Gerhart Friedlander Collection

Collection

Identifier: AR 11827

Staff Only

Scope and Content Note

This collection largely consists of material from Gerhart Friedlanders' academic career at University of California, Berkeley, as well as materials about the Friedlander family villa in Munich. Regarding Gerhart Friedlander's academic career, there is a translation of a letter from Rudi Peierls advising Gerhart Friedlander about paths of scientific study given the world situation in 1935; there are letters from the Hillel Foundation at the University of California, Berkeley granting Mr. Friedlander a study opportunity; membership certificates from math and science societies Pi M Epsilon and Sigma Xi; plans and photographs of Friedlander villa; photographs of Max Friedlander and family (circa 1925-1995). Accompanying these folder-size materials are oversized matted photographs (17cm x 11cm) showing the furnished interior of the Friedlander villa circa 1920s.

Dates

Creation: 1909-1995

Creator

Friedlander, Gerhart (Person)

Language of Materials

This collection is in English, German and Hebrew.

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

Gerhart Friedlaender was born in 1916 in Munich, Germany and immigrated alone to the United States in 1936. His parents remained in Germany, while his sister and her husband had immigrated to the United States earlier. His brother left for England where he was in the Royal Air Force; he was in a Jewish brigade and was killed by the Germans in France in 1944. His mother passed away in 1937 of cancer. His father, an attorney, was arrested on Krystallnacht, released by the warden who knew him, went to Switzerland and then to England where he lived until his death.

Gerhart Friedlander was a awarded a Hillel Foundation scholarship in 1937, which allowed him to start his education, leading to a doctorate from the University of California in Berkeley. He was a pioneer of nuclear chemistry and participated in the Manhattan project to develop the atomic bomb. In 2006 Gerhart Friedlander was an adviser to the Stories to Remember project about courts of law under Nazi rule. He died in South Setauket, NY in 2009.

Extent

1 Folders

Additional Description

Abstract

Related Material

See also Memoirs by Gerhart Friedlander, ME 1604.

Separated Material

Clippings have been removed to the Gerhart Friedlander Clippings Collection, AR 11827 C.

Welder’s glass (dark lens) used to view the atomic bomb explosion on July 16, 1945, and a trinitite sample from the same explosion removed to Art and Objects Collection.

DVD: Hitler’s courts: Betrayal of the rule of law in Nazi Germany has been removed to the LBI Library.

DVD about restored Villa Friedlaender (July 2009) removed to A/V Collection.

CD-ROM: Memoirs by Gerhart Friedlander removed to A/V Collection.