This collection is located on-site.
Collection arranged in five series.
Series I contains material related to the political and cultural activities of Eastern European Jews in France, mainly in Paris, in the interwar period. At that time, Paris served as home to numerous grassroots organizations including aid and relief, cultural, workers, educational, political, medical, sport, anti-fascist, press, trade-unionist, women and other organizations, groups, and clubs. There are organizational records, correspondence, manuscripts, printed and handmade posters, flyers, event tickets, invitations and programs, calls for actions, appeals, photographs, drawings, etc. Notably this series contains an archive of the Kultur-Lige in Frankraych.
Series II comprises materials, mostly printed, related to social and political life of Jews on the territory of Ukraine, Lithuania, Russia, and Poland in the first quarter of the 20th century. There are posters, flyers, clippings, leaflets, open letters, periodicals, publications, propaganda ephemera in Hebrew, Russian, Ukrainian and Yiddish covering such subjects as revolutionary events of the 1910s, pogroms, anti-semitism, the 1917 revolution and the civil war. There are also materials of various Jewish organizations and groups including the Bund, Poalei Zion, Zionists, etc., and a group of material related to the Ukrainian People's Republic, including notable legislative acts on the statute of Jewish communities and Jewish autonomy, and other documents.
Series III includes materials of two Jewish organization. First, the Comité des Delegations Juives (Committee of Jewish Delegations), international body established in 1919 to alert the Paris Peace Conference to the grave situation of the Jews in various European countries and to obtain international guarantees for safeguarding their rights. Second, Jewish organization in China - Kharbinskoe Evreiskoe Dukhovnoe Obshchestvo, established in 1902 in Kharbin.
Series IV comprises correspondence relating to the creation of the Russkii Obshchekolonial'nyi komitet v Parizhe to protect the interests of Russian citizens.
Series V consists of notes, documents, and letters of Solomon Abramovich Lozovskii (1878-1952, born Dridzo, pseudonym - A. (Aleksei) Lozovksii), prominent bolshevik, participant in the revolutionary and trade union movement in Russia and France. There are mostly his notes on the professional labor movement abroad, mainly in France. His materials are of interest to researchers of unions and labor movement of the early 20th century, as well as for a biographer of Lozovskii.
Series I: Jewish Organizations and Groups in France, 1922-1947
Correspondence, manuscripts, organizational records, and printed materials relating to Jewish communist, socialist, workers', aid and relief organizations, groups and clubs in France in 1920s-1930s. There are appeals, event announcements and invitations, subscription lists, membership cards, regulations, declarations, leterheads, anti-pogrom, anti-war, anti-fascist, anti-imperialism propaganda flyers and posters both printed and handmade. In 1920s-1930s France, and Paris particularly, also served as home of several Yiddish cultural and scholarly organizations, most notably the Kulture-Lige of France (Kultur-Lige in Frankraych / Ligue Juive D'enseignement en France), which archive is a part of this Series.
Series II: Jews and Jewish Life in Imperial Russia and Eastern Europe, 1905-1939
Collection of materials, mostly printed, related to social and political life of Jews on the territory of Ukraine, Lithuania, Russia, and Poland in the first quarter of the 20th century. Thematically they cover such subjects as revolutionary events of the 1910s, pogroms, anti-semitism, the 1917 revolution and the civil war. Most of the items concern Jews and Jewish life, and others deal with the revolutionary movement and the civil war. Also included are materials of various Jewish organizations and groups among which are the Bund, Poalei Zion, Zionists, etc. There is a group of material related to the Ukrainian People's Republic, including notable legislative acts on the statute of Jewish communities and Jewish autonomy, and other documents.
Series III: International and Chinese Jewish Organizations, 1919-1930
Series IV: Russkii Obshchekolonial'nyi Komitet v Parizhe, 1917
Correspondence relating to the creation of the Russkii Obshchekolonial'nyi komitet v Parizhe to protect the interests of Russian citizens
Series V: A. (Aleksei) Lozovskii Materials, 1909-1913, 1917, undated
Letters, notes and documents of Solomon Abramovich Lozovskii (nom de plume - A. (Aleksei) Lozovskii; born - Dridzo), a prominent figure among high-ranking Bolsheviks, participant in the revolutionary and trade union movement in Russia and France, secretary of the Chambre Syndicale des Ouvriers Casquettiers. He was interested in workers' unions, workers insurance issues, establishment of fixed wage rates, organization of strikes to meet the demands of workers. He monitored and kept notes on the development of these matters mainly in France but also in other countries (Germany, Austria, Italy, etc).
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This collection is located on-site.
Reproductions may be made for research purposes. The RBML maintains ownership of the physical material only. Copyright remains with the creator and his/her heirs. The responsibility to secure copyright permission rests with the patron.
Identification of specific item; Date (if known); Zosa Szajkowski Collection; Box and Folder; Bakhmeteff Archive, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University Library.
In January 1982 Stephen D. Corrsin, then curator of the Bakhmeteff Archive add the Parti Communiste Français, Section Juive materials to the Szajkowski collection. He wrote in his note: "Even though we bought the French materials from a dealer named Frydman in 1958, all the items are stamped 'Z. Szajkowski' (in Yiddish), fell into his subject area, so it seems reasonable to do this." What Corrsin didn't know at the time was that Frydman and Szajkowski were the same person.
Collection: Method of acquisition--Purchase; Date of acquisition--1950.
Collection: Method of acquisition--Purchase; Date of acquisition--1958.
Columbia University Libraries, Rare Book and Manuscript Library
Collection Accessioned 1950.
Collection Accessioned 1958.
Collection Processed 07/--/81.
Collection Processed 01/--/82.
This collection was processed in 2022 by Katia Davidenko, with assistance of Sandra Chiritescu, GSAS '21 and Daniela Goodman Rabner, Barnard College '22. The processing of this collection was made possible by the Norman E. Alexander Fund for Jewish Studies. Finding aid written by Katia Davidenko.
Zosa Szajkowski, born Yehoshua or Szajko (Shaike or Shayke) Frydman, (10 January 1911, Zareby, Poland – 26 September 1978, New York), Jewish historian, archivist, bibliographer.
In 1927, Szajkowski moved to France, where he enrolled as a student at the Sorbonne. First he became involved in the French Communist movement but in the late 1930s, influenced by a group "of Jewish intellectuals from Poland, some of whom were previously connected to the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research in Vilna, and from Germany" he left the Communist movement (Source: https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/14512281.pdf).
With the outbreak of World War Two, Szajkowski became a member of the Foreign Legion, was wounded, and evacuated to Bordeaux and then to Carpentras. In 1941 (or late 1940), he moved to the United States, joined the United States Army, and served in Europe in the Normandy, Rhineland and Ardennes Campaigns as a combat paratrooper, interpreter, and interrogator.
From 1945 to 1978 Szajkowski was a research associate at the YIVO Institute. He authored works on a various topics in Jewish history, including the history of French Jewry and Jews in Eastern Europe.
During his life time, Szajkowski stole numerous documents related to Jewish history from French archives and sold them to libraries in the United States as detailed by Dr. Lisa Leff in "The Archive Thief: The Man Who Salvaged French Jewish History in the Wake of the Holocaust" (2015, OUP).
The subject headings listed below are found in this collection. Links below allow searches for other collections at Columbia University, through CLIO, the catalog for Columbia University Libraries, and through ArchiveGRID, a catalog that allows users to search the holdings of multiple research libraries and archives.
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