United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Dorothea Grater Minskoff (1910-1986) was born in Pennsylvania, graduated from the University of Pennsylvania’s law school in 1934, and married fellow graduate Emanuel Minskoff. There were very few women in law school at the time, and when she was unable to find a job as an attorney, she worked as a secretary for the American Bankers Association. Through her classmate Josiah Dubois, she and Emanuel were recruited to be a part of the Nuremburg prosecution. She served as part of the prosecution team for the Ministries trial in the late 1940s, and then worked at the Justice Department until the late 1960s. Emanuel E. Minskoff (1909-1965) was born in New York City, graduated from the University of Pennsylvania’s law school in 1934, and married fellow graduate Dorothea Grater. Minskoff practiced as a private attorney from 1934 to 1942 in New York City and then moved to Washington, DC, to work as an international finance attorney with the Treasury Department. He served as a legal advisor to the 1944 conference at Bretton Woods and helped draft the agreement for the International Monetary Fund. In 1945 he was appointed chief of the Individual Assets Investigation Branch of the Finance Division of the U.S. Forces in Europe. Through his classmate Josiah Dubois, he and Dorothea were recruited to be a part of the Nuremburg prosecution. Beginning in 1947, he served the War Department as part of the prosecution team for the I.G. Farben trial. He returned to the Treasury Department and worked to freeze Chinese assets in America and block remittances to and trade with China, becoming chief enforcement officer of the Foreign Assets Control Division in 1956.
box 1
Emanuel E. and Dorothea G. Minskoff papers are arranged as five series: Series 1: Correspondence, 1944-1950 Series 2: Photographs, circa 1946 Series 3: Printed material, 1948-1985 Series 4: Scrapbook, 1945-1955 Series 5: Subject Files, 1945-1980
The Emanuel E. and Dorothea G. Minskoff papers include correspondence, photographs, printed materials, a scrapbook, and subject files documenting Emanuel E. Minskoff’s work for the Individual Assets Investigation Branch in postwar Europe, his work on the I.G. Farben Trial, and Dorothea G. Minskoff’s work on the Ministries Trial, which were part of the Subsequent Nuremberg Proceedings in Nuremberg, Germany. The papers also include information about Emanuel E. Minskoff’s work for the Treasury Department’s Foreign Assets Control Division regarding remittances to and trade with China in the early 1950s. Correspondence consists of letters from Emanuel to Dorothy from May 1945 through June 1950 describing his early work for the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Forces conducting interrogations of Nazi officials and reviewing the records of I.G. Farben in order to locate foreign assets, as well as his later work on the prosecution team for the I.G. Farben case. This series also includes a couple of memoranda among members of the trial team. Photographs depict lawyers, judges, and witnesses during the I.G. Farben trial and Ministries trial including, for example, Dorothea Minskoff, Emanual Minskoff, Josiah E. Dubois, Jr., Ruth Benedicta Kempner, and British POWs. Printed material consists of photocopies of newspaper clippings about the I.G. Farben and Ministries trials, the Holocaust, the internment of Japanese-Americans, German anti-Semitism after the war, Jewish- Arab relations, efforts to bring war criminals to justice, and Emanuel Minskoff’s obituary. This series also includes notes for a letter to the editor of the Washington Evening Star about the Ministries trial. The scrapbook contains photographs, correspondence, passes, military papers, and clippings documenting Emanuel Minskoff’s postwar denazification work for the Treasury Department and prosecutorial work at the I.G. Farben trial for the War Department. These materials also include photographs taken at the Göring family castle Veldenstein and a photograph of the Göring family dedicated to Emanuel Minskoff by Edda Göring. The scrapbook also includes photographs and clippings documenting Minskoff’s Treasury Department work blocking remittances to and trade with China during the early 1950s. Subject files include correspondence and writings documenting a draft executive order on foreign exchanges after the war, Emanuel Minskoff’s report on the deportation of Harry Bridges and the loyalty investigation he subsequently endured, a reunion of Nuremberg prosecutors, and reviews of books about General Lucius Clay. This series also includes writings by Emanuel Minskoff and others about the postwar situation in the United States and Germany and about the Nuremberg trials.
Emanuel E. and Dorothea G. Minskoff papers