Chaim Posner papers

Chaim Posner (1899-1981, also Haim Pazner or Pozner) was born in Kowal, Poland on January 4, 1899. He was active in the Hechalutz movement in the Włocławek area and he served as Vice-Principal of the Hebrew High School in Włocławek. He served as the director of the Committee of Assistance to Polish Refugees in Danzig from 1920-1922 and as the representative of the Jewish Telegraphic Association in Danzig from 1921-1923. He was a leader of the League for Working Eretz Israel in Włocławek, and he was elected as a representative to the 12th Zionist Congress in Karlsbad and other Zionist conventions. He was the head of the Labor Zionist Movement in Danzig in the 1930s. Posner served as the Director of the Eretz Israel Office in Danzig from May 1934 to late 1938, when he was forced to leave Danzig. He received a doctorate in Political Science from the University of Basel in 1939. He served as the Director of the Palästina Amt, the emigration office of the Jewish Agency for Palestine, in Geneva and as the representative of the Jewish Agency Finance Department in Europe during the 1940s. Posner is reported to have learned about plans for mass executions of Jews in gas chambers from University of Basel professor Edgar Salin in July 1942 and to have passed along the information to Chaim Barlas, the Jewish Agency representative in Istanbul.

Posner served as Israel’s Finance Ministry representative in Europe from November 1948 until April 1953. He also served as a lecturer on Hebrew Language and Hebrew Literature of the Middle Ages at the University of Geneva from 1945-1953. Posner moved to Israel in 1953, assuming the position of Director of Revenue in the Foreign Currency Department of the Finance Ministry in Jerusalem, which he held until 1956. He served as the financial advisor for the Israeli Embassies in Argentina and Uruguay from 1957-1960 and as economic attaché at the Israeli Embassy in Sweden from 1960-1962. He also served as a member of the Secretariat for the Internal Auditing Unit and as a judge in the Mapai Party High Court.