Jewish Federation of St. Louis Community Archives

FAIN: PG-263520-19

Jewish Federation of Saint Louis (St. Louis, MO 63146-5776)
Diane Everman (Project Director: April 2018 to present)

A preservation assessment of 700 cubic feet of material related to Jewish life before, during, and after the Holocaust. The collection is held by the Holocaust Museum & Learning Center Archives, which is part of the Jewish Federation of St. Louis, and includes oral histories, films, artifacts, photographs, artwork, letters and archival records that chronicle the movement of immigrants who made their way to St. Louis.  Additional materials document the World War II experience, including the activities of American soldiers who fought in Europe and helped liberate camps.  Several collections focus on individual Jewish families, such as the Schweich Collection, which traces the history of a family living in France, some of whose members joined the French Foreign Legion and later the resistance, before immigrating to St. Louis.  Besides offering recommendations to improve environmental and storage conditions in the center’s current location, the consultant would also assist with planning for its anticipated move and expansion.

The humanities collections of the Holocaust Museum and Learning Center consist of 235 oral histories (48 feet linear feet of material, 9 cubic feet of films, 5 cubic feet) of photographs, and 5 cubic feet of Holocaust-related films. It includes photographs, material culture, pre- and post-WWII personal items, period items and documents, military items, money, publications, letters, press items, sheet music, artwork, LPs, films etc. The Archives has two relatively large collections of documents relating to the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg. The collections offer personal views into life in pre-WWII Europe, the changes with the rise of the Third Reich and the Holocaust and the war’s aftermath. The material illustrates post-war struggles and the movement of people making their way to St. Louis. The project’s goal is to conduct a formal assessment identifying short-term goals to guide and assist us in addressing the long-term preservation issues of the collections.