American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, New York Saly Mayer Collection – Estate Saly Mayer (1939-1950)

Collection

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

Title:: American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, New York Saly Mayer Collection – Estate Saly Mayer (1939-1950)

Title (official language):: American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, New York Saly Mayer Collection - Nachlass Saly Mayer (1939-1950)

Scope and content:: The collection contains correspondence and notes of Saly Mayer with organisations such as the government of the United States, Agudas Israel, the International Red Cross, the World Headquarters of Hechaluz in Geneva, the Union OSE countries Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, France, Holland, Italy, Poland, Romania, Shanghai, Slovakia and Yugoslavia and the SS. Saly Mayer, the president of the Swiss Federation of Jewish Communities (1936-1943) and Swiss representative of the American Jewish aid organisations affiliated in JOINT (May 1940-1950), took on a central but ultimately impossible task in the Second World War in helping refugees and in the fight against the Holocaust. The estate of Saly Mayer was already recorded in the JOINT archives in 1975 (see finding aids). On this basis, the AfZ has produced a detailed finding aid.

Archival history:: The collection was transferred to the AfZ (Archives of Contemporary History) between 1991 and 1994.

Administrative/biographical history:: Saly Mayer's parents immigrated to Basel from southern Germany and moved to St. Gallen a few years later. Together with his brother Max, Saly Mayer founded a textile export company in England in 1907. After Max's accident in 1911, Saly Mayer returned to St. Gallen and expanded his business. In 1930, he acquired the citizenship of St. Gallen. In 1933, he became a member of the Free Democratic Party (FDP), for which he was elected to the city parliament. From 1929, he managed the secretariat of the Swiss Federation of Jewish Communities (SIG) on an honorary basis, and from 1936 to 1943, he was its chairman. From his private economic situation as a successful, internationally active factory owner and loyal citizen, he tried to undermine the state refugee policy without publicly criticising it. Neutral Switzerland initially became a refuge for persons persecuted by the Nazis. However, the small and financially weak SIG had to pay for the Jewish refugees’ livelihood. The headquarters of Mayer's companies was in St. Gallen. Due to the activities of his companies in the international textile trade, there were also many opportunities for financial transactions by SIG. St. Gallen thus became the hub for the distribution of funds from aid organisations such as the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) to Jews and Jewish organisations in Nazi-occupied territories.

Author of the description:: Severin Holzknecht; Jewish Museum of Hohenems; 2019