Metadata: Personal archives of Baroness Fela Perelman
Collection
- Country:
- Belgium
- Holding institution:
- Foundation of Contemporary Memory
- Holding institution (official language):
- Fondation de la Mémoire Contemporaine
- Postal address:
- Avenue Victoria 5 / Victorialaan 5, 1000 Bruxelles
- Phone number:
- +32 (0)2 650 35 64
- Web address:
- http://www.fmc-seh.be/
- Email:
- info@fmc-seh.be
- Reference number:
- FConMem-Brussels-Archives privées de la baronne Fela Perelman
- Title:
- Personal archives of Baroness Fela Perelman
- Title (official language):
- Archives privées de la baronne Fela Perelman
- Creator/accumulator:
- Perelman, Fela
- Date(s):
- 1934/1991
- Language:
- French
- Polish
- Hebrew
- Yiddish
- Czech
- Extent:
- 1.5 linear metres
- Scope and content:
- This fonds mainly contains correspondence, notes and reports as well as subject files related to the activities of Fela Perelman during the war and afterwards and to her publications. We note for example documents concerning the kindergarten Nos Petits; handwritten letters from the children in the homes addressed to Perelman; documents concerning hidden children and CDJ activities; material (such as correspondence, notes, requests for transit visa) related to the clandestine immigration of Jewish survivors from Belgium to Palestine; documents (often correspondence, index cards, notes, minutes of meetings, lists, texts, etc.) concerning Jewish organisations such as the AIVG, Fédération des Juifs polonais en Belgique, the Office israélite de Presse et de Documentation, the Amicale des Anciens du CDJ, the Conseil des Associations juives de Bruxelles, the Jewish Refugees Welfare Society; subject files concerning topics such as the establishment of the State of Israel, the Aliyah Bet (i.a. notes, press cuttings, correspondence, reports, interviews), the Righteous Among the Nations, relief to Jewish refugees after the war and various legal issues in this matter, the award of doctor honoris causa by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1980, Linke Poale Zion in Brussels, her PhD on Belgo-Polish relations at the eve of Belgian independence, etc. The fonds also contains rich series of correspondence (ca. 1940s-1960s), often ordered alphabetically by correspondent. We find private correspondence as well as correspondence related to the Aliyah Bet and Amis belges de l’Université hébraïque de Jérusalem, on the death of Chaïm Perelman, correspondence with Jewish institutions such as Keren Hayesod, the Institut d’Études du Judaïsme, the Ganenou school, the Comité d’Action pour Israël, etc. We finally note some sixty files of displaced persons, containing requests for visas addressed to the director of the Alien Police, AIVG cards, handwritten notes, photographs, etc.
- Archival history:
- One part of this fonds was recovered by Olivia Mattis, granddaughter of Fela Perelman, in 2005.
- Administrative/biographical history:
- Fela (Félicie) Liwer, the wife of Chaïm Perelman, was born in Bedzin in Poland in 1909. She migrated to Belgium to pursue university studies in history at the ULB. She also obtained a degree in educational psychology, an education that would be of use during the war. As a student she was active in the Jewish student association at the ULB, before working for the secretariat of the Conseil des Associations juives de Bruxelles with Léon Kubowitzki. She married Chaïm Perelman in 1935. During the Second World War, Fela Perelman was in charge of the Jewish children excluded from public schools and grouped together in nursery schools. She entrusted these children of the Nos Petits schools to the Comité de Défense des Juifs (the first meeting of this organisation was held at the Perelman house in Uccle). These children were then hidden to avoid deportation. Fela Perelman was the president of the Secours Mutuel Juif, an organisation linked with Linke Poale Zion, at the request of Abusz Werber. After the war Fela Perelman provided relief to war orphans and was also active for the Alyat Hanoar. She became one of the main organisers of the Aliyah Bet, the clandestine immigration to Palestine from Belgium in 1946-1948, an operation that was notably covered by a front organisation created by the Perelmans, titled Jewish Refugees Welfare Society. Her house, in the rue de la Pêcherie in Uccle, developed into a kind of Israeli embassy avant la lettre. As an ardent and active Zionist, she built a large network of diplomatic, intellectual, artistic and scientific contacts. She was also heavily involved in the association les Amis belges de l’Université hébraïque de Jérusalem. Her PhD thesis in history, titled Révolution belge et la Pologne en 1830, was published in 1948. In 1967 she created, with Léo Maiersdorf, the association Solidarité avec Israël, aiming to overcome divisions and organise support for the threatened Hebrew state. The funds collected for Israel exceeded all expectations. Fela Perelman was also a writer; she notably published Le ventre et la baleine (Brussels, 1947). She died in Salt Lake City (United States) in 1991. (J.-P. Schreiber, "Fajga Estera dite Félicie ou Fela Liwer-Perelman", in J.-P. Schreiber, Dictionnaire biographique des Juifs de Belgique. Figures du judaïsme belge, XIXe-XXe siècles, Bruxelles, De Boeck, 2002, pp. 274-275.)
- Access points: persons/families:
- Perelman, Fela
- Subject terms:
- Aid and relief
- Aid and relief--Philanthropy and charity
- Aliyah
- Children
- Correspondence
- Education
- Education--Schools and universities
- Holocaust
- Holocaust--Hiding
- Holocaust--Rescue and resistance
- Holocaust--Righteous Among the Nations
- Holocaust--Survivors
- Israel-Diaspora relations
- Jewish community
- Jewish political activity
- Jewish self-defence and resistance
- Migration
- Migration--Immigration
- Professions
- Professions--Scholars (secular), scientists, and academics
- Refugees
- State of Israel
- World War II
- Zionism
- Zionism--Zionist organisations and parties
- Zionism--Zionists
- Finding aids:
- J. Deom, Inventaire des Archives privées de la baronne Fela Perelman, 2e éd, FMC, 2006, 26 p.
- Yerusha Network member:
- State Archives of Belgium
