Metadata: Estate of Max Ember
Collection
- Country:
- Switzerland
- Holding institution:
- Archives of Contemporary History at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich
- Holding institution (official language):
- Archiv für Zeitgeschichte der ETH Zürich
- Postal address:
- Hirschengraben 62, CH-8092 Zurich
- Phone number:
- +41 44 632 40 03
- Web address:
- https://www.afz.ethz.ch/
- Email:
- afz@history.gess.ethz.ch
- Reference number:
- NL Max Ember
- Title:
- Estate of Max Ember
- Title (official language):
- Einzelbestand Max Ember
- Creator/accumulator:
- Ember, Max
- Date(s):
- 1935/2004
- Language:
- German
- Extent:
- 0.04 shelf metres
- Type of material:
- Textual material
- Physical condition:
- good
- Scope and content:
- The collection consists mainly of Max Ember's diaries, which he kept from October 1944 to May 1945 about the events in Budapest. Copies of photos from Budapest and a travel certificate are further personal documents. The collection also contains documents on Max Ember’s stepfather Alexander Ember and articles on Carl Lutz and the Swiss Embassy in Budapest.
- Archival history:
- The estate of Max Ember was handed over to the AfZ in 2004 by his wife Evelyn Ember.
- Administrative/biographical history:
- Max Ember was born in Zurich as Maximilian Bauer on 9 February 1915 and died on 5 October 1982 in Gentilino. He was the son of Max Bauer and Frieda, née Schaffner, and moved to Budapest in 1923 following his mother’s remarriage to Dr Alexander Ember, a lawyer and member of the Hungarian parliament. The latter adopted Max in 1926. Max Ember earned a pilot’s license in Budapest in 1934. He studied civil engineering from 1934 to 1937 and completed recruit training in Brugg as sapper in 1935. In 1939, he was discharged from the army in the wake of a service-related accident. In 1944, he fled into the Swiss Embassy in Budapest and after that to Switzerland. During his journey via Bucharest and Istanbul to Switzerland, he was accompanied by Russians. He completed a report about the events in Budapest in 1945 and handed it over to the Political Department in Bern. From 1950 to 1955, Ember worked in Montevideo as architect and businessman. He married Evelyn Bitterli in Zurich in 1960. In 1961 their son Stefan Alexander Walter was born. In 1970, the family moved to Tessin/Ticino.
- Access points: locations:
- Budapest
- Switzerland
- Subject terms:
- Refugees
- World War II
- Finding aids:
- An online finding aid is available.
- Links to finding aids:
- http://onlinearchives.ethz.ch/
- Yerusha Network member:
- Jewish Museum Hohenems
- Author of the description:
- Severin Holzknecht; Jewish Museum of Hohenems; 2019
