M.16 - Collection of the Joodsche Coordinatie Commissie (Jewish Coordination Committee-JCC) of Dutch Jewry in Geneva, 1943-1960

M.16 - Collection of the Joodsche Coordinatie Commissie (JCC-Jewish Coordination Committee) of Dutch Jewry in Geneva, 1943-1945 The Coordination Committee for the Jews of the Netherlands in Switzerland was established in 1943 at the initiative of several of the Dutch refugees in Switzerland, including Mr. M. Gans. The owner of a jewelry and antiquities business in Amsterdam, Gans had escaped from the Netherlands to Switzerland with his wife in the summer of 1942. The Committee mainly dealt with offering assistance (by sending parcels of food and medicine) to deportees from the Netherlands in the camps and obtaining South American passports and certificates for legal aliya to Eretz Israel. After the liberation from the camps, the Committee made lists of the Dutch Jewish survivors and engaged in the search for relatives; afterwards the Committee assisted in the rehabilitation of the survivors. The Committee was supported in its work by international relief organizations such as the Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) and the World Jewish Congress. In July 1945 the Coordination Committee for the Jews of the Netherlands in Switzerland ceased its work. The Archive of the Committee was transferred to Amsterdam, and in June 1957 it was handed over to Yad Vashem. The documentation that arrived in Yad Vashem was only partially in order, and it was rearranged. This Collection contains correspondence between the Jewish Coordination Committee and Dutch Jews regarding the situation of Dutch Jews in refugee camps in Switzerland, correspondence concerning the sending of welfare parcels to Jewish inmates in camps and searching for relatives, correspondence of M. Gans, a member of the Committee, with various bodies regarding the situation of the Dutch Jews, testimonies and reports regarding the murder of Jews in Poland and Hungary, lists of Dutch Jews in camps, reports and articles concerning activities of the Coordination Committee, the Red Cross and other bodies during the war and afterwards, documentation regarding assistance to Dutch Jewish refugees after the war, lists of Dutch Jewish survivors and more.