Aid during World War I

Notes: Aunt Franka had an extensive collection of World War I memorabilia, from a postcard collection that was mostly sold off as a bundle by Mom in Richmond, to a poster collection that Mom left in Bern, to large collection of notgeld and russian money which I have been selling off slowly, and various objects that we still own. She also had contact with prisoner of war camps in the Berlin area (such as Doberitz). 

Notes:

1. Think this should just be Society or something, not a name. Google translate of the book I found mentioning this committee calls it "Berlin Aid Committee for Poland".

2. Always stunned by the famous people Aunt Franka seemed to connect with (especially in her early years). Bronislaw Huberman was a particularly famous violinist.

3. Eduard Fuchs we heard a lot about, as he may have been engaged to Aunt Franka. We own several of his books (some with inscriptions).

4. We have a large collection of postcards (80+) written to her at this address presumably in response to this appeal, but I think (having translated a few of the German ones) that they also reflect correspondence that Aunt Franka had with the correspondents about relatives trapped in Berlin or in prisoner camps.

5. "Because the so-called Polish question was widely discussed both in the press and in the academic public from the beginning of the war. However, no one could estimate at this time how successful the idea of its own Polish state would have been. Finally, the professor, as a connoisseur of Slavonism since the spring of 1915, participated both in the debates of the Berlin university teachers and in Feldman's company, which consisted, among other things, in the publication of the magazine Polnische Blätter. 16

Footnote 16: Between 1915 and 1918, Brückner delivered 22 supplies for Feldman's magazine. But he also supplied the Viennese parallel company: the magazine Polen. The Berlin Aid Committee for Poland was also involved in the Polish cause, to which the violist Bronistaw Huberman (1882-1947), the Lodz-born and later Bernese University Professor Franziska Baumgarten (1889-1970), the historian and essayist Eduard Fuchs (1870-1940) belonging to the Rosa Luxemburg Circle of Friends and the Berliner Helena Maisner included: Poland. Writing for Polish Interests, No. 49, December 1915, 312 and German Biographical Encyclopedia, ed. v. Walther Killy and others, Munich 1995. Bd. 1,343; Bd. 3, 517; Entry "Hu- berman", in: Music in History and Present. General acyclopedia of music, ed. v. Ludwig Finscher, bd. 9, Kassel and others 2003, 452-454; Barbara von der Lühe, ... I am a Pole, Jew, free artist and pan-European. The violinist Bronistaw Huberman*, in: The Orchestra 45 (1997), 8-13.

October 4, 1917:

To the association for the support of those in need in Berlin and the surrounding area, relieved relatives of Russian Poland,:

We confirm that we have received your postcard from September 22nd, as a result of which we have sent our newspaper to the editor Jan K. Portney[6], Havelberg, prison camp[7] to this day, but we must inform you that we have not yet received a postal order from you . We ask you to investigate the whereabouts of them and we will answer you as soon as possible.

Respect.

 Leipziger Volkszeitung.

Notes:

6. Perhaps Jan Kuszel Portney, who died in 1941. See New York Times, obituary, Sept. 30, 1941.  See also story from the Bund.

7. Camp  for various nationalities (enemy aliens). See long article on Civilian Internment and Civilian Internees in Europe, 1914-1920. ["According to this report there were 490 Polish prisoners at Havelberg in April 1919, including 348 demobbed soldiers who had come to the end of their periods of service in the German army, 85 soldiers who were still serving in the German army when they were arrested and 57 civilians, among them six women and one child."] See also photograph of Polish internees in 1916.