Letter with Envelope from Holocaust Survivor, Fajga Burstyn, to Trygve Lie Pleading for Transit to Palestine

Authors

Object ID

2019.2.243ab

Object Name

Correspondence

Date

4-25-1947

Files

Content Warning

The Bulmash Family Holocaust Collection consists of images, documents, and artifacts related to the Holocaust. The collection contains materials that depict a number of topics that may be difficult for viewers to engage with, including: antisemitic descriptions, caricatures, and representation of Jewish people; Nazi imagery and ideology; descriptions and images of German ghettos; graphic images of the violence of the Holocaust; and the creation of the State of Israel. For more information, see our policy page.

Description

a: envelope addressed “Mr. Trygve Lie Secretary General of the United Nations,” blue postage stamp in upper right corner. b: printed letter, three dashed lines filled in with writing near top, “To Mr. Trygve Lie, Secretary General of the United Nations, Lake Success,” printed in upper left corner, signed “Burstyn Fajga” in bottom right corner.

Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash:Letter from Holocaust survivor Fajga Burstyn, living in Displaced Persons Camp 538 in Germany, sent to the Secretary General of the United Nations, Trygve Lie beseeching for assistance with emigration to Palestine. The anguish of Holocaust survivors did not end with liberation from the concentration camps: most survivors lost families, possessions, their homes and businesses. Living in Displaced Persons camps throughout Europe, often with their very oppressors, they were encouraged to write the United Nations by the She'erit ha-Pletah organization for help getting passage to Palestine. Form letters were provided with that purpose in mind. This one was signed by Fajga Burstyn. Describing her suffering in the concentration camps, where the “Nazis killed before my eyes all of my dearest and nearest” she continues to be in a German camp “among the murderers of my family.” She importunes Mr. Lie to “take me away… and let me join my brothers and sisters in Palestine, give me the possibility to begin a normal life in my own country.” The B’richa which followed brought 250,000 Jews to Palestine. On May 14, 1948, the provisional government of Israel recognized statehood for Israel, and from that moment Jewish immigration was unrestricted.

Dimensions

a: 4 1/2 x 6 1/4" b: 9 3/4 x 7 1/4"

Keywords

Trygve Lie, Fajga Burstyn, United Nations

Subcollection

Bergen Belsen, Post

Recommended Citation

"Letter with Envelope from Holocaust Survivor, Fajga Burstyn, to Trygve Lie Pleading for Transit to Palestine" (1947). Bulmash Family Holocaust Collection. 2019.2.243ab.
https://digital.kenyon.edu/bulmash/1570