Scope and Content Note

The Jewish Labor Committee (U.S.) Records as a whole have been divided into three parts, each of which has been processed separately: Part I: Holocaust-Era Files, 1934-1947 (microfilmed); Part II: Holocaust-Era Files, 1948-1956, mostly documenting rescue and relief work and overseas political contacts (microfilmed); and Part III: Administrative Files, 1957-1990s, and Anti-Discrimination Department Files, 1943-1960s (not microfilmed), documenting organizational activities in general from the late 1950s to the 1990s, and domestic anti-discrimination activities from the mid-1940s through the 1990s.

This finding aid describes the Jewish Labor Committee (U.S.) Records, Part II only. The JLC's Holocaust-related records for 1948-1956 include minutes, convention proceedings, reports, press releases, correspondence, survivors' biographical files, financial records and a wide range of printed material. Documented in detail are the JLC's efforts to sustain and resettle victims of the Holocaust, continuing contacts with socialist and trade-union leaders in post-War Europe, campaigns against Communism in the U.S. and on behalf of the rights of Soviet Jewry, and proposals for liberalizing U.S. immigration policy. Also included is a small amount of general material documenting the JLC's anti-discrimination work.

Part II is divided into four series, with a number of sub-series. A considerable amount of correspondence and many reports, flyers, clippings and other documents are in Yiddish.

Series I: Administrative and Organizational Records, is comprised of a constitution, minutes, convention records, incoming and outgoing correspondence of JLC officers and staff (including Lasar Epstein, Samuel Estrin, Joseph Godson, Adolph Held, Walter Kirschenbaum, Emanuel Muravchik and Jacob Pat), general subject files, division records and clippings scrapbooks. (NOTE: The JLC's Women's Division was founded in 1947 and the Workmen's Circle Division in 1946; the few early files for those groups have been included in this series to avoid dividing the record of their activity between Parts I and II.)

Series II: American Cities, is comprised of incoming and outgoing correspondence, as well as clippings and notices, documenting JLC activity and contacts in U.S. cities and towns. The files are arranged alphabetically by state, and by town or city within each state.

Series III: Foreign Countries, is comprised of incoming and outgoing correspondence (much of it in Yiddish) with survivors, refugees, political sympathizers and others in many countries. Canadian files document activity of JLC branches in that country. The files for France, Poland, Italy, Sweden and Israel contain a good deal of correspondence relating to JLC aid efforts directed at East European survivors in those countries. The files for Germany are largely devoted to correspondence with two JLC representatives in the Displaced Persons camps, Nathan Gierowitz and Bella Meiksin.

Series IV: Immigration, Resettlement and Refugee Aid, is comprised of files relating to location of surviving relatives, procurement of visas, aid to child survivors in Europe and Israel, and efforts to secure reparations for survivors from the German and Austrian governments. Sub-series D and E are made up of biographical files of child survivors (mostly in France and Italy) and card-files of biographical information on survivors in DP camps. Sub-series F consists of JLC financial ledgers, with entries for expenditures on both foreign and domestic aid to refugees, among other expenses and receipts. (NOTE: Sub-series F was transferred after filming for Part I was completed, it therefore contains records from 1934-1949 records.)