Metadata: Estate of Martin Stern
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 Martin Stern
- Title:
- Estate of Martin Stern
- Title (official language):
- Einzelbestand Martin Stern
- Creator/accumulator:
- Stern, Martin
- Date(s):
- 1895/1986
- Language:
- German
- French
- Extent:
- 0.25 shelf metres
- Type of material:
- Textual material
- Physical condition:
- good
- Scope and content:
- The collection contains biographical documents such as the birth certificates, passport and identity cards of Martin Stern’s parents Adolf and Charlotte Stern, Martin Stern’s birth certificate, school reports and Austrian exit papers as well as various identity cards and Swiss passports. It also includes a confirmation of employment by the Swiss Red Cross (SRC) and correspondence with the Swiss Jewish Refugee Aid and Welfare Organisations and the SRC regarding the care of refugee children.
- Archival history:
- Through the mediation of Ruth Werfel in Zurich, Martin Stern’s widow Antoinette Stern donated material to the AfZ (Archives of Contemporary History) in 2009. Further material followed in 2010 and 2012.
- Administrative/biographical history:
- Martin Stern, a psychologist, was born in Vienna on 3 January 1921 and died in Zurich on 1 September 1982. He was the only child of Adolf Stern, owner of a forwarding company, and Charlotte, née Löwenberg. He attended elementary school and graduated from the Stubenbastei secondary school in Vienna. In 1938, he emigrated to Paris and enrolled at the Sorbonne University (Faculté des Lettres). After the outbreak of war he entered into an auxiliary force of the French army. After the armistice and demobilisation of the troops Stern was arrested in Orloron. He was brought to the Gurs internment camp, where he stayed until May 1942. He was released from the camp thanks to the intervention of the Fonds Européen de Secours aux Étudiants (FESE), Geneva. He then stayed in Le Chambon-sur-Lignon (France) and worked in a children's home of the Swiss Red Cross (SRK). In September 1942, he fled to Switzerland and was interned in the Bonstetten labour camp, among other places. In autumn 1943, Stern was allowed to study at the remedial education seminar in Zurich and in 1949, he received his doctorate in education, remedial education and French literature. Immediately after the end of the war he worked for the SRC Children's Aid Association and the Association of Swiss Jewish Refugee Aid and Welfare Organisations (Verband Schweizerischer Jüdischer Fürsorgen, VSJF), looking after young people from Buchenwald. In 1952, he was granted a settlement permit and in 1959, naturalisation in Switzerland. He worked as a psychologist with his own practice in Zurich. In 1981, he married Antoinette Burgauer.
- Access points: locations:
- Switzerland
- Access points: persons/families:
- Stern
- 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
