Metadata: Partial estate of Nathan Schwalb Dror
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 Nathan Schwalb Dror
- Title:
- Partial estate of Nathan Schwalb Dror
- Title (official language):
- Teilnachlass Nathan Schwalb Dror
- Creator/accumulator:
- Dror, Nathan Schwalb
- Date(s):
- 1921/1999
- Language:
- German
- English
- Hebrew
- Extent:
- 2 shelf metres
- Type of material:
- Textual material
- Physical condition:
- good
- Scope and content:
- The holdings document the situation and fate of European Jewry in the years 1923-1945 and in particular document the rescue activities of "HeHalutz" during the Second World War. The documents thus form an important supplement to the microfilm holdings of Nathan Schwalb Dror in the AfZ as well as to the filmed materials from the Saly Mayer Archive of the "Joint", which are also available in the AfZ. Correspondence and reports on “HeHalutz” activities in the postwar period can also be found. Nathan Schwalb Dror gave two detailed interviews about his work with “HeHalutz” at the AfZ in 1994.
- Archival history:
- The collection was transferred to the Archives of Contemporary History (AfZ) in several tranches between 1994 and 1997. It holds few original documents on the activities of the world headquarters of “HeHalutz” in Warsaw and Geneva, and mainly copies of originals of various provenances (Federal Archives in Koblenz, The Pinchas Lavon Institute for Labour Movement Research in Tel Aviv, "Archives and Museum of the Jewish Labour Movement" in Israel, MF collection of the AfZ on the Saly Mayer Archive of the "Joint" in New York). In part, the AfZ received the copies together with originals from Nathan Schwalb Dror personally, in part they come from the Hotel Zelthof in Zurich, where Nathan Schwalb Dror had his headquarters in Europe in the 1970s and 1980s. Further copies have been made by the AfZ itself at various provenance locations.
- Administrative/biographical history:
- Nathan Schwalb Dror was a trade unionist and delegate of Hechaluz and Histadrut. He was born in Stanislau (now in Ukraine) on 1 April 1908 and died in Tel Aviv on 24 March 2004. He was the son of a language and religion professor at the local Jewish grammar school and of a private teacher. Schwalb was member in banned Jewish associations, among others "HaMaccabi HaTza’ir", "Gordonia" and “HeHalutz". After completing high school, he studied law in Lemberg (Lviv) for three semesters. He emigrated to Palestine in 1929 and participated in the reconstruction of Kibbutz Hulda destroyed by Arabs. He also collaborated in the Jewish trade union movement "Histadrut" and in 1938/39 he was "Hechaluz" delegate in Prague and Vienna, from where he tried to obtain emigration certificates for Palestine for as many Jews as possible. In 1939 he participated in the last Zionist congress before the Second World War in Geneva and helped building the new world headquarters of the "Hechaluz" in Geneva. Until 1945 he supported rescue operations in cooperation with Saly Mayer of JOINT and the Swiss Red Cross. In 1941 his father and siblings were murdered by the Gestapo in Stanislau. In 1945, he returned to Kibbutz Hulda and became a leading member. From 1946, Schwalb was a delegate of the "Histadrut" trade union as liaison man to various trade unions in Europe.
- Subject terms:
- Holocaust
- World War II
- Zionism
- Zionism--Zionist youth movements
- 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