| StorageSite | UCL Institute of Education |
| Description | Studied a one year advanced course in child development in 1944-1945.
IoE File Information:
Awarded State Diploma for Nurse for Infant Care (Nursery-School Teacher), Wilno, Poland, June 1939.
Head-Mistress of a Nursery run by the "Jewish Labor Women's Association", Wilno, Poland.
Attended Training of Women in Emergency Child Welfare, organised by the British council and Polish Ministry of Labour in London, 20.09.43-23.03.44.
Emigrated to New York, USA early 1950.
File Includes:
Application for Admission to the course 1944.
Testimonial (undated) given at end of course.
Letter dated 16.3.44 to Miss G. form LSE (Tutor, Mental Health course).
Letter of admission to CD course dated 26.4.44 from Miss G. to Mrs. Klok.
Letter dated 5.6.44 from Mrs. Klok to Miss G. re book borrowed.
Letter dated 8.6.44 from Miss G. to Mrs. K re book borrowed, etc.
Letter dated 20.9.44 from Mrs. K to Miss G.
Letter dated 06.01.48 from Miss G. to Mrs. K. sent to Villach, Austria.
Letter dated 12.07.50 Mrs. K to Miss G. re emigration and reference to continue CD studies & work in the USA.
Letter dated 02/08/50 CH to Miss G releasing documents for reference.
Letter dated 02/01/53 Miss G. to Mrs. K thanking her for Christmas Card & correspondence (missing), sent to New York.
Article: Repatriation and the Cold War. Contains some details of Mrs. Klok's post-war work in Villach, Austria with displaced children.
IE/F/5/80/1 Digital Photo: Syma Minc Klok, Director of the Bad Schallerbach DP children's home, watches while seven-year-old Liesl signs her name on an American visa application. Behind them stands Mr. Fischer, the American consul. 1946-50.
Nationality: Polish, US
From Syma Crane papers, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, irn501820, 1997.A.0373 & 1997.A.0374
Syma Crane (b. 1921) was born in Vilnius, Lithuania (Wilno, Poland) to Chaim and Basia Minc. Syma’s parents and sisters Sonja Minc Lipofsky and Chaya Minc Chodos perished in the Holocaust. Her brother Czalel Minc survived in hiding in Belgium. Syma and her husband Marcus Klok fled Vilnius in 1941 and used ten day Japanese transit visas obtained via the Jewish Labor Bund under the false names Syma and Marcus Miller to travel via Vladivostok to Kobe. They were relocated by Japanese authorities to Shanghai, where they lived in the Jewish ghetto for about a year. In 1942 they obtained places on a British diplomatic ship that was leaving Shanghai as part of a prisoner exchange between the British and Japanese and sailed to England via Cape Town. Syma studied English and child development in London, and Marcus joined a Polish unit of the British army under General Anders. After the war, Syma joined the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA). She worked as a child welfare officer in Wolfsburg and at the children’s homes at Leoben and Bad Schallerbach. Her responsibilities including locating unaccompanied children and requisitioning money and resources for the children’s homes. She helped establish a separate home for older children near Bad Schallerbach named Camp Leitendorf. She also accompanied a transport of fifty children to Yugoslavia in 1947. She immigrated to the United States in 1950, divorced Marcus, and married George (Katz) Crane, a fellow Holocaust survivor from Vilnius, in 1954.
The Syma Crane papers are arranged as five series: I. Photographs, approximately 1900-1997, II. Autograph book, 1948, III. Biographical materials, 1942-1950, IV. Correspondence, 1941-1950, V. Printed materials, 1947-1951
Subjects:
Jews--Lithuania--Vilnius.
Jewish refugees--China--Shanghai.
Leoben (Styria, Austria)
Holocaust survivors--Austria.
Wolfsburg (Lower Saxony, Germany)
Refugee children--Austria.
Bad Schallerbach (Austria)
Orphanages--Austria.
The Syma Crane papers consist primarily of photographs documenting Crane’s service as United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) director of the children’s homes at Leoben and Bad Schallerbach in Austria. The collection also includes an autograph book, biographical materials, correspondence, and printed materials documenting her escape from Vilnius in 1941 to Kobe and Shanghai and eventual arrival in London. Contains certificates, correspondence and documents of Syma Minc Klok a.k.a. Syma Miller relating to her escape in 1941 from Vilnius, Lithuania first to Kobe, Japan and then in 1942 to England via Shanghai, employment with the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA), the International Refugee Organization (IRO) and the Preparatory Commission for the International Refugee Organization (PCIRO), and her work with unaccompanied children. Photographs depict Syma Crane, children, staff, and facilities at the Leoben and Bad Schallerbach children’s homes as well as Syma Crane’s family members. The autograph book contains poems, greetings, autographs, and artwork by children from the Leoben children’s home. Biographical materials document Syma Crane’s refugee status in Shanghai and England, her work for UNRRA and IRO in Austria, and her immigration to the United States. Records include vaccination certificates, registration papers, identification papers, travel papers, and a declaration of intent to become a US citizen. Correspondence includes postcards Syma received in Kobe from relatives in Vilnius in 1941 and 1942 as well as official correspondence regarding her work for UNRRA and IRO from 1946-1950. The Vilnius correspondence hints at the difficulties of life under Soviet and German-occupied Vilnius and as an exile in Kobe. The official correspondence primarily documents Syma’s employment and civil status working for UNRRA and during the transition to the IRO, letters of recommendation, and her resignation and repatriation in 1950. Printed materials include three August 1947 issues of the Wiener Kurier and clippings related to Syma Crane’s work with refugee children.
https://portal.ehri-project.eu/units/us-005578-irn501820
http://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn501820 |