Legacy of Jonas Turkow

Collection description

Collection

Country:: Poland

Holding institution:: The Emanuel Ringelblum Jewish Historical Institute

Holding institution (official language):: Żydowski Instytut Historyczny im. E. Ringelbluma

Postal address:: ul. Tłomackie 3/5, 00-090 Warszawa

Phone number:: (+48 22) 827 92 21

Web address:: http://www.jhi.pl/

Email:: secretary@jhi.pl

Reference number:: PL 312/S/364

Title:: Legacy of Jonas Turkow

Title (official language):: Spuścizna Jonasa Turkowa

Creator/accumulator:: Turkow family

Date(s):: 1922/1946

Language:: Polish; Yiddish; German; English; Russian; Portuguese

Extent:: 0.25 linear metre (1 box; 13 files)

Type of material:: Textual material; Photographic images

Physical condition:: good

Scope and content:: The collection comprises documents created between 1922 and 1945 belonging to Jonas Turkow and his family.

- Personal documents (prewar, wartime and postwar) of Jonas Turkow, including his Kennkarte and Personenausweis under the name Jan Tatarkiewicz; documents issued at the ghetto; prewar IDs; military service book: unit 1;

- Personal documents of Dina Blumenfeld-Turkow (wartime and postwar): unit 2;

- Personal documents of Naftali Herc Turkow (Jonas’s father) and Zygmunt Turkow (Jonas’s brother): unit 3;

- Correspondence of Jonas Turkow (prewar, wartime and postwar; senders and recipients include institutions and private individuals): units 4-5;

- Correspondence of Jonas Turkow and Jakub Waksman (prewar): unit 6;

- Agreements and contracts, applications, permits (prewar, wartime and postwar): unit 7;

- Literary pieces: unit 8;

- Posters, invitations, press clippings, tickets (prewar, wartime and postwar): unit 9;

- Accounts and bills, receipts, calling cards, notes (prewar and wartime): unit 10;

- Works of art, photocopied (works by Henryk Berlewi, Samuel Cygler, Mane Katz, Artur Szyk and others): unit 11;

- Photographs of various people: unit 12;

- Inventory of received items compiled by Józef Kermisz (1945 or 1946): unit 13.

Archival history:: The collection was supplied by Jonas Turkow to the Central Jewish Historical Commission in 1945 or 1946. When the commission became the Jewish Historical Institute (ŻIH) in 1947, the fund remained in its collection.

Administrative/biographical history:: Jonas Turkow was born in Warsaw in 1898. He began his career with the Wilno Troupe and later managed Jewish theatres in Krakow, Wilno and Warsaw. In 1923 he married the singer and actress Dina (or Diana) Blumenfeld; the couple often worked on projects together. In 1929 he established the Jewish Theatre in Warsaw. He and Dina had a daughter, Margarite, in 1933. During the German occupation the family was put in the Warsaw Ghetto, where Turkow was made manager of the Central Commission for Events. With his wife, he participated in the ghetto’s artistic life, performing on stage and directing plays. He was also part of the Oneg Shabbat, the team that prepared the Ringelblum Archive. He wrote a study on Jewish theatre in the time of World War II, which earned him monetary reward from the Oneg Shabbat. He took part in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising of April 1943; once it was suppressed, he was imprisoned at a labour camp in Grochów in right-bank Warsaw from which he fled. He remained in hiding on the ‘Aryan side’ until the end of the war, using the false name of Jan Tatarkiewicz. After the liberation, Jonas travelled to Lublin to join the Committee of Polish Jews (Central Committee of Jews in Poland, CKŻP) and was appointed chair of the Jewish Association of Men of Letters, Journalists and Artists in Poland. He initiated the publication of a Jewish-language newspaper and took active part in investigating Jews collaborating with the Germans during the war. In 1946 he left Poland with his wife. The following year he settled in New York City; in 1966, he moved to Israel, where he died in 1988. Dina/Diana Blumenfeld died in New York in 1961.

Jonas Turkow’s memoirs and publications are:

Azoy iz es geven: Churbn Varshe, Buenos Aires, 1948;

In kampf farn lebn, Buenos Aires, 1949 (translated into French as La lutte pour la vie, Paris, 2005);

Farloshene shtern, Buenos Aires, 1953;

Nach der bafrayung (zichroynes), Buenos Aires 1959.

Access points: locations:: Warsaw

Access points: persons/families:: Blumenfeld-Turkow, Dina; Tatarkiewicz, Jan; Turkow, Jonas; Turkow, Naftali Herc; Turkow, Zygmunt; Waksman, Jakub

Subject terms:: Art; Correspondence; Holocaust--Ghettos; Personal records; Theatre

Finding aids:: A catalogue in Polish was compiled in 2008 and is accessible online.

It includes an index of personal names.

Yerusha Network member:: Emanuel Ringelblum Jewish Historical Institute

Author of the description:: Monika Taras; Żydowski Instytut Historyczny im. E. Ringelbluma; 2015

fullscreen: Legacy of Jonas Turkow

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