+----------------------------------------------------------------------+ The Ronald S. Lauder Foundation Genealogy Project at the Jewish Institute of Poland +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ A JewishGen InfoFile The Ronald S. Lauder Foundation Genealogy Project at the Jewish Historical Institute of Poland Yale J. Reisner, Director of Research ul.Tlomackie 3/5, 00-090 Warsaw, POLAND TEL: (48-22) 827-9221 FAX(48-22)827-1843 email: laudergen@jewish.org.pl FAMILY... MATTERS! The Ronald S. Lauder Foundation Genealogy Project at the Jewish Historical Institute of Poland, Warsaw December 1996/ Kislev 5757 Dear Friends and Supporters, I am delighted to share with you some recent highlights on the Ronald S. Lauder Foundation Genealogy Project. There is much progress to report as the Jewish Historical Institute prepares for its fiftieth anniversary in 1997. Through your support, you have not only preserved history; you have made history! Read on to learn how much you have already achieved in rescuing the documentary legacy of Polish Jewry... SECURING THE PAST When the Ronald S. Lauder Foundation Genealogy Project was launched in 1994, a large portion of the archival material in the Jewish Historical Institute Archives lay in wooden crates, cardboard boxes or brown paper and string or simply exposed on wooden shelving. In some cases, archival materials lay in piles on storeroom floors for lack of proper housing. Some collections lacked identifying labels of any kind. Now, thanks to your generous contribution to the Ronald S. Lauder Foundation Genealogy Project and in coordination with United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the JHIP Archives has enough acid-free containers to properly store all its archival collections for the first time in the Archives' fifty years of existence. Thanks to you, all of these collections -- from seventeenth-century manuscripts and nineteenth century archives of major Jewish communities (e..g, Breslau and Cracow) to unique documentation of the Holocaust and of Polish Jewry's post-war institutions -- are now being rehoused in archivally sound, neatly labelled, acid free folders and boxes. In addition, your contributions to the Project have made possible the purchase of dozens of fireproof cabinets that will secure the physical safety of these collections, preserving them for future generations. - MENDING TORN MEMORIES For Holocaust survivors. and their children, the horrifying events of the past continue to cast a shadow on their lives today. The Genealogy Project is in touch with hundreds of survivor families throughout the world, helping them mend their torn memories, filling in troubling gaps in their memories and, at times, in their Identities. Some recent examples: Prima C. of Israel, a child Survivor; was helped to discover 'her own name' and was given information that led-- a few days later - - to a tearful reunion with her "brother and sister," the children of the Polish Catholic family with whom she had lived from 1944 to 1948; Child survivor Ruth H. of New York City was given the names of her parents and given long sought information about her parents' fate and about her own early childhood in hiding; Laja of Bialystok was helped to re-establish contact with her sister's sons in the United States. For more than fifty years, Ms. R. had not known that anyone of her family had survived. Using newly discovered death records from the Warsaw Ghetto, the Project has helped several people learn the fates of their loved ones-.. and given them a yahrzeit date to observe, providing an important degree of closure to their quests and, at last, an OpPortunity to mourn. MINING THE TREASURES The Archives of the Jewish Historical Institute and other repositories throughout Poland contain vast amounts of Jewish genealogical information that has yet to be cataloged and made available. Today's computer technology offers unprecedented opportunities for cataloging, while telecommunications technology offers the potential for worldwide information sharing. By providing computers, database software and data entry personnel, the Ronald S. Lauder Foundation Genealogy Project has been helping make "new" genealogical information accessible. Your contributions have made possible the purchase of computer equipment and database software for the Archives and the hiring of data entry clerks. As a result, progress is being made each day in creating computer-searchable databases of Jewish birth, marriage and death records, of Holocaust records, of post-war children's home records, of burials in Jewish cemeteries in various localities and of individuals seeking living relatives or information on the fates of missing persons, Most of this information is now becoming accessible for the first time. -In addition, Project funds have permitted the acquisition of materials that had been privately held, making them accessible to researchers. BUILDING THE FUTURE ON THE FOUNDATIONS OF THE PAST Jewish history is not just stories or our ancestors; it is what we live each day. Though somewhat different in nature from the Foundation's other educational activities, the Ronald S. Lauder Foundation Genealogy Project also plays a role in educating for the Jewish future. A few examples: The Project recently helped a twentyish young man establish through archival documentation that he was indeed, Jewish -- a fact he had long suspected, though the subject was a taboo in his non- church going family for many years. Having resolved this longstanding mystery, he then asked where he could get more information about Judaism. He was directed to the adult education programs of his local Ronald S. Lauder Foundation Youth Club and Education Center; Similarly, when a Warsaw Polytechnic student's inquiry about sources of Jewish information appeared on JewishGen, the Internet's Jewish genealogy bulletin board, Project staff directed him to the Warsaw Youth Club. A subsequent message thanked the Lauder Foundation for giving him his first Jewish holiday experience and the beginnings of what he hoped would be an ongoing Jewish education; When Project-assisted genealogical research by a man in his forties from a formerly Communist family yielded the information that his great-grandfather had not only been Jewish, but had actually underwritten the construction of a synagogue in the city of Przemysl, the man was moved to enroll his nine-year-old daughter in the Lauder-Morasha School so that she should have the Jewish education that he had been denied. In addition, Project staff regularly teach visitors from Poland, North America, Israel, Australia.and other countries about Jewish history, archival research, genealogy and onomastics, in the process, often fielding a surprising variety of questions on other Jewish subjects. "KNOW FROM WHENCE YOU CAME AND WHITHER YOU ARE GOING" In the year ahead, the Ronald S. Lauder Foundation Genealogy' Project hopes to continue and expand its activities. The Project will of course, continue helping individuals research their roots and reunite families. But, with your help, we hope to physically preserve more endangered documents. We have now protected them from outside elements; the next step is to ensure that internal threats - acid content, mildew, brittleness -- are neutralized -through physical repairs, disinfection arid chemical treatments of selected materials having intrinsic historical value. These processes are quite costly, yet necessary, if these treasures are to be saved We also hope take additional strides forward in using the potential of computers and telecommunications to make available to you more genealogical data than ever before. Funds permitting, we hope to create computerized finding aids to more genealogical material, to publish indices to several collections previously unknown to the research community, to preserve our photographic collections (including newly acquired, unpublished photos of the 1930s, '40s and '50s and possibly make them more accessible through CD-ROM technology, to find ways of using the Internet and the World Wide Web to assist the Jewish genealogical community more effectively in the future.. In addition; we would like to move towards the eventual creation of a permanent Ronald S. Lauder Foundation Genealogy Center within the rebuilt Jewish Historical Institute to serve visitors and correspondents from all over the world. MUCH ACCOMPLISHED, MUCH TO DO These are big dreams indeed, but, with your support, they can be realized. Three years ago, archival staff at the institute never dreamed that what the Project has already accomplished could ever occur. Thanks to you, everything can be properly stored; thanks to you, almost every archivist who needs one has a computer on his or her desk; thanks to you, families are being reunited, Jews are returning to their people, survivors are seeing the faces of their loved ones again after fifty years, unsettled hearts and troubled consciences are being given rest; thanks to you, seekers of knowledge are finding it; thanks to you, that which faced destruction at the hands of enemies or through the ravages of time is being saved. Thanks to you. Thank you. HOW YOU CAN HELP Your past support has been put to good and highly effective use. Should you wish to help us continue these efforts (or if you know others who might wish to do so), please be in touch with us in Warsaw or in New York (212-527-7806). Contributions (tax-deductible for US taxpayers) should be made payable to "The Ronald S. lauder Foundation," 767 Fifth Ave., Suite 4300, New York, NY 10153 USA and earmarked "Genealogy/Archives." In-kind assistance (archival supplies, computer equipment, historical materials, family trees) is also invited. -------------- [1May97yjr]bik (address update Mar 2001) Filename- PL-jip.txt Stored for download with authors permission. +----------------------------------------------------------------------+