EISENBERG AND BIRNBAUM FAMILIES PAPERS,

EISENBERG AND BIRNBAUM FAMILIES PAPERS, 1904-1970 2016.188.1 United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Archives 100 Raoul Wallenberg Place SW Washington, DC 20024-2126 Tel. (202) 479-9717 e-mail: reference@ushmm.org Descriptive summary Title: Eisenberg and Birnbaum families papers Dates: 1904-1970 Accession number: 2016.188.1 Creator: Eisenberg family (Sopot :Poland) Birnbaum family (Kosice :Slovakia) Extent: 3.34 linear ft. (7 boxes, 1 oversize box, 2 oversize folders) Repository: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Archives, 100 Raoul Wallenberg Place SW, Washington, DC 20024-2126 Abstract: Correspondence, documents, and photographs relating to the immigration of Helena (Nelly) Eisenberg, and her parents, Ilya and Sonia Eisenberg, from Danzig to the United States between 1936-1939; as well as the immigration of her future husband, Joseph Birnbaum, from Kosice, Czechoslovakia, to Baltimore, in 1939. The collection also includes photographs and correspondence relating to the histories of the Eisenberg and Birnbaum families in Europe prior to emigration, and documentation of the Eisenberg family s restitution claims with Germany and Poland. Languages: English, German, Hungarian, Czech, Yiddish Administrative Information Access: Collection is open for use, but is stored offsite. Please contact the Reference Desk more than seven days prior to visit in order to request access. Reproduction and use: Collection is available for use. Material may be protected by copyright. Please contact reference staff for further information. Preferred citation: (Identification of item), Eisenberg and Birnbaum families papers, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Archives, Washington, DC 1

Acquisition information: The Eisenberg and Birnbaum families papers were donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum by Judith Grinspan in 2016. Judith is the daughter of Nelly and Joseph Birnbaum. Related archival materials: Metal stencil that belonged to Sonia Eisenberg (IRN# X) Accruals: Accruals may have been received since this collection was first processed, see archives catalog at collections.ushmm.org for further information. Processing history: Adam Fielding and Brad Bauer, June-July 2016 Biographical note Ilya Eisenberg (1884-1964) was born to Feige and Solomon (or Shlomo) Eisenberg in the Russian Empire, with differing accounts as to where. He had three siblings, Yefim (Chaim, b. 1886), Leah (b. 1888), and Rachel. He ran a grain business, and married Sonia Daion in Danzig around 1915. They moved to Kharkiv, Ukraine during World War I along with Sonia s parents. Sonia Eisenberg (née Daion, 1892-1960) was the daughter of Rafael and Sabina (Szyfra) Daion, and was born in Białystok, Poland. She had one sister, Betka (b. ca. 1898). Sonia attended Pensionat Fraulein Wolff, a boarding school in Wiesbaden, Germany around 1911. Her roommate was Julia Friedenwald (later Julia Strauss), an American, who would become a lifelong friend of Sonia s and facilitate her and Ilya s immigration to the United States, as well as their daughter Nelly s. Helena Eisenberg (Nelly, later Nelly Birnbaum, 1917-2000) was born in Kharkiv, Ukraine. In 1921, the family moved back to Zoppot (Sopot), Danzig, and Ilya operated a grain business. Nelly finished school in 1935, and due to increasing support for the Nazis in Danzig, it was decided that she would immigrate to the United States to study medicine, and that her parents would soon follow. With the help of Sonia s friends Julia and Myer Strauss acting as sponsors, Nelly emigrated from Danzig in 1936, and settled in Baltimore, Md., where she studied nursing at Sinai Hospital. Her parents joined her in 1939, again with the help of the Strausses. Ilya eventually got a job working for an insurance company. Sonia was increasingly in poor health, and was unable to work in Baltimore. In 1941, Nelly met Joseph Birnbaum through a mutual friend, and they married in 1942. Sonia s mother, Sabina wrote to the family in Baltimore from Bialystok during the period of the Soviet occupation of that part of Poland from 1939 to 1941. There is no correspondence after June 1941, and the family believes that she was eventually deported to Treblinka and murdered there. Her sister Betka, her husband, and their two daughters lived in Leningrad, Russia prior to the war. During the war they were in Siberia, and after they moved back to Leningrad. Joseph Birnbaum (born Joszef Birnbaum, 1910-1995) in Kassa, Austro-Hungarian Empire (present day Kosice, Slovakia) to Adolf (1876-1929) and Taube (née Otilla Mandl, 1881-1944?) Birnbaum. He had two siblings, a brother, Samuel (1903-1944?) and a sister Ruzenka (Rozsi, 1905-1992), and the family remained in Kosice after World War I, when the territory became part of the newly-formed country of Czechoslovakia, and remained there in the following decades. In 1939, Joseph left for the United States, arriving in Baltimore, Maryland on a tourist visa. When war broke out, he was able to change his visa with the assistance of U.S. Senator Millard Tydings. He remained in Baltimore and founded Standard 2

