Anna Sten Collection

Collection

Identifier: AR 25477

Staff Only

Scope and Content Note

The Anna Sten Collection includes hardly any biographical information (neither her dates of birth nor of her death are provided). In the first series, Personal Papers, the correspondence, composed of letters and postcards, cover a period from 1975 to 1992. Her notebooks are undated; the other personal documents relate to her correspondence and writings. Most letters in this collection are addressed to Eva Dukes, who was an important person in her life from 1975 to 1992. They show Anna Sten's desperate attempt to publish and her loneliness.

The second series contains her writings. The first folder with her professional writings shows her particular interest in child development and psychology. She even participated at a conference, at which she gave a talk about children (The First Global Conference on the Future, July 20-24, 1980, Toronto Ontario, Canada). The documents report on inventive therapies and describe her techniques.

The last folder includes manuscripts of her writings. One of her stories is called "A Child is Born", which takes place in the concentration camp Vapniarka. Another story titled "Father and Son" deals with the problems of growing up to be a man.

Dates

Creation: 1886-1992
Creation: Majority of material found within 1970s-1990s

Creator

Sten, Anna (Person)

Language of Materials

The collection is in French, English, and Romanian

Access Restrictions

Open to researchers.

Access Information

Collection is digitized. Follow the links in the Container List to access the digitized materials.

Use Restrictions

There may be some restrictions on the use of the collection. For more information, contact: Leo Baeck Institute, Center for Jewish History, 15 West 16th Street, New York, NY 10011 email: lbaeck@lbi.cjh.org

Biographical Note<extptr actuate="onload" altrender="Portrait of Anna Sten" href="http://digital.cjh.org/webclient/DeliveryManager?pid=1580183" linktype="simple" show="embed" title="Portrait of Anna Sten"/>

Anna Sten was born in Romania into an upper-class family as an only child. During the Second World War she was interned at a concentration camp in Vapniarka, Romania (today Ukraine). The camp was liquidated in 1944 and the prisoners were brought to other concentration camps. The Nazis tortured her by cutting the tendons in her knees. Anna Sten lost all her family members during the Holocaust (only her father had died prior to the war). In August 1974, she obtained her diploma in psychotherapy from the University of London and later, after her immigration in 1953, she worked for the Alfred-Adler Institute in New York, with an interest in child development. All attempts to publish her manuscripts of short-stories failed. Anna Sten died in or before 1987.

Extent

0.25 Linear Feet

Additional Description

Abstract

The Anna Sten Collection documents the life of Anna Sten, a Psychotherapist in New York, who survived the Holocaust in a Romanian concentration camp. The collection contains personal and professional papers, as well as creative writings by Anna Sten. In the first folder most of the papers are correspondence and notebooks. The second folder contains essays about psychotherapy and child development and some short-stories written for the general public.