United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Lena Fishman Fagen was born Lena Fischmann in Russia. Before World War II, she worked in Paris at the Liaison Committee for the High Commissioner for Refugees. She fled Paris when the Germans invaded, made her way to Marseilles, and found work with Varian Fry and the Emergency Rescue Committee. She escaped to the United States via Lisbon with Fry's help in December 1940 and continued her work for the Emergency Rescue Committee in New York. She returned to Europe after World War II and worked as a document screener for the prosecution at the Nuremberg war crime trials.
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The Lena Fishman Fagen papers are arranged as four series: Series 1: Alfred Rosenberg correspondence with Nazi party officials, 1924-1944 Series 2: Alfred Rosenberg correspondence with Reich offices, 1926-1944 Series 3: Alfred Rosenberg general correspondence, 1921-1945 Series 4: Publications and trial briefs, circa 1946-1951
The Lena Fishman Fagen collection consists of original documents Fagen collected while working as a chief document screener for the prosecution at the Nuremberg war crime trials. Most of the records are original signed correspondence addressed to Alfred Rosenberg or his adjutants, Adolf von Trotha or Werner Koeppen. Correspondents include high-ranking Nazi party officials such as Adolf Hitler, Hermann Göring, Hans Frank, and Joseph Goebbels. The collection also includes four Nuremberg trial briefs and a 1951 report on the sentences of Nuremberg-convicted war criminals.
Lena Fishman Fagen collection