Textile Company, Inc., a wholesale linen company, in 1942. The same year he married Nelly Eisenberg, whom he had met in Baltimore. They had two children, Daniel (born 1945) and Judith (born 1952). Of the remainder of his family, Joseph s mother, Taube, was deported to Auschwitz where she was murdered, his brother Samuel had escaped to Budapest and lived in hiding for a period, before he was discovered and deported to a camp, where he was also killed. His sister Rozsi, who married Andor Frankl and had two children, Erika (1928-1995) and Juraj (Later George, b. 1933), had settled in Zilina, but the family was also deported to Auschwitz. Rozsi and her two children survived the war, but Andor died in a camp in the closing days of the war. Following the war, Rozsi married Alador (Ali) Low-Beer in 1946, settling in Topolcany, Czechoslovakia, where they lived until they were able to immigrate to Canada in 1949, through the efforts of Andor s brother, Julius Frankel, who lived there, and of Joseph Birnbaum. Scope and content of collection Correspondence, documents, and photographs relating to the immigration of Helena (Nelly) Eisenberg, and her parents, Ilya and Sonia Eisenberg, from Danzig to the United States between 1936-1939; as well as the immigration of her future husband, Joseph Birnbaum, from Kosice, Czechoslovakia, to Baltimore, in 1939. The collection also includes photographs and correspondence relating to the histories of the Eisenberg and Birnbaum families in Europe prior to emigration, and documentation of the Eisenberg family s restitution claims with Germany and Poland. The correspondence series largely consist of correspondence from Sonia and Ilya Eisenberg to their daughter, Nelly, between the time of Nelly s immigration to the U.S. in 1936, and the Eisenbergs joining her there in 1939. It also contains correspondence from Sonia s friend from the United States, whom she met at a boarding school in Wiesbaden in 1910, Julia Strauss, and her husband, Myer. Julia wrote initially to maintain the friendship, to inquire about conditions in Danzig after the outbreak of World War I, and seeking to visit Sonia and her family during trips to Europe in the 1920s. But with the advent of Nazism in Germany in the 1930s, Julia also began seeking ways to help the family emigrate from Danzig, which although having the League of Nations mandated status of a free city, was nonentheless threatened by the actions of Nazi Germany, before its own takeover by Germany in 1939. Other Eisenberg family correspondence includes from various family members and friends after emigration, including Sonia s mother, Sabina (Szyfra) Daion, who wrote to the family in Baltimore from Bialystok, during the period of the Soviet occupation of that part of Poland from 1939 to 1941. The Birnbaum family correspondence includes extensive postwar correspondence relating to Joseph Birnbaum s efforts to assist family members in what was then Czechoslovakia emigrate following the communist takeover in 1948. The biographical materials include birth certificates, marriage certificates, school diplomas, copies of passports and other identification documents. Also included are financial documents of Ilya Eisenberg, a notebook of Nelly s with quotations and newspaper clippings, and a copy of W. Somerset Maugham s Sadie Thompson: (Rain) and Other Stories of the South Sea Islands with an inscription by her friend Dora Shapiro. The immigration papers include affidavits for visas and correspondence with various family members, friends, aid organizations, and offices pertaining to the immigration of Joseph Birnbaum s sister, Ruzena (Rozsi), her two children, Erika and Juraj (George) Frankl, and her second husband, Aladar (Ali) Low-Beer, who were able to leave Topolcany, Czechoslovakia and settle in Montreal, Canada, in 1949. The photographs are primarily depictions of pre-war family life in Europe. 3

System of arrangement The collection is arranged alphabetically as 5 series. Series 1, 2, 3, and 5 are arranged as subseries by family. Series 1: Correspondence, 1910-1958 Series 2: Biographical material, 1904-1966 Series 3: Immigration, 1935-1951 Series 4: Restitution claims of Eisenberg family, 1944-1970 Series 5: Photographs, circa 1910-circa 1940s Indexing terms Person: Eisenberg, Ilya, 1884-1964. Eisenberg, Sonia, 1892-1960. Eisenberg, Helena, 1917-2000. Birnbaum, Joseph, 1910-1995. Birnbaum, Taube, 1881- Birnbaum, Adolf, 1876-1929. Topical Subject: Jewish families. Emigration and immigration--united States--1930-1940. Restitution and indemnification claims (1933- )--Germany. Restitution--Poland. Geography: Sopot (Poland) Kosice (Slovakia) Baltimore (Md). Genre/Form: Photographs. Correspondence. Series 1: Correspondence, 1910-1958 Subseries 1.1: Eisenberg family, 1910-1958 Eisenberg, Ilya: 1 1 Chomiak, Carolina, 1958 1 2 Daion, Sabina, 1940-1941 1 3 Eisenberg, Chaim, 1940 1 4 Eisenberg, Feige, 1923 1 5 Lewy, Herbert, 1939 1 6 Steinreich, Leopold, 1940-1941 CONTAINER LIST 4

