Zosa Szajkowski

Zosa Szajkowski , b. Yehoshua Frydman , (born January 10, 1911 in Zaromb Masovia , † September 26, 1978 in New York ) was a Polish historian who dealt primarily with the history of the Jews in France , later with those in the United States. He fought fascism in Spain, joined the Foreign Legion , and brought numerous documents to the USA to secure them. Without ever having obtained an academic degree, he published around 200 specialist articles and 11 monographs. At the same time he stole numerous archive materials for around four decades until he put an end to his life.

Life

Zosa Szajkowski was born as Yehoshua Frydman in 1911 in Zaręby Kościelne, which the Yiddish- speaking population called Zaromb and which was in the Łomża region . As a ten-year-old, together with classmates in his village, he managed to get all the books and documents of the local families into a school collection, which they had managed to finance themselves through public appearances. The community members believed they could better protect their culture in this way, especially since since 1920 school no longer had to teach Yiddish but Polish.

The idea that the scholars have the task of keeping in hand the documents that are important to Jewish history deeply shaped the young Frydman. He apparently acquired accounts and other documents early on, but the processes can hardly be reconstructed. In addition, this type of “saving” cultural goods through appropriation was common practice in the 19th and well into the 20th century, as was the case with the Qumran scrolls . But at some point this attitude must have changed with Frydman-Szajkowski, because he apparently sold the looted property to anyone who was willing to pay, be it a library, be it a collector, so that the archive material that he originally wanted to collect again were scattered.

But at first his life took a different turn. The youth fled to Paris in 1927 before the pogroms . There he joined the Communist Party and convinced a number of Jews to take part in the fight against Franco in Spain. However, he found that the Stalin- controlled Communist Party in Spain was trying to enforce the leadership in the fight against Franco by force. Frydman resigned from the party and changed his name from Frydman to Szajkowski for fear of persecution.

At the beginning of the Second World War , Szajkowski joined the Foreign Legion, but he was injured and made his way to England. After all, he worked in the US Army as an intelligence officer. During the invasion of Normandy he was deposed behind the German lines and he was with the first soldiers who conquered Berlin in 1945 .

Between 1949 and 1950, Szajkowski, who never studied history or even got a degree, stole a number of works and sold them to the New York Public Library and the Jewish Theological Seminary of New York. He also stole documents from the Alliance Israélite Universelle in Paris between 1949–1950, from the Bibliothèque nationale et universitaire, but also from the National Archives in Paris.

He was caught on April 13, 1961, but the Strasbourg archivist Philippe Dollinger contented himself with having a confession of guilt signed - on condition that all 73 archived items were returned and that money be donated to the archive. As a precaution, Dollinger warned other archives against the specialist colleague, such as Basel or Trier.

At that time, Szajkowski was considered one of the most important experts on modern Jewish history. It soon emerged that Szajkowski had made £ 1,160 sterling by selling archival materials he had stolen in the 1950s . In January 1963 he was sentenced to three years in prison and a fine of 5,000 francs . However, from 1950 to 1978, the perpetrator could not stop stealing and selling documents.

However, Szajkowski was no longer allowed to research in France, so that he was forced to change his subjects. Now he no longer focused on the history of French Jews, but worked on the history of American Jews.

In 1978 he put an end to his life after being caught stealing again at the New Public Library.

Fonts (selection)

• Yidishe motifs in folk culture fun komto-venesen in 17tn-19tn y'h , in: Yivo bleter 19.3 (1942) 312–341
• How the mass migration to America began , in: Jewish Social Studies 4,4 (1942) 291-310.
• The decline and fall of Provençal Jewry , in: Jewish Social Studies 6.1 (1944) 31–54.
• The growth of the Jewish population of France , in: Jewish Social Studies 8,4 (1946) 297-318.
• Internal conflicts in French Jewry at the time of the revolution of 1848 , in: Annual of Jewish Social Science 2-3 (1947) 100-117.
• The organization of the "UGIF" in Nazi-occupied France , in: Jewish Social Studies 9 (1947) 239-256.
• Dos loshn fun di Yidn in di arbe kehiles fun Komta-Venesen (published as The language of the Jews in the four communities of Comtat Venaissin ), New York 1948
• Socialists and radicals in the development of antisemitism in Algeria (1884-1900) , in: Jewish Social Studies 10 (1948) 257-280.
• Anti-Semitism in the Frantseyzisher arbeter-bavendung. Fun Furyerizm bizn sof Drayfus-afere, 1845-1906 , New York 1948.
• Jewish emigration policy of the Rumanian exodus, 1899–1903 , in: Jewish Social Studies 13 (1951) 47–70.
• Emigration to America or reconstruction in Europe , in: Publications of the American Jewish Historical Society 42.2 (1952) 157-177.
• Agricultural credit and Napoleon's anti-Jewish decrees , New York 1953.
• The economic status of the Jews in Alsace, Metz and Lorraine (1648–1789) , New York 1954.
• Poverty and social welfare among French Jews (1800–1880) , New York 1954.
• The Comtadin Jews and the annexation of the Papal province by France, 1789-1791 , M. Jacobs, 1955.
• Relations among Sephardim, Ashkenazim and Avignonese Jews in France: From the 16th to the 20th centuries , in: Annual of Jewish Social Science 10 (1955) 165-196.
• Jewish emigration from Bordeaux during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries , in: Jewish Social Studies 18 (1956) 118-124.
• Glimpses on the history of Jews in occupied France , in: Yad Vashem Studies on the European Jewish Catastrophe and Resistance 2 (1958): 133–157.
• Autonomy and communal Jewish debts during the French Revolution of 1789 , New York 1959.
• The emancipation of Jews during the French Revolution: A bibliography of books, pamphlets and printed documents, 1789–1800 , Cincinnati 1959.
• Catalog of the exhibition, Morris Rosenfeld (1862-1923) and his time , New York 1962.
• Jews and the French Revolutions of 1789, 1830 and 1848 , KTAV Publishing House, 1970.
• One hundred years of the yiddish press in America, 1870-1970. Catalog of the exhibition , New York 1970.
• The attitude of American Jews to World War I, The Russian Revolution of 1917, and Communism (1914–1945) , New York 1972.
• The impact of the 1919-1920 Red Scare in America , New York 1972.
• Jews and the French Legion , New York 1975.
• An Illustrated Sourcebook on the Holocaust , 3 vols., New York 1976-79.
• Kolchak, Jews, and the American intervention in Northern Russia and Siberia, 1918–1920 , New York 1977.
• The mirage of American Jewish aid in Soviet Russia, 1917–1939 , New York 1977.
• An Illustrated Sourcebook of Russian Anti-Semitism, 1881-1978 , 2 vols., New York 1980.

literature

• Abraham G. Duker: Zosa Szajkowski (1911-1978) , in: Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research 48 (1981) XXXVII-XLIV.
• Lisa Moses Leff: The Archive Thief. The Man Who Salvaged French Jewish History in the Wake of the Holocaust , Oxford University Press, 2015.

Web links

• Zosa Szajkowski's manuscripts at the Yidishen visnshaftlekhen institute

Remarks

1. ↑ Lisa Moses Leff: The Archive Thief. The Man Who Salvaged French Jewish History in the Wake of the Holocaust , Oxford University Press, 2015, p. 10.
2. ↑ Lisa Moses Leff: The Archive Thief. The Man Who Salvaged French Jewish History in the Wake of the Holocaust , Oxford University Press, 2015, p. 19.