Brandeis Library is pleased to announce the completion of three new digital collections available in DeisGallery:

The Brandeis National Committee materials collection contains materials related to the Brandeis National Committee (formerly known as the Brandeis University National Women's Committee), include such materials as conference programs, membership brochures, and other ephemera dating from the 1960s through the 1990s. This collection provides insight into the founding days of Brandeis and the role the Brandeis National Committee had in fundraising for the university and the library.  

The Theresienstadt concentration camp documents collection contains nearly 400 bulletins issued by the Jewish self-government under German command at Theresienstadt. These include Tagesbefehl (Orders of the Day), Mitteilungen der Judischen Selbstverwaltung (“Announcements from the Jewish self-administration”), and 20 Rundschreiben (usually written for officials or elders but not the general prisoner population). Bulletins contain announcements, commands, rules, and regulations issued by SS leadership, as well as punishments for rule violations. Some bulletins contain lists of arrival and departure of internees. Others list deceased individuals by name and birth year. There are also a few unnumbered announcements relating to food, barracks, transport, or deaths. They date from January 5, 1942, to September 14, 1944. The collection was donated to Brandeis University in 1973 by Emma Goldscheider Fuchs, a Holocaust survivor who was held at the camp along with her first husband and two children. Fuchs’s husband, Alfred Goldscheider, managed to collect and hide the documents while working in a minor administrative post within the Jewish Self-Administration of the camp. These documents are likely to interest students of the history of the Holocaust, of the history and culture of German and Czech Jewry, and those who wish to better understand the lived experience of the Nazi genocide of European Jews.

Over 200 newly cataloged and digitized items from the Louis Dembitz Brandeis collection are now available as well. The Louis Dembitz Brandeis collection consists of approximately 150 linear feet of correspondence, documents, photographs, personal effects, and more. In addition to providing a rich resource for those interested in both the personal and public lives of Louis D. Brandeis, this collection offers a wealth of material on American legal history in general, the Progressive and Zionist movements, and the U.S. Supreme Court. The majority of the digital materials available here — primarily Louis Brandeis’s letters to his wife, Alice Goldmark — were added to the Louis Dembitz Brandeis collection by the three great-granddaughters of Louis Brandeis: Susan Popkin Cahn, Anne Brandeis Popkin, and Louisa Brandeis Popkin. Digitization was funded by the Brandeis National Committee's "Legacy of Louis" campaign.

Please contact archives@brandeis.edu to learn more about these and other collections and to view physical items from these collections. Archives and Special Collections is open for research appointments, both virtually and in-person. 

Pictured: Undated brochure and reservation card from a performance of Eriv Bruhn's "Swan Lake" featuring Rudolph Nureyev, sponsored by the Brandeis University National Women's Committee Atlanta Chapter.