Max Weinreich in Copenhagen: Follow-up

by ROBERTA NEWMAN

On August 29, we posted an article about how YIVO founder Max Weinreich and his son were stranded in Copenhagen in the early days of World War II. In it, the author, Bent Blüdnikow, wrote also about the small community of Yiddish-speaking Jews who took the Weinreichs in and about how these Jews, including Blüdnikow’s grandfather, Abraham Krakowsky, stayed in touch with YIVO over the years.

After the war, when the Danish Jews returned from Sweden, where they had been evacuated by the Danish underground and thus saved from death at the hands of the Nazis, Krakowsky and others began sending documents chronicling the social, cultural, and religious revival of the community to YIVO. They were zamlers (collectors), members of the worldwide network of volunteers who helped build the collections of the YIVO Archives and Library both before and after World War II.

Here are a few examples of what they sent to YIVO in the late 1940s and 50s, and which can now be found in RG 116 Territorial Collections – Denmark.

Digitization of images by Vital Zajka, YIVO Archives.

Flyer for a concert of Yiddish music by Lea Scheinfeld and Nathan Szpiro, performers from Israel, to benefit the Jewish Artisans’ Self-Help Association, Copenhagen, Denmark, ca. 1949. (YIVO Archives)

Invitation sent to Abraham Krakowsky for a literary and musical evening with refreshments (cake) sponsored by the Danish YIVO Committee. Included in the event was a discussion about the continuation of the teaching of Yiddish in Danish Jewish schools. Copenhagen, Denmark, ca. 1949. (YIVO Archives)

Program for an evening of Jewish music and theater sponsored by the Yiddish Library and Yiddish Culture Group, Copenhagen, Denmark, 1948. Abraham Krakowsky delivered a reading of excerpts from “new Yiddish literature.” (YIVO Archives)

Flyer for the “Bar Mitzwo” slate in the Jewish Community elections, Copenhagen, Denmark, 1949. (YIVO Archives)