Metadata: Bequest of Gustaw Kerszman
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/375
- Title:
- Bequest of Gustaw Kerszman
- Title (official language):
- Spuścizna Gustawa Kerszmana
- Creator/accumulator:
- Kerszman, Gustaw
- Date(s):
- 1932/2014
- Date note:
- 1904-2014
- Language:
- Polish
- English
- Danish
- Russian
- German
- Yiddish
- Extent:
- 12 archival units (0.1 linear metre)
- Type of material:
- Textual material
- Photographic images
- Physical condition:
- Good
- Scope and content:
-
The collection includes:
Documents of Gustaw Kerszman:
ref. nos. 1-2: Personal documents (1949-1976), 9 photos, ID cards, indexes, passports, diplomas, "Travel Document" from 1969, diploma for renewing his PhD at the University of Łódź 24 May 2010.
ref. no. 3: Text by Gustaw Kerszman "The antisemitic campaign in Poland 1967-1969, typescript, 137 pages.
ref. no. 4: Gustaw Kerszman - biographies of family members: father Józef Kerszman, grandparents Anna and Józef Zeligman, review of the biographical book: Gustaw Kerszman, How to die together.
ref. no. 5: Correspondence from 1937-2004.
Documents of Dr. Józef Kerszman, ophthalmologist, father of Gustaw (1897-1943):
ref. no. 6: Personal papers (1916-1942), including documents from the Białystok ghetto, ID cards, diplomas, passports from 1915, 1916, 1933, 1940; military books from 1918 and 1931; correspondence from [1912], 1916-1939.
ref. no. 7: Ophthalmology dissertations and scientific notes, including patent and brochure "On the use of optical lenses with a gas mask”.
Documents of Alina Salomea Kerszman (née Zeligman) (born 1908):
ref. no. 8: Personal papers (1908-2004) and correspondence (1944-1987); including “Travel Document” from 1969.
Zeligman family documents:
ref. no. 9: Personal papers of Józef Zeligman (1882-1943) and Dr. Anna Nechama Zeligman (née Pozner) (1883-1943), parents of Alina Salomea Kerszman, from 1911-1939.
ref. no. 10: Family correspondence from 1904-1939.
ref. no. 11: Literary works and translations of poems by Lermontov and Niekrasów into Polish.
ref. no. 12: Józef Kerszman's postage stamp collection.
- Archival history:
- The bequest of Gustaw Kerszman was donated on 25 June 2014 by his friend, Dr Helena Datner.
- Administrative/biographical history:
-
Gustaw Kerszman (1932 - 24 December 2014) was a professor of microbiology and genetics. He grew up in an assimilated Jewish family. He was the son of Józef Kerszman and Alina (née Zeligman). He spent his childhood years in Białystok. After the German attack on the Soviet Union in 1941, he and his family went to the Białystok ghetto. In the years 1943–1945 he hid in Warsaw and, after the fall of the Warsaw Uprising in 1944, in Skierniewice. After the end of the war, he moved to Łódź and graduated in microbiology at the University of Łódź.
From 1954 to 1969, he worked at the Department of Microbiology at the University of Łódź, and then from 1967 as a habilitated associate professor. In 1969, after the anti-Semitic campaign started in March 1968, he emigrated to Denmark. Initially, he worked at the University of Copenhagen and from 1972 to 2002 he lectured in molecular biology and genetics at the University of Roskilde. He retired in 2002. He died in Copenhagen in 2014.
In 1967, he published Restriction of the lambda bacteriophage in the W Escherichla coli strain. His other publications include: Zarys genetyki (with Bohdan Rodkiewicz, PWN, 1987), Biologisk energetik og enzymkinetik (with B. Munch-Petersen, Roskilde, 1991) and his memoirs from the occupation years Jak ginąć to razem [If we have to die, let’s do it together] (2006).
- Access points: locations:
- Białystok
- Access points: persons/families:
- Kerszman, Gustaw
- Kerszman, Józef
- Access, restrictions:
- The deed of donation from 2014 states that “private letters can be made available to professionals in 15 years and to general readers in a further 15 years. The remaining documents can be made available immediately without reservation."
- Finding aids:
- A digital inventory in Polish is available in the Jewish Historical Institute’s reading room and archive.
- Yerusha Network member:
- The Taube Department of Jewish Studies of the University of Wrocław
- Author of the description:
- Agnieszka Reszka; The Emanuel Ringelblum Jewish Historical Institute; May 2020
