Jewish Relief Unit: Document collections from former members

The deposits were received by the Wiener Library mostly in 1984 as a result of an appeal made at a reunion of former JRU workers in October 1983. 

The Jewish Relief Unit was the operational arm of the Jewish Committee for Relief Abroad which was formed in 1943 by the Joint Foreign Committee of the Board of Deputies and the Anglo-Jewish Association and under the auspices and financial responsibility of the Central British Fund for Jewish Relief and Rehabilitation. 

Jewish Relief Unit: Document collections from former members 

2 boxes 

This collection comprises numerous deposits of personal documents made by former members of the Jewish Relief Unit, a voluntary organisation established to provide relief to Jews in Europe during the Second World War. The bulk of the collections are from regular JRU volunteers and consist mainly of copy photographs and copy personal accounts.

In addition, the copy personal papers of Phyllis Gerson, the leader of the first Jewish Relief Unit sent to Egypt in February 1944, provide a more substantial account of the organisation and activities of the JRU units in Europe.

The other significant collection consists of the original and contemporary copy papers of George Weis, the former JRU legal adviser. These papers document his activities with regard to his involvement with post-war restitution claims, liaison between the JRU and the post-war occupying authorities and his efforts to resurrect the careers of Jewish lawyers in Germany who had survived the Holocaust. 

Open 

The collections have been arranged alphabetically according to the name of the JRU volunteer to whom they refer. The papers have been arranged chronologically within each collection. 

See also WL Doc collection 1232 for similar deposits and WL Doc Collection : 'Henriques Archive' for the core administrative records of the Jewish Committee for Relief Abroad and the Jewish Relief Unit.