Kurt Gutfreund papers

Kurt Gutfreund papers 

Kurt Gutfreund papers 

folders 14 

The Kurt Gutfreund papers include biographical materials, Theresienstadt postcards and receipts, photographs, and a clipping. The Theresienstadt material documents Kurt Gutfreund’s imprisonment in the Theresienstadt concentration camp from 1943-1945 with his mother Hildegard. Postcards and receipts primarily document packages Hildegard’s sister sent them in Theresienstadt. Some of the postcards include coded messages from Hildegard in the addressee field requesting specific foods in the next package (for example “Dear Onion” to indicate she wanted onions). Additional postcards from the Gutfreunds and others in Theresienstadt provide general information about their lives in the camp. The collection also includes a Czech registration and repatriation certificate issued to Kurt following the Holocaust and a certificate documenting Hildegard’s classification as Jewish by the Nazi regime based on her maternal grandparent’s religion. Photographs depict Kurt and his parents before the war. One of the photographs and a clipping depict Kurt’s mother when she was featured among “the most beautiful saleswomen in Vienna” in the Austrian cultural magazine Die Bühne. 

The Kurt Gutfreund papers are arranged as a single series.