Metadata: Estate of Samuel Scheps
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 Samuel Scheps
- Title:
- Estate of Samuel Scheps
- Title (official language):
- Nachlass Samuel Scheps
- Creator/accumulator:
- Scheps, Samuel
- Date(s):
- 1890s/1999
- Language:
- German
- French
- Hebrew
- Yiddish
- Polish
- English
- Extent:
- 7.8 shelf metres
- Type of material:
- Textual material
- Physical condition:
- good
- Scope and content:
-
Although the estate has not been handed down completely, it nevertheless documents to an impressive extent Samuel Scheps's commitment to the Zionist movement in the 1920s as well as his journalistic activities from the 1960s onwards. The documents on the Swiss Zionist Association are unique and illustrate the history of the association as well as the history of numerous local Zionist associations in Switzerland in the 1920s. The collection also contains biographical documents as well as much correspondence with Zionist personalities on various topics.
Not included are documents relating to the activities of the Palestine Office, which may have been transferred to another archive some time ago. There is a partial estate of Samuel Scheps (A496) in the Central Zionist Archives in Jerusalem. The library of Samuel Scheps's estate is partly located in the library of the Centre for Jewish Studies Basel and in the University Library of Basel.
- Archival history:
- After the death of Samuel Scheps, the collection was transferred by his daughter Dorith Ofir-Scheps to the Institute for Jewish Studies of the University of Basel via Professor Heiko Haumann, Historical Seminar of the University of Basel. The student Alain Ottiker compiled a detailed inventory of the collection in October 2003. In spring 2008, as a result of water ingress, considerable unidentifiable parts of the archive and library material had to be disposed of. What was still identifiable and restorable was dried, cleaned and in 2009 transferred to the Archives of Contemporary History (AfZ). Among the destroyed parts were numerous files from the estate of Samuel Scheps.
- Administrative/biographical history:
-
Samuel Scheps (Szeps), Zionist, refugee aid worker and publicist, was born in Lodz on 19 May 1904 and died in Geneva on 15 November 1999. He was a son of the industrialist Maximilian (Mendel) Scheps and Rosa (Riwka), née Schwarzmann. He studied philology and history in Krakow and from 1922 to 1924 history, economics and law in Berlin. In 1924, he studied economics, law, history and philosophy in Basel. In 1926, he earned his doctorate with a thesis on the monetary and central bank policy of the Republic of Poland. In 1928, he married Lily, née Scheps, with whom he had three children named Marc, Ruth and Dorith. In 1931, he became citizen of Basel-Stadt.
From the mid-1920s Scheps was a committed Zionist. From 1928 to 1946, he was vice-president of the Swiss Zionist Association and from 1935 onward head of the Jewish National Fund in Switzerland. From 1937 to 1946, he was also director of the Swiss Palestine Office, a branch of the Jewish Agency, which organised emigration to Palestine. At the beginning of the war, the Palestine Office was moved from Basel to Geneva; Scheps worked here from that time on. Scheps became an important person in matters of refugee aid during the time of National Socialism. He obtained certificates and money for the departure of countless people, organised five rescue ships, helped in 1945 to organise the first large postwar aliyah and provided assistance in the search for survivors. In 1946, he resigned from all public offices. From 1946 to 1962, he founded and managed the Scopa SA company in Geneva, which was responsible for importing Israeli products into Switzerland. In 1959, he was co-founder of the Banque de Crédit International in Geneva and vice-chairman of the board of directors.
Scheps wrote monographs and numerous essays on economics, history, literature and philosophy in German, Polish and Hebrew. He was awarded various honours, including in 1970 honorary governor of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. In 1994, he was named honorary president of the Swiss Zionist Association.
- Access points: locations:
- Switzerland
- Subject terms:
- Professions
- Professions--Journalists
- Refugees
- Zionism
- 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