Processed by Elissa Bemporad. Additional processing carried out with the assistance of a grant from the Gruss Lipper Foundation
YIVO Institute for Jewish Research© 2006 YIVO Institute for Jewish Research. All rights reserved.
Electronic finding aid was converted to EAD version 2002 by Yakov Sklyar in November 2006. Description is in English.
Title: Records of the OSE-TOZ (Obshchestvo Zdravookhraneniia Evreev/ Society for the Protection of the Health of the Jews), RG 53
ID: RG 53 FA
Extent: 0.85 Linear Feet
Arrangement: Based on the geographic area in which OSE and TOZ institutions and leaders operated, this collection is arranged according to locality. The collection is comprised of 17 folders.
Established in 1912 in St. Petersburg by a group of Jewish doctors, lawyers and prominent public figures, OZE (OSE) sought to create an All-Russian Jewish welfare system with the goal of promoting the study and knowledge of medical and sanitary practices, detecting and curing diseases among Jews, preventing epidemics, and creating living conditions conducive to the normal physical and mental development of Jewish children. Established in Poland, in 1921, TOZ remained closely associated with OZE (OSE), sharing the same program of activities. Because of World War I and its disarraying consequences, especially in the eastern regions of the Polish state, TOZ concentrated its relief efforts primarily on battling contagious diseases and epidemics caused by poverty, malnourishment and the deplorable sanitary conditions of the Jewish population. The OSE-TOZ Collection is comprised of documents that were assembled at the YIVO Archives in New York City. The Collection is of mixed provenance and fragmentary nature, and consists of miscellaneous materials that relate to the activities of OSE and TOZ in Eastern Europe, and to some extent, in Western Europe.
The collection includes materials pertaining to: OSE activities in Russia, and institutions organized by OZE (OSE) personnel and sponsored by the JDC in Ukraine and Belorussia, during the Soviet period; activities organized by the OSE main office in Berlin, targeted mainly at Eastern European Jews, in the 1920s; activities organized by the Vilna OSE Branch and the Vilna TOZ Committee in the city of Vilna and Vilna region in the interwar period; mission of the OSE delegation in New York, in 1925, and its meetings with leaders of JDC and other Jewish relief organizations to gather support for OSE activities in Eastern Europe; OSE activities in Latvia (Riga, Rēzekne and Liepai︠a︡) in the late 1930s. The collection also includes miscellaneous records (related primarily to the OSE-TOZ branches in Vilna and the Vilna region).
The collection consists of reports, minutes of meetings, financial records, statistical surveys, posters, printed material, and medical records. A large section of the collection consists of correspondence between OSE and TOZ main offices and local branches throughout Eastern Europe, correspondence to and from official state agencies and the Jewish organizations, and correspondence to and from Jewish doctors and leading figures active in the two Jewish organizations. These include Dr. Naum Gergel (one of the founders of OSE in Berlin, member of the Executive Committee of OSE Berlin, and prominent member of Yidgezkom, ORT and JDC), Dr. B. Dubinsky (prominent activist in the Riga OSE Committee from 1939-1940), and Dr. Tsemakh Szabad (chairman of the Vilna Branch of TOZ).
The collection provides information about the relations of OSE and TOZ with other Jewish relief organizations, most importantly with the JDC. In the late 1930s, in particular, OSE activities in Eastern Europe depended more and more on the financial support of the JDC. The Vilna records, which represent a noteworthy section of the collection, provide valuable information about the collaboration between OSE and TOZ on the local level, the creation of a temporary OSE-TOZ Committee in the city and the final liquidation of OSE. The Latvia records, which also make up for a considerable segment of the collection, provide information about OSE activities in the critical years 1938-1940, the attempt to coordinate Jewish relief from the Paris OSE Main Office, and the growing needs of the Jewish population of Latvia.
Overall, the material in this collection bears witness to the impressive number and variety of institutions and activities organized by OSE and TOZ to bring support to the Jewish population. These were all-embracing Jewish national organizations that strove to make available health care and social services to all Jews, without distinction of religious, cultural and political background. As the announcement for the “Week of TOZ” in Vilna read, “The Health Week must be our greatest propaganda effort because health is the most precious treasure for the individual and for the nation (folk).”
Established by a group of Jewish doctors, lawyers and prominent public figures in St. Petersburg, OSE sought to create an All-Russian Jewish welfare system with the goal of promoting the study and knowledge of medical and sanitary practices, detecting and curing diseases among Jews, preventing epidemics, and creating living conditions conducive to the normal physical and mental development of Jewish children. It incorporated existing communal philanthropic organizations (such as “Bikkur holim,” “Linot ha-tsedek,” “Rofe holim,” etc.) and a few modern medical institutions (such as the Jewish Hospital in Kiev and the Jewish Children Hospital in Warsaw).
Beginning in 1913-1914, OZE organized summer camps for needy children, consultations for mother and infant health protection, clinics, and Drop of Milk stations to promote breast-feeding and educate women about modern methods of infant care. By August 1917, there were 45 OZE branches (with ca. 15.000 members) operating in 102 different cities in the territories of the former Russian Empire. They maintained 90 out-patient clinics, 19 hospitals, four clinics for children with tuberculosis, 19 feeding centers and nine dining-halls for children, 125 nurseries (with 12.000 children), two sanatoria for tuberculosis patients, 24 summer camps, and many other medical and child-care facilities.
At the time of World War I and the Civil War, OZE (OSE) focused most of its efforts on bringing special relief measures to the hundreds of thousands of Jewish war refugees, deportees, and pogrom victims, preventing the spread of mass epidemics and actively collaborating with YEKOPO (Jewish Relief Committee for War Victims) and Yidgezkom (in Yiddish, Yidisher gezelshatlekher komitet - in Russian, Evreiskii Obshchestvenniy Komitet) or the Jewish Social Committee for the Help of Pogrom Victims. While OZE was officially closed down in Soviet Russia by 1921, its leaders and activists continued to provide assistance to the Jewish population through different socio-medical activities and facilities, mainly with the support of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC). Medical-sanitary institutions continued to operate in the cities and shtetlekh of Ukraine and Belorussia, providing assistance especially to the so-called “lishchentsy,” who had been disenfranchised and were consequently not entitled to state medical services. A large percentage of “lishchentsy” were Jewish.
Following the end of the war, branches of OSE spread to the newly established states of Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, and Rumania, as well as to other countries in Central and Western Europe, thus becoming a global Jewish organization for health care and children’s welfare. In December 1922, after the Soviets dissolved the organization, a small group of OSE activists (led by Dr. M. Gran) fled Soviet Russia and established in Berlin the OSE World Union (OSE Weltfarband). In the mid-1920s, the old acronym with a slight change was fitted with the new name “Oeuvre De Secour Aux Enfants” (OSE), or Society for the Aid of Children. The general meaning of the acronym of its French name, with which the organization became known, remained the same, as did its main purpose of Jewish social welfare organization. In 1933, after Hitler’s rise to power, OSE transferred its headquarters from Berlin to Paris (and from 1940-1945 to New York City).
Established in Poland, in 1921, TOZ remained closely associated with OSE, sharing the same program of activities. Because of World War I and its disarraying consequences, especially in the eastern regions, TOZ concentrated its relief efforts primarily on battling contagious diseases and epidemics caused by poverty, malnourishment and the deplorable sanitary conditions of the Jewish population. In collaboration with OSE, TOZ carried out a broad educational campaign to promote general hygiene and teach methods of preventing the spread of skin and eye diseases (ringworm and trachoma) and tuberculosis. Lectures were delivered in community centers and schools, articles were published in medical periodicals, and propaganda posters and flyers (mostly produced by the Berlin OSE Committee) were distributed throughout the towns of Eastern Europe.
In Poland, TOZ published three periodicals related to social, medical and sanitary issues. Published in Vilna from 1923 to 1937, the monthly and later by-weekly Folks-Gezunt was a popular-scientific journal for the broad Jewish public. Its editor, Dr. Tsemakh Szabad, was chairman of the Vilna TOZ Committee, as well as a co-founder of YIVO. Gezunt was a youth magazine for Jewish school-children. TOZ Yedyes (Wiadomości Toz-u, in Polish) was a Polish-Yiddish bilingual scientific journal issued in Warsaw, from 1927; in January 1931, its name changed to Sotsyale meditsin in Yiddish, and Medycyna Społeczna in Polish.
In the interwar period, TOZ and OSE established an impressive network of health clinics, Drop of Milk stations, Mother and Infant clinics, x-ray departments, sanatoria and convalescent homes; supported orphanages and hospitals; and organized sport activities, supplemental nourishment programs for poor children, and summer and day camps. In Poland, TOZ and OSE collaborated as separate organizations until 1926. After a short period of operating as a single organization (under the name OSE-TOZ), in 1927 TOZ took over the OSE institutions in Poland and Lithuania. TOZ remained closely associated with OSE headquarters in Western Europe. The JDC in New York also provided financial support for projects to improve the living conditions of the impoverished Jewish masses, distributed food, helped to set up public health care institutions, and aided schools and vocational programs.
By 1939, TOZ was responsible for 368 medical and public health institutions located in 72 different cities and towns in Poland, and employed approximately 1,000 doctors, nurses, dentists, medical assistants, instructors and teachers. Annual membership fees were paid by 15,443 supporters.
The outbreak of World War II and the Nazi invasion of Europe put an end to the flourishing activities and growth of TOZ: its institutions were closed down in 1942, its property confiscated and looted, and most of its patients and personnel killed.
Access Restrictions:
Open to researchers by appointment with the Chief Archivist.
For more information, contact: Chief Archivist, YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, 15 West 16th Street, New York, NY 10011 email: archives@yivo.cjh.org
Preferred Citation: Published citations should read as follows:Identification of item, date (if known); YIVO Archives; Records of the OZE-TOZ (Obshchestvo Zdravookhraneniia Evreev/ Society for the Protection of Jewish Health); RG 53; folder number.
Materials pertaining to OZE activities in Russia, 1913-1926. These provide information about the 1914 general meeting of OZE members in St. Petersburg and the establishment of OZE branches in different cities of the Russian Empire; and include documents from 1918-1920 on the collaboration between YEKOPO and OZE.
Miscellaneous materials about OZE activities in the USSR. These include letters, telegrams and reports by Jewish activists and doctors about medical activities sponsored by OZE in Soviet cities and shtetlekh (Leningrad, Odessa and Odessa district, Kiev and Kiev district, Krutnoye, Elizavetgrad, Nikolaev, etc.), targeted primarily at the Jewish declassed population, 1923-1926 ca.; budget for medical activities in Russia, 1925-1926; appeals to OZE-JDC in Berlin for financial assistance to organize medical facilities, hospitals, tuberculosis sanatoriums and children’s summer camps, for the Jewish population of the shtetl of Kodyma, Odessa district, Ekaterinoslav and Belorussia; letters to Dr. Naum Gergel, including personal correspondence,1922-1925; and an article by Gergel against the Evsektsiia and the role of the Jewish Section of the Communist Party in opposing the emigration from the Soviet Union of Jewish victims of the 1919-1921 pogroms, early 1920s.