Metadata: Family Archive Pritzker-Ehrlich
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 Pritzker-Ehrlich
- Title:
- Family Archive Pritzker-Ehrlich
- Title (official language):
- Familienarchiv Pritzker-Ehrlich
- Creator/accumulator:
- Pritzker-Ehrlich family
- Date(s):
- 1801/2010
- Language:
- German
- English
- Extent:
- 2.8 shelf metres
- Type of material:
- Textual material
- Physical condition:
- good
- Scope and content:
-
The collection can be divided into three areas. Firstly, there are files concerning the Ehrlich, Mittler, Schidorsky and Hoevel families which document the everyday life and difficulties of a Jewish-Christian family in 20th-century Europe. The materials are arranged according to family branch and were indexed in great detail by Marthi Pritzker-Ehrlich and her husband Andreas Pritzker. An index of this listing can be found in the inventory. The material includes biographical documents, photographs, correspondence and publications of the individual family members, with the materials focusing on the Ehrlich-Mittler family. Correspondence between relatives in Zurich, Berlin and Vienna during National Socialism trace the living situation of the persons involved.
The second section of the collection relates to Marthi Pritzker-Ehrlich and contains biographical material and documents relating to her professional activities. The main focus of this section is the research documentation of Marthi Pritzker-Ehrlich on her numerous publications. The originals of her diaries and her personal correspondence were destroyed by the donors after an excerpt of the diary had been transcribed or after the correspondence had been digitised.
The third area comprises the estate of Boris Pritzker-Kamer, psychiatrist and father-in-law of Marthi Pritzker-Ehrlich. In addition to the biographical documents and his professional activity in various psychiatric clinics, his research on Swiss executioner candidates is particularly interesting. These documents were previously held in the State Archives in Aargau. Boris Pritzker conducted interviews with the almost 130 candidates in St. Gallen and Zug about their motivations and prepared a file for each candidate with his application and a report of the interview. These documents were processed for the first time by Marthi Pritzker-Ehrlich and still constitute barely evaluated source material.
The original family photos (File 56) were destroyed by the donors after digitisation.
- Archival history:
- The collection was transferred to the AfZ (Archiv für Zeitgeschichte) in several deliveries between 2008 and 2016. The holdings of the Pritzker-Ehrlich Family Archive are marked by the scholarly activity of the historian Marthi Pritzker-Ehrlich and are both a family collection and research documentation.
- Administrative/biographical history:
- Marthi Pritzker was born in Kilchberg on 23 September 1944 and died in Aarau on 9 April 1998. She was the daughter of Kurt Ehrlich, a lawyer, and Eva Ehrlich-Mittler. She had Jewish-Christian background and attended schools in Zurich. From 1964 to 1975, she studied history and trained to become a grammar school teacher at the University of Zurich. In 1970, she married Andreas Pritzker, a physicist. In 1975/1976, she lived in Princeton, USA and in 1981 she finished her dissertation on Michael Schlatter, an emigrant to America, at the University of Zurich. From 1981 to 1991, she worked as a history teacher at the Alte Kantonsschule Aarau and in 1982 she was elected to the advisory board of the Swiss-American Historical Society (SAHS). In 1991, she left the teaching profession and worked as a freelance historian. She worked on Jewish-Christian family history in the 19th and 20th centuries and compiled an archive of the Ehrlich, Hoevel, Mittler and Schidorsky families. In 1998, shortly before her death, she intensified her efforts in preparation of the publication Jüdisches Emigrantenlos 1938-1939 und die Schweiz - eine Fallstudie (Jewish Emigrants 1938-1939 and Switzerland - a case study) on the basis of these family documents.
- Access points: locations:
- Switzerland
- Access points: persons/families:
- Ehrlich
- Subject terms:
- Personal records
- 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; 2020