Metadata: Max Gottschalk papers
Collection
- Country:
- Belgium
- Holding institution:
- Archives of the Université Libre de Bruxelles
- Holding institution (official language):
- Archives de l’Université Libre de Bruxelles
- Postal address:
- Campus du Solbosch AX1.222, Avenue Franklin Roosevelt 50 / Franklin Rooseveltlaan 50, 1000 Bruxelles
- Phone number:
- +32 02/650.35.66
- Email:
- archives@ulb.ac.be
- Reference number:
- ArUnLib-Brussels-038PP
- Title:
- Max Gottschalk papers
- Title (official language):
- Papiers Max Gottschalk
- Creator/accumulator:
- Gottschalk, Max
- Date(s):
- 1920/1930
- Extent:
- 7 binders
- Scope and content:
- This fonds contains correspondence, press cuttings, notes, scientific articles, files assembled by Gottschalk related to various subjects such as unemployment, drivers, coal, the Belgian railroads, parliament, the chicotte, money exchange, the budget of the Ministry of Industry, the budget of the Ministry of Public Health, the budget of the Ministry of Public Works, the budgets of the Prévoyance sociale (social security), as well as a file concerning the Société Tanneries du Nord and file related to Catholics and calendar reform.
- Administrative/biographical history:
- Max Gottschalk was born in Liège in 1889. He obtained a degree in philosophy and letters as well as a PhD in law from the University of Liège, and also studied at Berlin University, at the Sorbonne and the Collège de France. In Paris he established links with the members of the Alliance Israélite Universelle, for which he would become active in the 1930s. He had a brilliant legal career, as a high ranking functionary at the national and international level (notably as Section Head of the Bureau International du Travail in Geneva). Having returned to Brussels, he participated in the scientific research of the Institut de Sociologie of the ULB, and led its Centre d’Économie régionale. He was active in the Ligue des Droits de l’Homme and was vice president of the Conseil supérieur du travail et de la Prévoyance sociale. He was appointed commissioner for Work by the Van Zeeland government in 1935 and took part in various councils and committees related to the question of unemployment. Gottschalk also taught at the École d’Ergologie of the Institut des Hautes Études, at the École de Service social and the École ouvrière supérieure. In exile in the United States during the Second World War, he held the function of rapporteur of the Commission belge pour l’Étude des Problèmes d’Après-Guerre (CEPAG) and was also a representative at the UNRRA. As well as his career as lecturer and functionary, he was heavily involved in Jewish associational life, notably in the Communauté Israélite de Bruxelles (CIB), the Consistory, the Œuvre centrale israélite de Secours (OCIS), the Foyer israélite (which he founded in 1937) and especially in various initiatives for relief of the German Jewish refugees in the years 1933-1940. He established and directed the Comité d’Aide et d’Assistance aux Victimes de l’Antisémitisme en Allemagne (CAAVAA), headed the Association belge pour l’Émigration des réfugiés and AREPROR (1937-1940). He was also the president of the Franz Philippson conferences, founded and led the Centrale d’Œuvres sociales juives in Brussels as well as the Centre National des Hautes Études Juives. He also played a key role in various international Jewish organisations, such as the Jewish Colonization Association, the Palestine Jewish Colonization Association, the Jewish Agency, the Joint, HICEM, the American Jewish Committee and the Alliance Israélite Universelle. Gottschalk died in Ohain in 1976. (J.-P. Schreiber, "Max Gottschalk", in J.-P. Schreiber, Dictionnaire biographique des Juifs de Belgique. Figures du judaïsme belge, XIXe-XXe siècles, Bruxelles, De Boeck, 2002, pp. 139-141.)
- Access points: persons/families:
- Gottschalk, Max
- Access, restrictions:
- Access requires the authorisation of the archivist of the Université Libre de Bruxelles.
- Yerusha Network member:
- State Archives of Belgium