Mizrakh Yidisher Historisher Arkhiv

The record group is comprised of: administrative records of the MYHA and of its predecessor organization, the Editorial Committee in Kiev; documents relating primarily to the pogroms in the Ukraine; documents on the period of Jewish autonomy in the Ukraine, 1918-1920; miscellaneous historical documents on Russian Jewry. Pogrom materials include files on the effects of the pogroms on the Jewish communities. Eyewitness accounts arranged by locality.German name: Ostjudisches Historisches Archiv (Archives for the History of Eastern European Jews). In 1919 a group of Jewish activists and representatives of Jewish organizations established a committee in Kiev to collect and publish historical and documentary materials relating to the anti-Jewish pogroms in the Ukraine, 1918-1920. The committee was called the Redaktsions Kolegiye Oyf Zamlen Un Oysforshn Di Materialn Vegn Di Pogromen In Ukraine (Editorial Committee for Collection and Investigation of Materials Relating to the Pogroms in the Ukraine). The founding organizations were the Jewish National Secretariat, The Central Committee of Kiev to Aid Pogrom Victims and the Folksfarlag (People's Press). The head of the Editorial Committee was Nahum Shtif and its secretary was Elias Tcherikower. A great deal of original material was collected. These included testimonies, photographs, clippings, and original documents. In 1921 the collection was transferred to Berlin where a new organization, the Mizrakh Yidisher Historisher Arkhiv (Ostjudisches Historisches Archiv), was founded to assume custody of these records. In 1925 the MYHA merged with the YIVO Institute in Vilna. The MYHA records which are now at the YIVO Archives are only a fraction of the original archive. The larger part was sent from Berlin to Vilna and was destroyed in Vilna during the Holocaust period.Inventory: Tcherikower Archive, Yiddish, ms.,pages 1-123, 252-271, 353-355, 380-384 (folders 1-620, 651-753). Photo archives (folders 621-650).Part of the pre-World War II collections of the YIVO Institute in Vilnius, Lithuania. Included in the Edward Blank YIVO Vilna Online Collections