1 7 1940-1942 1 8-9 Eisenberg, Ilya and Sonia: Strauss, Julia and Myer, 1935-1945 Eisenberg, Nelly: 1 10 Daion, Sabina, 1937-1938 1 11-13 Eisenberg, Ilya and Sonia, 1936 2 1-7 2 8-9 Eisenberg, Ilya and Sonia, 1937 3 1-10 4 1-10 Eisenberg, Ilya and Sonia, 1938 5 1 5 2 Eisenberg, Ilya and Sonia, 1939 5 3 Shapiro, Dora, 1936-1943 5 4 1934-1938 5 5 1942 Eisenberg, Sonia: 5 6 Daion, Elias, 1910 5 7 Fischer, Valley, 1913 5 8-10 Strauss, Julia, 1912-1936 5 11 Wolff, Hermine, 1911 5 12 1911; 1929 Subseries 1.2: Birnbaum family, circa 1942-1952 5 13-14 Birnbaum family: Low-Beer, Ruzenka and Aladar, 1948-1952 Birnbaum, Joseph: 6 1 Birnbaum, Elias, 1949-1951 6 2 Birnbaum, Miska, 1949-1951 6 3 Birnbaum, Zsiga, 1950-1951 6 4 Czechoslovak Consulate General, 1947 6 5 Mandl, Bela, 1949 6 6 Marton, Elsa, 1944-1951 6 7 1943-1950 6 8 Birnbaum, Joseph and Nelly: Birnbaum, Taube, circa 1942 6 9 Birnbaum, Joseph and Nelly: Frankl, Erika, 1950-1951 6 10 Frankl, Juraj, 1950-1951 6 11 Strauss, Myer, 1946; 1950 Series 2: Biographical material, 1904-1966 Subseries 2.1: Eisenberg family, 1904-1966 Eisenberg, Ilya: 6 12 Business cards, circa 1936 6 13 Financial documents, 1918-1936 6 14 Identification papers, 1904-1938 5

OS 1 Eisenberg, Nelly: 6 15 Calling cards, circa 1936 6 16 Calling cards of friends, circa 1936 6 17 Identification papers, 1917-1966 8 Maugham, W. Somerset. Sadie Thompson: (Rain) and Other Stories of the South Sea Islands, circa 1935 Inscribed to Nelly from Dora Shapiro 6 18 Notebook with enclosures, circa 1934 6 19 Eisenberg, Sonia, 1910-1960 Subseries 2.2: Birnbaum family, 1920-1949 6 20 Birnbaum, Adolf, 1920-1936 6 21 Birnbaum family, circa 1970s 6 22 Birnbaum, Joseph, 1932-1939 6 23 Money orders sent to family relatives in Israel, 1949 Series 3: Immigration, 1935-1951 Subseries 3.1: Eisenberg family, 1935-1944 6 24 Eisenberg, Ilya and Sonia, 1938-1944 6 25 Eisenberg, Nelly, 1935-1940 Subseries 3.2: Birnbaum family, 1939-1951 6 26 Affidavits, circa 1948 6 27 Birnbaum, Joseph, 1939-1941 6 28 Frankl, Juraj, 1948-1951 6 29 Low-Beer, Ruzenka and Aladar, 1946-1950 Series 4: Restitution claims of Eisenberg family, 1944-1970 7 1 Eisenberg, Ilya: Medical claims, 1957-1962 OS 2 Germany: Clippings, 1957-1964 7 2-3 Germany: Correspondence and documents, 1957-1970 7 4-6 Germany: Payments, 1959-1964 7 7-8 Poland, 1944-1964 Series 5: Photographs, circa 1910-circa 1940s Subseries 5.1: Eisenberg family, circa 1910-circa 1940s 6

7 9 Daion, Sabina, circa 1910 7 10 Eisenberg, Ilya, circa 1920s 7 11 Eisenberg, Ilya and Sonia: Engagement, circa 1914 7 12 Eisenberg, Nelly, circa 1922-circa 1940s 7 13 Eisenberg, Nelly and Dora Shapiro, circa 1920s-circa 1930s 7 14 Eisenberg, Sonia, circa 1910-circa 1940s 7 15 Shapiro, Dora, 1937 7 16 Wolff, Hermine, circa 1911 Subseries 5.2: Birnbaum family, 1921-circa 1942 7 17 Birnbaum, Joseph, circa 1942 7 18 Low-Beer, Ruzenka, 1939 7 19 Wedding, Lipany, Czechoslovakia, 1921 7