Metadata: The Pinchas Lavon Institute for Labour Research Estate 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:
- LAV III 37A
- Title:
- The Pinchas Lavon Institute for Labour Research Estate Nathan Schwalb Dror
- Title (official language):
- The Pinchas Lavon Institute for Labour Research Nachlass Nathan Schwalb Dror
- Creator/accumulator:
- Dror, Nathan Schwalb
- Date(s):
- 1936/1985
- Language:
- German
- English
- Hebrew
- Extent:
- 29 microfilms
- Type of material:
- Textual material
- Physical condition:
- good
- Scope and content:
- The core content of the films is the correspondence between the “HeHalutz” headquarters run by Nathan Schwalb in Geneva and the members of the Halutz movement in cities, ghettos and camps in Nazi-occupied European countries, including the rescue committees in Bratislava, Budapest and Istanbul. Correspondence with emigration offices, contact and other aid agencies in Palestine and throughout Europe, especially in Switzerland, is also documented. Also of great value are situation and activity reports from the various regions, statistics, lists and receipts on the dispatch of aid shipments to the occupied territories and to the camps or lists of names of members of the movement who were rescued and willing to emigrate to Palestine. Of outstanding importance from the Swiss point of view are documents from the negotiations between Jewish representatives and the Nazis to save the Jews in Slovakia and Hungary in 1944/45, some of which took place in Switzerland and were mediated by Saly Mayer, the JOINT representative in Switzerland. The Saly Mayer Archive of the "Joint" in New York, which is also available on microfilm in the Archives of Contemporary History and documents Nathan Schwalb's cooperation with the American aid organisation, is an important addition to the existing microfilm holdings. The filmed materials of Nathan Schwalb Dror are also a supplement to the existing collections of copies with isolated documents about the aid activities of the world HeHalutz headquarters in Geneva as well as the materials from a Zurich hotel on Nathan Schwalb's post-war activities as a functionary of Histadrut.
- Archival history:
- In 1998/99, the Archives of Contemporary History (AfZ), with the support of the Foundation for Contemporary Jewish History at the ETH Zurich, carried out a film project at the Pinchas Lavon Institute, the institute and archive of the labour movement (including the "Histadrut" trade union) in Tel Aviv. The original documents of the collection (approx. 15 shelf metres) are in the Lavon Institute. Their microfilming was carried out by the microfilming company ITTI Ltd. in Bnei Brak. This means that, in addition to the partial holdings of Nathan Schwalb Dror remaining in Zurich, the collection in Israel will now also be made accessible at the AfZ.
- 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.
- Access points: locations:
- Bratislava
- Budapest
- Geneva
- Istanbul
- Switzerland
- Subject terms:
- Aid and relief
- American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee
- Holocaust
- Access, restrictions:
- No open access. Subject to application.
- Yerusha Network member:
- Jewish Museum Hohenems
- Author of the description:
- Severin Holzknecht; Jewish Museum of Hohenems; 2020