us-005578-irn556046-irn601200
type: RecordSet
has beginning date: 1850-01-01
has beginning date: 1920-01-01
has end date: 1950-12-31
has end date: 2015-12-31
has or had holder: us-005578
has or had identifier: 1
has or had some members with language: eng
has or had some members with language: pol
has or had some members with language: deu
has or had some members with language: yid
has or had subject: 73
has or had subject: 843
has or had subject: 1980
has or had subject: 701
has record set type: Item
history: Henry Wachs was born Heinz Wachs, on 17 July 1916, the son of the businessman Isidor Wachs (1883-1943?) and his wife, Herta (née Salomon, 1893-?) Wachs, in Mrotschen, in what was then the Prussian province of Posen (modern day, Mrocza, Poland), and the family had roots in the town of Rogasen (present-day Rogozno, Poland), just to the south. The Wachs family had another son, Alfred, and Herta moved with her two sons to Berlin during the war, where Isidor joined them afterward. Since their home region was ceded to Poland after World War I, they opted to retain German citizenship and remain in Berlin. Heinz Wachs completed his schooling in Berlin in 1933, but since his way to university studies was barred by anti-Semitic regulations of the newly ascendant Nazi regime, he chose to pursue a trade, and began an apprenticeship with the printing firm of Martin Philipsen, studying to be a typesetter. During this period, he continued vocational schooling in the evenings, in order to learn graphic design, and completed his apprenticeship and training in 1937. When he sought to find a position, as well as further training opportunities, he soon realized that his opportunities were limited due to the increasing anti-Semitic regulations and he began to explore the possibilities for emigration, as his older brother Alfred, and many of his friends were already doing. Through a number of contacts, including the family of Theodor Schocken, for whose department store he had designed advertisements—and whose family knew the Wachs and Salomon families from their shared origins in Rogasen—he had learned of distant relatives of the Wachs and Salomon families that had immigrated to the United States decades earlier, and had settled in the San Francisco Bay Area. Eventually, members from those families agreed to sponsor him, and he left for the United States in the fall of 1938. After arrival, he was employed as a graphic designer, and built a successful career in this field, based in San F…
history: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
identifier: irn601200
is or was included in: us-005578-irn556046
record resource extent: boxes oversize folder 5 1
record resource structure: The collection is organized into the following series, and arranged within each series alphabetically by folder title: I. Biographical 1850-1969, II. Correspondence 1902-1999, III. Immigration 1938-1948, IV. Photographs 1913-2015 and undated, V. Professional 1933-1945 and undated.
results or resulted from: 1
scope and content: The Henry (Heinz) Wachs family papers consist of correspondence, documents, and photographs related to his family’s life in Prussia and Germany (Berlin) in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, his education and training as a typesetter and graphic designer during the 1930s, his immigration to the United States as a response to Nazi persecution in 1938, and his subsequent efforts to help his brother, parents, and other relatives emigrate. Also documented are the experiences of his brother, Alfred, in emigration and as a detainee in internment camps in England and Australia, 1940-1942; as well as his parents in emigration in Belgium, and his father’s internment by the Nazis in France, 1940-1942. The Biographical series contains documents not only pertaining to Henry Wachs and his immediate family (parents, and brother Alfred), but also to other members of his extended family, including his grandfather, Nathan Wachs, dating to the mid-19th century. Included are birth certificates, identification documents, educational records, military service records, vaccination records, and membership cards from Jewish sports organizations, as well as other general documents and ephemera. Items of note include an album assembled for the wedding of Henry's parents, Isidor and Herta, in 1913, containing congratulatory telegrams, poems, and a mock-newspaper announcing the wedding. Military records from Nathan Wachs show his service in the Prussian Army prior to German unification, and his son, Isidor’s, service in the German Army during World War I. In addition, residency and citizenship papers for Isidor Wachs document his choice of German citizenship after World War I, when changing boundaries placed his homeland in Polish territory. The Correspondence series contains letters from many of Henry’s friends in Berlin, as well as extensive correspondence to and from his brother, Alfred, and his parents, primarily following Henry’s departure from Germany. Correspondence from his friend…
title: Henry (Heinz) Wachs family papers