Suzanne Weiss collection
Extent and Medium
boxes
2
Creator(s)
- Jonas Lewy
- Suzanne Weiss
Biographical History
Suzanne Weiss was born in Paris in 1941 to Aaron Itzkovitch and Fajga Berliner. Berliner had been born in Piotrków Trybunalski, Poland, but moved to France in 1935. Weiss survived in hiding during the war but lost her mother to Auschwitz and her father to bomb injuries. She was brought to the United States in 1950 by her adoptive parents and befriended Jonas and Nadzia Lewy, who were also from Piotrków Trybunalski. She discovered that Nadzia Lewy was her mother’s sister, and years later she learned that her uncle Jonas Lewy was accused of Holocaust era atrocities by survivors of the Piotrków Trybunalski ghetto.
Jonas Lewy (1911-1980), a native of Piotrków Trybunalski, Poland, worked as a furrier in that city until the German invasion and occupation of Poland. He joined the Jewish police in the ghetto of Piotrków Trybunalski and befriended a German police officer whom he assisted in the round up and deportation of Jews from the ghetto until Lewy was deported to Buchenwald in 1944. After liberation he was tried for atrocities by a British tribunal at Bergen-Belsen but not convicted. Lewy and his family immigrated to the United States in 1950 and settled in New York, where survivors from Piotrków Trybunalski identified Lewy. He was tried again by the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service in 1953, found guilty, and ordered to be deported. He appealed, and although his conviction was not removed, he was spared deportation and lived the remainder of his life in New York.
Archival History
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Acquisition
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of Suzanne Weiss
Funding Note: The cataloging of this collection has been supported by a grant from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany.
Suzanne Weiss donated the Suzanne Weiss collection to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2013.
Scope and Content
The Suzanne Weiss collection consists of Jonas Lewy’s death certificate; photocopies of photographs of Jonas and Nadzia Lewy; printed materials including articles about Jonas Lewy and Piotrków Trybunalski written by Suzanne Weiss; research materials comprised of copies of archival documents from the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service, obtained by Weiss through the Freedom of Information Act, concerning deportation hearings for Jonas Lewy; and survivor accounts comprised of interviews of Piotrków Trybunalski survivors conducted by Weiss and a memoir by Charles Kotowsky.
System of Arrangement
The Suzanne Weiss collection is arranged as four series: I. Jonas and Nadzia Lewy materials, 1994, II. Printed materials, 1994-1998, III. Research materials, approximately 1994, and IV. Survivor accounts, 1980-1997
People
- Suzanne Weiss
- Lewy, Jonas, 1911-1980.
- Jonas Lewy
Corporate Bodies
- United States. Bureau of Immigration and Naturalization
Subjects
- Piotrków Trybunalski (Poland)
- World War, 1939-1945--Collaborationists--Poland--Piotrków Trybunalski.
- Jewish ghettos--Poland--Piotrków Trybunalski.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)--Poland--Piotrków Trybunalski--Personal narratives.
- Jews--Poland--Piotrków Trybunalski.
- World War, 1939-1945--Atrocities--Poland--Piotrków Trybunalski.
- Jews--Persecutions--Poland--Piotrków Trybunalski.
Genre
- Personal narratives.
- Document