Milestone: Processing and Digitization of Major Refugee Collection Complete
The AFJCE records were initially deposited at the LBI in 1973 and microfilmed. In 1982, the original files were transferred to Berlin when then AFJCE chairman Herbert Strauss was appointed founding director of the Zentrum für Antisemitismusforschung at the Technical University Berlin. This institutional archives of the AFJCE continued to grow and was returned to LBI in 2021. Now fully reprocessed and digitized, the collection is accessible to researchers and the public online
- Author
- Renate Evers
- Date
- Fri, Apr 17, 2026
The Leo Baeck Institute (LBI), in partnership with the Center for Jewish History (CJH), is pleased to announce the completion of archival processing and full digitization of the records of the American Federation of Jews from Central Europe (AFJCE).
The AFJCE was a central organization coordinating social, legal, and cultural aid and later spearheading postwar restitution efforts for Holocaust survivors. The digitization of its records is a major milestone for research on 20th-century refugees.
With the support of a multi-year Claims Conference matching grant and additional philanthropic funding, archivists at CJH have completed the systematic arrangement and description of this complex body of material. Digitization was expertly completed in CJH’s Gruss Lipper Digital Laboratory by the end of 2025, ensuring long-term preservation and dramatically expanding access for an international community of researchers.
This achievement reflects sustained institutional partnership and collective commitment by institutional stewards, funders, archivists and digitization specialists, scholars, and community members -to preserving the documentary legacy of refugees and survivors.
Established in 1941 by members of the German-Jewish community in New York, the AFJCE served as an umbrella organization for refugees from Germany, Austria, and other parts of Central Europe who had been forced into exile by National Socialist persecution. In the decades that followed, the Federation played a vital role in advocacy, social welfare, and restitution and reparations efforts, while also serving as a cultural and political representative for German-speaking Jews in the United States.
The AFJCE records now available online are an indispensable resource for research on exile, restitution, postwar Jewish politics, and the rebuilding of lives and communities after catastrophe.
From LBI News No. 121 (spring 2026)
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* As reported, in an earlier phase of the project, the papers of the AFJCE offshoot, the Research Foundation for Jewish Immigration (RFJI), were fully processed as well. The Research Foundation conducted extensive biographical and oral history projects on the German Jewish refugee community.
** Full credit for CJH/LBI work on this collection over the years; please contact us if any name is missing.
Panorama photo (standing, l–r): Joan C. Lessing (LBI Trustee; former Executive Director, AFJCE; Coordinator, Oral History Project, RFJI); Hermann Teifer (Head Archivist Emeritus, LBI); Rio Daniel (CEO, CJH); Miriam Clayton (Digital and Photo Collections Manager, LBI); Michael Simonson (Head of Public Outreach & Archivist, LBI); Carol Kahn Strauss (Director Emerita, LBI); Markus Krah (John H. Slade Executive Director, LBI); Dennis Rohrbaugh (Archivist, RFJI; Officer, AFJCE and related organizations); Raymond V. J. Schrag (LBI Trustee; President, AFJCE); Frank Mecklenburg (Senior Historian, LBI); Renate Evers (Bruno and Suzanne Scheidt Director of Collections, LBI); Eric Arnold Fritzler (Director of Metadata and Discovery Services, CJH). CJH photographer team, Gruss Lipper Digital Laboratory: Erica Magrey, Lauren Silberman, Jennifer Rodewald (Head), Satoshi Tsuchiyama. Photo: Jennifer Rodewald and colleagues.
Not pictured: Kerrie Davis (photographer); Lea Lange (Director of Institutional Giving & Strategic Initiatives, CJH); William H. Weitzer (Director Emeritus, LBI); Rachel Harrison and Sarah Glover (former CJH Processing Archivists); Rachel Miller and Andrey Filimonov (former CJH Directors of Collection Services).
Funding provided by the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany (Claims Conference) and the Jewish Philanthropic Fund.
