"FROM THE JEWISH YOUTH IN POLAND"

(JUDAICA) (CENTRAL COMMITTEE OF THE POLISH JEWS). Oyfgang. Issues 1-10. Warsaw: Centralny Komitet Zydow Polskich, 1947-48. Ten issues, bound together. Folio (9-1/2 by 13 inches), contemporary navy cloth, later typed paper label affixed to spine. $950.

First ten issues of the very rare Yiddish magazine Oyfgang, "Organ of the Youth Department, Central Committee of the Polish Jews," from 1947-48, featuring news about cultural, social and labor issues pertaining to the Jews in Poland, Palestine, and elsewhere around the world, with bright and striking original pictorial wrappers. Inscribed "To the Director of the American Joint Distribution Committee, Dr. Joseph Schwartz, from the Jewish Youth in Poland. Warsaw, November, 1948."

The American Joint Distribution Committee, or JDC, played a pivotal role in the postwar rescue of Holocaust survivors. The JDC helped sustain and repatriate tens of thousands of Jews who remained in Eastern Europe in the aftermath of World War II. In 1946, an estimated 65,000 Jews in Poland depended on the JDC for food and other basic needs. Undoubtedly many of the youth featured in the pages of Oyfgang had survived postwar deprivation, and were now thriving at the time of this presentation, as a direct result of JDC aid and support. The recipient of this copy, Joseph Schwartz, was the JDC's European director in 1945, and after a tour of Displaced Persons camps that year, he wrote a landmark report that called for separate Jewish camps and for United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) participation in administering them—with the JDC's help. Schwartz was instrumental in galvanizing the JDC's response and operational strategy at this crucial point in history. By 1948 he was the Director of the entire JDC. The magazine Oyfgang includes contributions by Yiddish writer Efraim Kaganowski (1893-1958), famous for his rich depictions of the Warsaw Jewry, and the editorial board included such figures as M. Edelman, formerly in the Jewish Ghetto command and prominent also in the Jewish Bond. The magazine continued to be published through at least 1952. Text in Yiddish. Additional inscription in Yiddish on front flyleaf.

Expert repairs to cloth. Some toning to magazines, but overall preserved in excellent condition. A very rare relic from postwar Poland.