (1900-1993) was born Gizela Szaminski on 2 September 1900 in Lwów, Poland (Lviv, Ukraine) to Bernard Szaminski and Sabina Ehrenpreis. After the German invasion of Poland in September 1939, the family fled from Krakow to Lwów. Oskar and his brother then went to Vilna (Vilnius, Lithuania) to obtain transit visas for Japan. Alexander, his mother, his grandmother Amalia, cousin Steven, and aunt Ernestyna were all arrested trying to cross the border into Lithuania. They were deported in spring 1940 to a Soviet labor camp in Siberia where Alexander worked as a lumberjack. He and his mother were released from the camp in November 1941 and then went to Stalinabad (Dushanbe, Tajikistan) where they survived the war. Oskar received a transit visa stamped by the Japanese consul in Kaunas, Chiune Sugihara, in July 1940 and arrived in Japan in October 1940. He received an American visa and sailed out of Yokohama on 6 March 1941 aboard the M.S. Tatua Maru. Alexander and Gizela immigrated to the United States in 1947. Alexander became a naturalized citizen in 1952, and received his Ph.D in 1952. He went on to teach at Yale from 1953-1996, and helped establish the Slavic studies program there.
Archival History
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Acquisition
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of Alexander M. Schenker
Funding Note: The cataloging of this collection has been supported by a grant from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany.
Alexander Schenker donated the Alexander Schenker papers to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2002.
Scope and Content
The collection primarily documents the Holocaust-era experiences of Alexander Schenker’s father, Oskar Schenker, as a Polish Jewish refugee who fled Europe to Japan in 1940 with the help of a transit visa stamped by the Japanese consul in Kaunas, Chiune Sugihara, and later immigrated to the United States. Included is Oskar’s Polish citizenship certificate with the Sugihara transit visa stamp, U.S.S.R. State Travel Company Intourist tickets from Kaunas to Vladivostok, Trans-Siberian Express suitcase label, and Argentinian tourist visa issued to Oskar; M.S. Tatua Maru ship ephemera including menus, itinerary, and map; and Japanese pressed flower postcards. Also included is Alexander’s student identification card issued in Stalinabad (Dushanbe, Tajikistan) in 1943.
System of Arrangement
The collection is arranged as 4 folders. 1 of 4. Schenker, Alexander: Stalinabad student ID, 1942 2 of 4. Schenker, Oskar: Travel visa and related documents, 1940 3 of 4. Schenker, Oskar: M.S. Tatuta Maru ephemera, 1941 4 of 4. Schenker, Oskar: Pressed flower postcards, circa 1941
People
- Sugihara, Chiune, 1900-1986.
- Schenker, Oskar.
- Alexander M. Schenker
Corporate Bodies
- Tatsuta Maru (Ship)
- Trans-Siberian Railway
Subjects
- Dushanbe (Tajikistan)
- Japan
- Poland--History--Occupation, 1939-1945.
- Argentina--Emigration and immigration--History--20th century.
- Shipping companies (Marine transportation)
- World War, 1939-1945--Deportations from Poland.
- Jews--Relocation--Soviet Union.
- Education--Soviet Union.
- Japan--Emigration and immigration--History--20th century.
- World War, 1939-1945--Poland.
- Poles--Soviet Union.
- Refugees, Jewish--Japan.
Genre
- Document
- Maps.
- Visas.
- Identification cards.
- Menus.
- Tickets.