Letter of appreciation with plaque

Schulhof family papers

Document

The collection documents the Holocaust experiences of Joseph, Charlotte, and Peter Schulhof of Prague, Czechoslovakia (Czech Republic) as refugees in Shanghai and Tientsin (Tianjin), China from 1940-1948. Included are biographical materials such as identification papers, employment documentation, marriage papers, and family genealogy research; wartime correspondence with relatives in the United States and Europe, many of whom would perish at Auschwitz; immigration papers documenting the family’s emigration from Czechoslovakia to China in 1940 and their immigration to the United States in 1948; and photographs primarily depicting pre-war life in Europe and their experiences in China. The biographical materials series primarily contains identification papers from Czechoslovakia and China; employment documentation from Czechoslovakia, China, and the United States; and genealogy charts for the Schulhof and Poras families. Other materials include papers from the Tientsin Hebrew Association and the Tientsin Hebrew School, clippings, the text of a speech by Joseph for an exhibition at the Jewish Museum in New York titled “The Precious Treasures from the Czechoslovak State Collections”, and a narrative statement by Joseph regarding his Holocaust experiences for a restitution claim. Additionally, there are three copies of a typed narrative by Charlotte’s sister Katalin Neumann describing her Holocaust experiences. She describes her deportation from Hungary in 1944 to the Auschwitz concentration camp and then Bergen-Belsen concentration camp where she was liberated. Included with the narrative is a transcription in German and a translation in English by Peter Schulhof. The correspondence series contains wartime correspondence of Joseph and Charlotte Schulhof with relatives in the United States and Europe. Included are letters of Charlotte to relatives in the Haffner family in the United States regarding efforts to obtain immigration visas for the United States in 1939; letters to Joseph from his mother before her death in 1940, siblings Karel, Jaroslav, and Marta before their deportation; and telegrams to Joseph from Fritz Vodak regarding a potential job in Bangkok in 1940. The immigration series documents the Schulhof’s emigration from Czechoslovakia to China in 1940 and their immigration to the United States in 1948. Included is correspondence, applications, vaccination documents, Czech passports, and naturalization paperwork. The photographs series primarily contains pre-war family photographs and albums of the Schulhof and Poras families, and depictions of the Schulhof’s experiences in China. The photographs albums are annotated by Joseph Schulhof, and also include a few post-war photographs. The printed material series includes a copy of Review of the Society for the History of Czechoslovak Jews, volume 3, 1990-1991, which contains the article "From Prague to the far East," by Joseph Schulhof as told to Lewis Weiner. The article describes in detail Joseph’s Holocaust experiences in Prague and China.