Ilie Wacs family papers

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum 

Ilie Wacs (1927- ) was born in Vienna, Austria to tailor Moritz Wacs (1895-1957) and his wife Henia Fach (1900-1972). Ilie's younger sister Deborah (Debra) was born in 1935. After the Nazi annexation of Austria, Moritz's successful tailor shop was"aryanized" In August 1939, the family sailed from Genoa to Shanghai. They lived in Hongkew, Moritz worked as a custom tailor, and Ilie and Deborah attended school. Conditions deteriorated after the United States entered the war, and in 1943 the Wacs were forced by the Japanese occupiers into a Shanghai ghetto. Following their liberation in 1945, they learned that nearly all of their family who had remained in Europe had perished. In 1949, the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, offered Ilie a scholarship to study at art in Paris. His parents and sister immigrated to the United States in 1950, Ilie joined them, and he was naturalized in 1956. 

Ilie Wacs family papers 

box folder 1 1 

The Ilie Wacs family papers consist of biographical materials and correspondence documenting members of Ilie Wacs’ family in Vienna and their emigration to Shanghai, photographs documenting the Wacs family and their friends, and printed materials documenting Jewish refugee life and Ilie Wacs’ participation in Jewish cultural youth organizations in Shanghai. Deborah Wacs materials include identification papers. Henia Wacs materials include identification papers, registration records, and tax documents. Ilie Wacs materials include identification, membership, and travel papers; student records; ORT training records; and correspondence documenting Wacs’ participation in cultural activities in Shanghai. Moritz Wacs materials include identification and membership papers, training and employment records, business and professional association records, registration and tax records, and emigration records. Photographs depict Ilie Wacs and his family and friends in Vienna, en route to Shanghai, and in Shanghai. Printed materials include newspapers published for the refugee community in Shanghai, magazines and newsletters published and illustrated by Ilie Wacs and other members of the Jewish youth community in Shanghai, publications commemorating the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and the establishment of the state of Israel, and cards and stamps illustrated by Wacs promoting the planting of memorial trees in Israel. 

The Ilie Wacs family papers are arranged as six series: I. Deborah Wacs materials, 1938-1947, II. Henia Wacs materials, 1939-1945, III. Ilie Wacs materials, 1928-1950, IV. Moritz Wacs materials, 1913-1948, V. Photographs, approximately 1928-1949, VI. Printed materials, 1940-1951