Metadata: Estate of Otto and Régine Heim
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 Otto und Régine Heim
- Title:
- Estate of Otto and Régine Heim
- Title (official language):
- Nachlass Otto und Régine Heim
- Creator/accumulator:
- Heim, Otto; Heim, Régine
- Date(s):
- 1906/2004
- Language:
- German
- French
- English
- Hebrew
- Yiddish
- Extent:
- 0.5 shelf metres
- Type of material:
- Textual material
- Physical condition:
- good
- Scope and content:
- The documents are mainly of a personal character and contain little about Otto Heim's activities. The extensive correspondence was mainly conducted by Régine Heim, but also concerns community matters.
- Archival history:
-
The first files of the collection were handed to the Archives of Contemporary History (AfZ) during Régine Heim's lifetime. The second delivery was made after her death by her lawyer Eric Teitler, mediated by Madeleine Dreyfus.
Further documents on the activities of Otto Heim can be found in the IB VSJF, IB SIG and PA Biographical Collection in the AfZ. Documents mainly about Régine Heim are in the possession of the Fondation Otto et Régine Heim in Chambésy.
- Administrative/biographical history:
-
Otto Heinrich Heim was born in Zurich on 17 November 1896 and died in Zurich on 12 May 1978. He was a refugee helper, president of the Association of Swiss Jewish Refugee Aid and Welfare Organisations (Verein Schweizerischer Jüdischer Fürsorgen, VSJF) and textile entrepreneur. Heim was the son of Joseph Heim, a businessman, and Bertha Blum. From 1911 to 1914, Heim attended commercial school in Zurich and stayed in London for a while. He worked in the textile industry and later, together with his brother, took over his father's company. Heim was for many years on the board of the Swiss Textile Wholesale Association. During the Second World War, he worked in the refugee sector and took in refugee children into his own home. Until 1944, Heim was head of the department "Retraining and Emigrants" in the VSJF. At the end of 1944, he was appointed to Committee IV of the Federal Council's expert commission for refugee issues; and from 1945 to 1968, he was president of the VSJF and member of the SIG Executive Committee. In 1934, Heim married Régine Heim, née Frajdenraich (Freidenreich).
Régine Heim, a sculptor, was born in Warsaw on 3 April 1907 as Ryfka Frajdenraich and died on 29 April 2004 in Geneva. She was the daughter of Izrael Icek Frajdenraich and Chawa Rosenstein. From 1917 she was raised by her grandfather, a rabbi in Geneva. She studied music and philosophy and was educated in the fine arts by Max Gubler, Kunstgewerbeschule Zurich, Albert Schilling, Zurich, and Germaine Richter, Paris. Later she worked as a freelance artist. Her works include stained glass windows in the synagogue of the Jewish nursing home Les Berges du Léman in Vevey, in the hall of the Jewish cemetery Oberer Friesenberg in Zurich and in the Great Synagogue Hechal Shlomo in Jerusalem. In 1988 she was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Haifa. She divorced her first husband, Charles Edmond Maillot, in 1931.
- Access points: locations:
- Zurich
- Subject terms:
- Personal records
- Refugees
- 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