Abraham silver note
Abraham Silberschein (born as Adolf Henryk Silberschein on March 30, 1882 in Lemberg , Austria-Hungary; died on December 30, 1951 in Geneva ) was a Polish lawyer, Zionist and from 1922–1927 a member of the first Sejm .
Life
Jakub and Anna Silberschein's son opened a law firm in Lemberg.
During World War I he took part in humanitarian campaigns for Jewish-Galician war refugees in Vienna .
In the 1920s he was the leader of the Zionist Workers' Party Poale-Hitachut in Eastern Galicia, where he was elected to the Polish parliament, the Sejm, in 1922. His greatest achievement in this capacity was the creation of Jewish credit unions in the country. In March 1930 Joseph C. Hyman nominated him and Isaac Joffe from Riga as C-member of the JDC .
As a participant in the 21st Zionist Congress in Geneva in August 1939 , he was surprised by the outbreak of war. He decided to stay in Switzerland and gave up his original first name Adolf, and later the second, Alfred (sic).
On September 30, he founded an aid committee for the war-affected Jewish population in Geneva: RELICO ( Relief Committee for Jewish War Victims ). This was supported by the WJC . In the Geneva office of the WJC, which was founded in September 1936, he was one of Gerhart M. Riegner's most important employees alongside Myra Becker , although there were later disagreements.
In the first half of 1942 he sent 100,000 parcels with 52,000 kg of relief supplies to Poland. His package action was forbidden by the WJC leadership because it contradicted the Allied line. After he had to leave the Geneva office in the summer of 1942 and worked alone, the name RELICO was used both by him and by the WJC.
Silberschein earned a reputation for working particularly carefully, so that his services were used by both charitable organizations and private individuals.
Passport affair and arrest
Silver note played an important role in the rescue operation organized by the Polish legation for the Jews through the production of false Latin American passports. In 1942 he hired RELICO to sell ID cards and contributed his own fortune.
Initially, the activities were only sporadic. In the years 1942–43, however, they were carried out on a large scale. Silberschein was in contact with the Polish diplomats Juliusz Kühl , Stefan Ryniewicz and Konstanty Rokicki , to whom he gave the lists of names and photos smuggled out of the ghettos. These details were used to fill in the blank passports that were bought by the corrupted honorary consul of Paraguay and Bern notary Rudolf Hüggli . Silberschein was one of the people who raised bribes for Hüggli. He also worked with the Peruvian consul José María Barreto and likely with other Latin American consuls. José María Barreto was later declared Righteous Among the Nations by the Yad Vashem Institute .
In autumn 1943 he was arrested by the Swiss police. He testified at the time that he was acting on instructions from Ryniewicz and Rokicki, from whom he also learned about the mechanism of the pass operation. According to Silberschein, Ryniewicz and Rokicki have also asked him to coordinate the activities. In this way, the blank passes could be bought in large numbers, which resulted in a reduction in their price. “We were dealing with a true passport black market. The gentlemen from the embassy have expressed the wish that I take responsibility for the matter, which I did on behalf of RELICO ” - said Silberschein. According to Silberschein, the money for the purchase of the Hüggli passports "came from various sources, including the Palestine Committee in Jerusalem, the World Jewish Congress in New York and other Jewish organizations in New York and Istanbul as well as private individuals in the USA and Switzerland" .
Counselor Stefan Ryniewicz successfully campaigned for silver note after his arrest.
It is estimated that the Ładoś group saved the lives of 400 Jews. They were the holders of the Paraguayan passports. In the operation in which Silberschein took part, one should also consider people who, thanks to u. a. the passports of other countries were saved.
Next life
In 1944 he married Fanny Hirsch. In the same year he published "The Extermination of the Jews in Poland", and in 1945 the record "Warsaw: the destruction of the Jewish community up to the great revolt / [a young Jewish doctor and officer in the Polish army]".
Individual evidence
- ↑ http://search.archives.jdc.org/multimedia/Documents/NY_AR2132/00034/NY_AR2132_03204.pdf
- ↑ https://www.afz.ethz.ch/bestaende/cad48d92370044fb9a815da4db6bc6b1.pdf
- ↑ http://peterkamber.de/files/baz/240499.pdf
- ↑ a b Protocol of the investigation by A. Silberschein and F. Hirsch, September 1, 1943, Federal Archives in Bern
- ↑ Notice du Chef de la Division de Police du Departement de Justice et Police, H. Rothmund, dodis.ch/11958, E 4800 (A) 1967/111/328, Bern, 6 September 1943
- ↑ Zbigniew Parafianowicz and Michal Potocki, How a Polish envoy in Bern saved hundreds of Jews, August 10, 2017, www.swissinfo.ch
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Silver note, Abraham |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Silberschein, Adolf Henryk (maiden name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Polish lawyer, Zionist, member of the first Sejm |
| DATE OF BIRTH | March 30, 1882 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Lviv , Austria-Hungary |
| DATE OF DEATH | December 30, 1951 |
| Place of death | Geneva |