The Schillinger and Baumann family papers document Marie and Samuel Schillinger and their children Jan and Jiri’s efforts to emigrate from Prague, Czechoslovakia (now Czech Republic) to the United States after its annexation by Germany in 1938. The papers document their trip on the MS St. Louis from Hamburg, Germany to Havana, Cuba; their relocation to the Heijplaat refugee camp in the Netherlands; their move to Quito, Ecuador; and their immigration to the United States in 1942. The collection consists of biographical materials of the Schillinger and Baumann families from Užhorod, Prague, and Kosova Hora, Czechoslovakia; Samuel Schillinger’s soccer and dental careers; emigration and immigration papers; correspondence; memoirs; restitution claims against the Czech Republic and Germany; and photographs. It also includes an accretion of photographs, documents, correspondence, tallit (prayer shawl), tefilin (phylacteries) which belonged to Otokar Bauman (donor's maternal grandfather) who perished with his wife during the Holocaust.
Schillinger and Baumann family collection