Metadata: Bequest of Szymon Datner
Collection
- Country:
- Poland
- Holding institution:
- The Emanuel Ringelblum Jewish Historical Institute
- Holding institution (official language):
- Żydowski Instytut Historyczny im. Emanuela Ringelbluma
- Postal address:
- Archiwum, Żydowski Instytut Historyczny im. E. Ringelbluma, ul. Tłomackie 3/5, 00-090 Warszawa
- Phone number:
- (+48 22) 827 92 21
- Email:
- secretary@jhi.pl
- Reference number:
- 312/S/340
- Title:
- Bequest of Szymon Datner
- Title (official language):
- Spuścizna Szymona Datnera
- Creator/accumulator:
- Datner, Szymon
- Date(s):
- 1944/1989
- Language:
- Polish
- Yiddish
- Russian
- German
- Hebrew
- French
- Czech
- Extent:
- 199 files
- Type of material:
- Textual material
- Photographic images
- Physical condition:
- Good
- Scope and content:
-
As a historian dealing with the Holocaust after the war, Datner collected sources necessary for researching various aspects of this topic, including, for example, the responsibility of special operational groups of the German police for mass crimes against the Jewish population in the Białystok region, and also as initiators who recruited local traitors, criminal elements or police services. He investigated the massacre in Jedwabne, which he wrote about in 1946. He also wrote about the assistance provided to Jews by Christians.
The collection includes:
Ref. nos. 1: personal documents;
2-28: correspondence (with institutions, with private persons);
29-56: publishing and editorial materials;
57-90: articles, reviews;
91-152: notes and materials for future use;
153-161: transcripts and copies of documents;
162-172: materials from conferences and symposia;
173-179: papers and publications;
180-188: miscellaneous;
189-199: papers of Edwarda Orłowska (wife of Szymon Datner): correspondence, personal documents, articles, reports, documents regarding the Polish-Soviet Friendship Society.
- Archival history:
- The collection was donated to the Jewish Historical Institute after the death of Szymon Datner by his daughter Helena Datner in 1990.
- Administrative/biographical history:
-
Szymon Datner was born on 2 February 1902 in Krakow. He received a traditional Jewish religious education, then went on to study law and administration as well as philosophy at the Jagiellonian University. Before World War II, he worked as a teacher at, inter alia, the Hebrew Gymnasium in Białystok. He hid in forests during the war, where he joined up with Jewish partisans under the pseudonym "Tolo". Datner participated in the resistance movement in the Białystok ghetto. After the war, he headed the Provincial Jewish Committee in Białystok. He was a researcher at the Jewish Historical Institute, taking part in the work of the Chief Commission for the Investigation of Hitlerite Crimes in Poland. Datner was the director of the Jewish Historical Institute from 1969 to 1970. His research interests covered the period of World War II, especially the crimes of the Wehrmacht and the escapes of prisoners of war from German captivity. He died in Warsaw on 8 December 1989.
Among his most important publications are: Walka i zagłada białostockiego getta [The Struggle and the Extermination of the Białystock Ghetto] (Lodz 1946, critical edition Warsaw 2014); Zbrodnie Wehrmachtu na jeńcach wojennych w II wojnie światowej [Wehrmacht Crimes against Prisoners of War during World War II] (Warsaw 1961); Zbrodnie okupanta w czasie powstania warszawskiego w 1944 roku (w dokumentach) [The Crimes of the Occupying Power during the Warsaw Uprising in 1944 (in documents)] (Warsaw 1962); Ucieczki z niewoli niemieckiej [Escapes from German Captivity] (Warsaw 1966); Las sprawiedliwych. Karta z dziejów ratownictwa Żydów w okupowanej Polsce [The Forest of the Righteous. On the History of the Rescue of Jews in Occupied Poland] (Warsaw 1968); Z mądrości Talmudu [The Wisdom of the Talmud] (Warsaw 1988).
- Access points: locations:
- Białystok
- Access points: persons/families:
- Datner, Szymon
- Orłowska, Edwarda
- System of arrangement:
- The collection is arranged thematically.
- Finding aids:
- A digital inventory (2015) in Polish is available, including online.
- Yerusha Network member:
- The Taube Department of Jewish Studies of the University of Wrocław
- Author of the description:
- Monika Taras; The Emanuel Ringelblum Jewish Historical Institute; April 2018
