The collection consists of letters addressed to Tadeusz Perl, sent to him to France by his family and friends before the war and during the Holocaust. Few letters date back to the period immediately after the end of the war. The majority of the authors, including the entire close family of Tadeusz, were murdered during the Holocaust.
Tadeusz Perl was born in 1910 (d. 1984) to Leon and Melania Perl (Melania was née Perl, too, but it was pure coincidence, the families were not related). The wedding certificate of Leon and Melania from 28 June 1910 has survived (it is kept at the State Archive in Warsaw, Civil Status Records of the Mosaic denomination in Warsaw, ref. 72/200/0/-/142). That is how we know the names of their parents: Moshe Perl and Mindla née Feyertag (Leon’s parents) and David Perl and Rozalia née Winawer (Melania’s parents). Tadeusz had a sister, Jadwiga, who was married to Stanisław Wohl, a filmmaker. They split up during the war; according to the letters in the collection, Jadwiga stayed with her parents, Stanisław Wohl fled to the east and survived (he passed away in 1982).
Leon Perl studied at the High School of Commerce (Handelshochschule) in Leipzig and law in Zurich. Tadeusz Perl graduated from the Law Faculty at the Warsaw University but had a difficulty to find employment (due to his Jewish origins). That is why, in 1938, he left—temporarily, he believed—for France as a correspondent of Głos Gospodarczy [Voice of Economy]. The editor-in-chief of this paper, published by the Federation of Associations of Trade Representatives and Commissariats, was his father—hence the collection of correspondence contains many letters concerning texts written for Głos by Tadeusz Perl on the title’s headed paper.
Tadeusz Perl survived the war in France, hiding at various locations in the province. After the war, he was employed at the Embassy of Poland where he met Aniela Gelbard, whom he married. He was transferred to Poland—in 1948, he moved with his wife and a two-year old daughter Jolanta Melania, and with Aniela’s mother, Gustawa Gelbard née Helman, a Holocaust survivor.
Tadeusz was made redundant from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in early 1968, in the wake of the purge which followed the Six-Day War, a prologue to dramatic March ’68 events.
Years later, Jolanta M. Szaban, daughter of Aniela and Tadeusz, donated the letters to the POLIN Museum collection, together with the bulk of correspondence sent from the Warsaw ghetto to Aniela Gelbard.
Przemysław Kaniecki
