Metadata: Estate of Max Hirsch
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 Hirsch
- Title:
- Estate of Max Hirsch
- Title (official language):
- Nachlass Max Hirsch
- Creator/accumulator:
- Hirsch, Max
- Date(s):
- 1938/2005
- Language:
- German
- French
- English
- Extent:
- 0.1 shelf metres
- Type of material:
- Textual material
- Physical condition:
- good
- Scope and content:
- The collection mainly contains letters from inmates in French internment camps, from Germany and the Netherlands concerning escape aid as well documents concerning the organisation of refugee aid.
- Archival history:
- The estate was donated to the Archives of Contemporary History (AfZ) in 2005 by Ruth Dreyfuss-Hirsch, the daughter of the creator.
- Administrative/biographical history:
- Max Hirsch, an entrepreneur and refugee helper, was born in Burg Bernheim (Germany) on 29 March 1899 and died in Flims (GR) in 1981; he was burried in La Chaux-de-Fonds. He was the eldest son of Heinrich Hirsch and Rosa, née Jochensberger, and married Hermine Dreifuss of Kreuzlingen in 1936. In 1937 their daughter Ruth was born and in 1940 their son Roger-Henri. In 1912, Hirsch’s family moved to Bad Windsheim, where he attended grammar school and graduated from high school in 1917. He then served in the German army until the end of the war and started an apprenticeship as an ironmonger in Stuttgart afterward. From 1933, Hirsch organised affidavits for his family and relatives to ensure their departure abroad. In 1936, he illegally entered Kreuzlingen (via Konstanz) and around 1936/1937 he founded the Rheintalische Metallwarenfabrik with headquarters in Schaan (Liechtenstein). Around 1940 Hirsch moved to La Chaux-de-Fonds, where he established IMETA SA despite his lack of knowledge of the French language. In 1949, Hirsch and his family were naturalised in the Canton of Neuchâtel.
- Access points: locations:
- Switzerland
- Subject terms:
- Aid and relief
- Internment
- 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