Lessing family collection

Overview

Collection Summary

Documents, photographs, correspondence, family history albums, and miscellaneous papers related to the Lessing family (Edward, his parents Nardus and Engeline, and his brothers Arthur and Alfred) in the Netherlands, in the U.S. (1929-1932), while in hiding during WWII, and in the postwar period. Also includes Edward's drawings and sculpture made while hidden, his short memoir, materials related to Engeline's arrest by the Germans and her time interned at Westerbork and Bergen-Belsen as well as in the UNRAA camp Jeanne D'Arc in Philippeville, Algeria. In addition, the collection includes interviews (on CD) and a book of transcripts of interviews with family members (as well as Edward's wife, Carla (Heymans) Lessing and a cousin, Hans van der Leeden). Finally, the collection includes a document related to Carla Lessing and her mother, Herta Heymans, who were in hiding in the Netherlands, as well as the photocopy of a diary and letters by Herman Munninghoff, who was with Edward Lessing in the woods with the Dutch Resistance.

Provenance

The collection was donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2017 and 2018 by Edward Lessing.