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Judaica and Hasidic Books and Manuscripts

Lot 82:

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Poignant 1947 Post-War Holocaust Survivor Letter – Dov Ber of Nyíregyháza, Hungary to Yosef Tzvi Raab

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Start price: £100

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Description

A deeply moving and historically significant primary source document from the immediate post-war era, detailing the harrowing material and emotional realities faced by Hungarian Holocaust survivors attempting to rebuild their lives in the shadow of the death camps.

  • Overview: A multi-page personal letter written entirely by hand in fluid rabbinic cursive script, explicitly dated May 7, 1947 (7. V. 1947), sent from Hungary during the chaotic aftermath of World War II.
  • The Author: Written by Dov Ber (ר’ דב בר), a surviving resident of Nyíregyháza (נירעדהאז / Nyíregyháza, Hungary). Nyíregyháza possessed a prominent, vibrant Orthodox and Hasidic community before the war, nearly all of whom were brutally deported to Auschwitz in May 1944. This letter represents the voice of the tiny fraction who returned to find a decimated world.
  • The Recipient: Addressed to his close trusted friend and communal figure, Yosef Tzvi Raab (ר’ יוסף צבי ראב), a well-known name within Hungarian and international Orthodox aid networks.
  • The Content: Written with intense raw emotion, the letter describes the author’s desperate post-war situation, outlining his lack of basic sustenance, physical displacement, and the total destruction of his pre-war life. He issues a desperate, heartfelt plea for financial assistance and intervention to secure his survival. Per standard catalogue rules, the full body text remains untranscribed.
  • Collector’s Highlight: Authentic, deeply personal correspondence from the She’erit Hapletah (the surviving remnant) in provincial Hungarian towns like Nyíregyháza is highly scarce. Most post-war research centers on displaced persons (DP) camps in Germany, making localized letters that capture the immediate, desperate reality inside Hungary itself incredibly rare and valuable for historical archives, museums, and premium Judaica collectors.

Condition report:

Status: Very Good Post-War Condition.


Details: The multiple thin stationery sheets are structurally sound, intact, and textually complete. The paper shows soft, light uniform age-toning and original vertical/horizontal folding lines typical of post-war civilian correspondence. The handwritten ink text block is exceptionally sharp, clean, completely legible, and beautifully preserved with no ink fading or bleed-through.