A collection of about 140 pieces of paper from the Second World War period from the estate of the Jewish Holocaust survivor Alexander Singer from Vienna, telling his story. Of these, about 100 letters he wrote and his personal documents between 1936 and 1945, and the rest about 40 photographs from the time of the war and after, in which Singer and other Jews were seen in various places. Among other things, there are photographs of Jewish places in Vienna where he stayed, such as a synagogue, Jewish cemeteries (Singer himself near the graves of his buried ancestors), photographs of Singer's friends who survived, and those who perished, and more. Vienna, Dunajská Streda, and other places: 1936-1945.
According to the many letters, Singer was captured by the Nazis, and led to a number of prisons within Austrian territory, while trying to establish connections to obtain an immigration visa to the United States. At one point in the early 1940s, Singer managed to escape from Austrian territory, and after staying in several hiding places to reach the United States. Many of the letters are written in encrypted form, and the details that appear in them about him and other Jews he knew and knew about their fate were deliberately altered so as not to turn himself and them over to the Nazi enemy.
Among them are: an invitation to report to the Vienna police station, many letters Singer wrote from his imprisonment to his relatives, wife, and children during the war with Nazi ink stamps, and letters they sent to him at a time when they knew where he was (expressing their hope that after the war they would meet), Letters he wrote from a hiding place in the Donáska Strada region of Slovakia, many letters he sent to his friends and people he knew in an attempt to locate his family members who were each taken to a different place, an Austrian identity card attacked only in occupied German territories, several pre-war Singer documents At the Vienna Gymnasium, letters he wrote from a prison with very severe censorship instructions, photographs showing him in post-war physical activity strengthening his wounded body, letters he wrote after the war in which he longed to rest in blue skies and forget the horrors of war, and many other documents and letters Which have not been thoroughly examined by us.
With the annexation of Austria to Nazi Germany, the "Anschluss" on March 13, 1938, the fate of the Jews of Austria changed from end to end. By 1942, almost all Jews (about 220,000 in number) had to emigrate. After Kristallnacht thousands of families were evacuated from their homes. In August 1938, the "Central Office for Jewish Immigration" was established in Vienna, under the command of Adolf Eichmann. The ministry organized the exile, persecution and deportation of Austrian Jews, and a special department was established to entrust Jewish property to Aryan hands. After about a year, Eichmann informed IKG that all Jews who did not emigrate within one year would be deported to the occupied territories of Poland. Beginning in 1941, Jews were deported to the Lublin area, to the Lodz ghetto, to the ghettos in Minsk and Kaunas, and finally to the Mauthausen camp. Singer managed for a while to hide under different identities, thus saving his life.
As mentioned, the collection has not been thoroughly examined (especially the contents of the many letters), general condition very good.
