Bernhard Haas papers

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum 

Bernhard Haas papers 

folder 1 

Two handwritten notebooks kept by Bernhard Haas, a Jewish prisoner in the Atlit detention camp near Haifa, 1944. Includes journal, poems and transcripts of letters. The date and place of writing are recorded on the first page of each notebook: Camp 195, Haifa, February 1944 / Camp 119, Atlit-Haifa, April 1944. The first notebook opens with a brief summary of Haas's life story until his arrest, including his childhood in Giessen, being orphaned of both his parents, the rise of the Nazis to power in Germany, his voyage to Palestine from Trieste, his studies in the Mikveh Israel agricultural school, his conscription to the British Army and his arrival in the Atlit detention camp. The rest of the notebook comprises transcripts of letters (mostly of romantic content; some were sent from the Latrun detention camp and from the Kurdani camp) and transcripts of poems, some of which were composed by Haas himself. Bernhard Haas, a Jewish immigrant from Germany, was detained in several British detention camps in Palestine. Two notebooks. [1], 118; [24] written pages.