Metadata: Estate of Alexander Grossmann
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 Alexander Grossmann
- Title:
- Estate of Alexander Grossmann
- Title (official language):
- Nachlass Alexander Grossmann
- Creator/accumulator:
- Grossmann, Alexander
- Date(s):
- 1905/2001
- Language:
- German
- Hungarian
- French
- Extent:
- 2.5 shelf metres
- Type of material:
- Textual material
- Photographic images
- Physical condition:
- good
- Scope and content:
- The collection contains many manuscripts, documentary material as well as reports, all of which are related to the Holocaust in Hungary or Hungarian Jews. Worth mentioning is the documentation about Denise Penwy, daughter of a Swiss woman and a Hungarian Jew; she was arrested by the Gestapo in 1944. There are manuscripts, notes, and correspondence with publishers and filmmakers on Grossman's book about the war years in Budapest, “Nur das Gewissen”. The 1987 contemporary witness colloquium on the rescue operation of Carl Lutz can be found in the collection of audio-visual sources of the AfZ. The majority of the estate consists of Grossman's correspondence. He maintained written contact with Carl Lutz and his first wife Gertrud Lutz for many years. He also exchanged views with historians and people affected by the Holocaust in Hungary. The file of Elisabeth Bertschi, who looked after Hungarian refugees from the Bergen-Belsen camp in the Esplanade military camp in Caux in 1945, is important for the discussion of Switzerland's role in the Second World War. She gave some original documents from this period to Grossman.
- Archival history:
- Alexander Grossman handed over his estate to the AfZ in several deliveries between 1990 and 2003. He delivered the documents concerning the Carl Lutz monument in Budapest and his work in the Carl Lutz Committee, partly through the mediation of Dr. Theo Tschuy in 1990 and 1997. The remaining estate was received by the AfZ in 2004 from his brother-in-law Gabor Halasz. Most of the documents are in Hungarian. The indexing is based on Grossman's connection to Carl Lutz and emphasises this collaboration. There are documents on Grossman's activities in Budapest from 1942 to 1945 and on his later commitment to the recognition of Carl Lutz's activities. In addition, documents on Grossman's work as a journalist for the cultural Zionist magazine Múlt és Jövo are extant, but only rudimentarily catalogued. Private correspondence and most of the private photographs were not taken over. The biographical material includes personal documents of Vera and Alexander Grossman and documents concerning naturalisation in Switzerland and reparations. For reparation purposes, Vera and Alexander Grossman compiled lists of their former possessions and had expert opinions drawn up that verified their biographical data. Among them is a certificate issued by Carl Lutz for Grossman.
- Administrative/biographical history:
- Alexander Grossman, a journalist, was born in Pusztaszomolló (Hungary) on 3 March 1909 and died on 29 October 2003 in Geneva. He was the son of Leopold and Serena Schlesinger and grew up in a German-speaking, strictly Jewish-Orthodox family. Grossman became a member of the Zionist scout group Kadimah. After the death of his father in 1915, the family moved to Miskolc and Grossmann attended the Jewish elementary school. Here he witnessed the growing antisemitism in Hungary. He studied at the University of Economics in Budapest, but had to quit because of the numerus clausus for Jewish students. He was strongly involved in the Miskolc Jewish Community, the second largest Jewish community in Hungary and became a cofounder of the youth pioneer group “Hechaluz“. From 1928 to 1938 and 1945 to 1949, Grossmann was the editor of the Jewish literary magazine “Der Weg”. In 1934, he married his first wife Ilona Krausz and in 1940 their only child, Stephan, was born. After the German occupation in 1944, Grossmann was sent to the Miskolc ghetto; his wife, son and most of his family members were deported. He was arrested for aiding in the escape of Jews to Romania and spent three months in Gestapo custody. Upon intervention of National Bank President Saranyai, he was transported to the Kistarcsa internment camp instead of Auschwitz and released on 30 September 1944. He was appointed as delegate to the Palestine Committee, which he chaired in October 1944. He also became a member of the board of directors of the emigration department of the Swiss Embassy in Budapest and closely cooperated with the Swiss Consul General Carl Lutz. Beginning in October 1944, he was in charge of the rescue operation of the persecuted by issuing and distributing diplomatic letters of protection. Under the most difficult conditions, he helped to care for about 40,000 Jewish refugees who were hiding in the 50 Swiss safe houses. After the liberation of Budapest in January 1945, he became a member of the “American Joint Distribution Committee“ (JOINT) and co-chairman of the Hungarian Zionist organisation. He collaborated in the reintegration of returning emigrants through the creation of 31 agricultural and 50 commercial cooperatives. Grossmann was discriminated against in Hungary since his native tongue was German and in 1949 he left Hungary. He lived in Paris and Israel and finally settled in Geneva in 1951. That same year, he married Vera Halasz and became editor of the cultural Zionist magazine “Múlt és Jövo”. He was committed to the rehabilitation of Carl Lutz, including publishing a biography “Nur das Gewissen, Carl Lutz und seine Budapester Aktion, Geschichte und Portrait” in 1986. In 1987, Grossman participated in the colloquium at the AfZ “Der Holocaust in Ungarn 1943-1945 – die Rettungsaktion von Carl Lutz und anderen Schweizern“.
- Access points: locations:
- Hungary
- Switzerland
- Subject terms:
- Aid and relief
- Holocaust
- Refugees
- Access, restrictions:
- Partially restricted. Subject to application.
- 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
