JDC Archives

Resources (4)

• Catalogue 3, for 1921–38, includes official correspondence, account books, memoranda, reports on relief administration and cooperation with Soviet authorities, information on Jewish agencies receiving assistance, files of Agro-Joint (numbers 508–67), and data on the American Relief Administration (ARA). Between 1921 and 1938, JDC appropriations and individual subscriptions earmarked for the USSR totaled over $20 million. In 1921–22 alone, the JDC contributed $3.6 million for nonsectarian relief in the Soviet Union, this in cooperation with the ARA to counteract the 1921 famine (files 488–91). When the ARA began withdrawal from the USSR, the JDC arranged with the Soviet regime to continue independent activities (relief and reconstruction), for which it appropriated $4.22 million. Its aid went to agricultural settlements, loan associations, trade schools, hospitals, homes for the aged, orphanages, and other institutions. In July 1924 the JDC organized the American Jewish Joint Agriculture Corporation (Agro-Joint) to act as its operating arm in the Soviet Union. This operation spent roughly $5.88 million to the end of 1928 (files 508–09). In 1928 the American Society for Jewish Farm Settlements in Russia (ASJFS) was formed; it raised some $8 million privately in support of the Agro-Joint program (files 539–44 and 554–64). ASJFS ended its work on 31 December 1935, while Agro-Joint terminated operations in the USSR in 1938. Much additional JDC material relating to Russian activities, not detailed in this description, are in files 447–51 and 468–87.

• For 1919–21 (catalogue 2) there are materials on European Russia (files 247–61) and Siberia (files 262–80). In April 1919 Dr. Frank Rosenblatt was sent as JDC representative to Vladivostok. He remained there until November of that year, working with the Harbin Relief Committee (an auxiliary which he organized) and the Jewish National Council in Irkutsk. In 1920 the JDC appointed a representative to arrange for repatriation of POWs in Siberia. The JDC joined with other U.S. groups in the Siberian War Prisoners Repatriation Fund, which worked with the League of Nations' Nansen Commission. Documents cover administration of relief efforts, finances, relations with the U.S. and foreign governments, aid appeals, persecution and pogroms, POWs, and POW camps in the Far East (at Biysk, Nikolsk-Ussuriisk, Pervaya Rechka, Petropavlovsk, Tomsk, Turinsk, Achinsk, Barnaul, Irkutsk, Kansk, and Krasnaya Rechka). Some items relate to Admiral A. V. Kolchak.

  In 1920 Dr. Rosenblatt became regional director for Russia. He and the JDC overseas unit no. 1, along with the JDC's Ukraine Commission, went to Russia in the spring. Unit no. 1 reached Kiev in April, organizing relief distribution at once. The Ukraine Commission then entered the country, reaching an agreement with the Soviet government's Moscow Relief Committee about relief distribution. In July 1920 the JDC established an office in Reval, Estonia, to transmit supplies (in cooperation with the British Society of Friends). The materials again cover pogroms (in Ukraine and Byelorussia), the relief work, finances, political conditions throughout Russia, reconstruction efforts, cooperatives, emigration, and relations with the Soviet regime. There are appeals of Russian Jewish organizations for all kinds of assistance—child care, medical, cultural, religious. Correspondents in these files include Allen Wardwell of the American Red Cross, and M. M. Vinaver. 1 memorandum is from General A. I. Denikin.

• For the years 1914–18, relief (money, food, clothing, and medical supplies) to Jews in German-occupied lands. Materials relate to JDC fund-raising efforts, the political and military difficulties involved in sending aid, and the JDC organization in Europe (the Central Jewish Committee for the Relief of War Sufferers in Petrograd was known as EKOPO). General files on Poland (129–42a) also cover cities listed as Polish but currently in the USSR (e.g., Vilna). The "Russia-General" files (143c-47) have information on clothing for Siberia, EKOPO, persecution of Jews, and pogroms. Among the correspondents in these papers are H. Bernstein, a New York Herald journalist and JDC delegate to Russia; Professor E. T. Devine, head of the U.S. embassy's relief division in Petrograd; David R. Francis, the U.S. ambassador to Russia; Baron Alexander de Guinzburg, chairman of EKOPO; Baron Theodore de Guinzburg, of the Russian embassy in Washington; and the State Department.

• The Joint Distribution Committee was formed during World War I to help displaced persons and other civilians suffering from the conflict. Russia was a limited focus of its attention. It continued to operate in the USSR until ca. 1938. Office files, correspondence, reports, and account books are arranged chronologically and described in 3 catalogues. The holdings on Russia outlined in the 3 catalogues cover the following subjects: