| Dates covered: | 1920-1949 |
| Description: | Consists of c.2440 photographic prints (loose and in albums) and glass-plate positives which document ORT's involvement in Jewish working life from the 1920s into the 1940s, primarily in Eastern Europe. It covers ORT's vocational and agricultural activities amongst Jewish communities in Belarus, China(Shanghai), France, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania (incl. Bessarabia), Russia, Ukraine and USA. Images include agricultural scenes in the countryside with farming communities and individuals at work; vocational courses in towns and cities; children at work in school gardening projects; individual artisans using tools and machines supplied by ORT; industrial and agricultural collectives; and exhibitions of produce and handicrafts created at ORT schools. The collection is a visual record of pre-World War II Jewish communities in Eastern Europe and forms a unique record of Jewish working life in the first part of the 20th century in this region. Not many such collections have survived the Holocaust. It is significant in terms of both subject matter and formal, photographic qualities. Unlike other photographic collections which document the Jewish communities of this period, this collection focuses on the efforts made by a charitable organisation (ORT) to improve Eastern European Jews’ lives through the provision of professional skills. |
| Custodial History: | The ORT Works collection was created by World ORT Union and its ORT Society branches in Eastern Europe partly as documentation of activities and partly as propaganda/PR material during the 1920s and 1930s. It is not known whether the collection was created and used by WOU from the start or whether it was accumulated as separate national (or even regional) collections by local ORT societies and only later became a WOU collection. The collection in its current form was discovered in 1996 by Serge Klarsfeld in the basement of the ORT France building in Paris. Two possibilities concerning its final location emerge: (1) the collection was created by WOU and arrived in France when ORT Union moved its headquarters there from Berlin in 1933; (2) The collection was formed as a single, WOU collection in preparation for the 1937 exhibition in Paris, in which WOU participated. In this latter case, photographs would have been sent from national ORT branches to the headquarters in Paris; following the exhibition the collection was expanded during the late 1930s and 40s. During this period the Paris World ORT Union headquarters building was shared with the administrative offices of ORT France, which remained in the same location until very recently. The collection survived the destruction of many other ORT records in the course of several hasty location moves during the Second World War. It was eventually left behind in the ORT France HQ when ORT Union relocated to Geneva in 1943. Following its 1996 discovery, the collection was taken (with ORT's permission) to New York, where it was surveyed, sorted and arranged by the Museum of Jewish Heritage. An exhibition of 67 reproduced images selected from the collection – ORT Works: Modernizing Jewish Labour in the early 20th century – was held at the museum between October 1998 and February 1999; the collection has been known as 'ORT Works' since then. The collection was then returned to American ORT in 1999, where it was digitised. It was then returned to World ORT custody in London box by box between 2000 and 2002. |
| Arrangement: | Arranged alphabetically by country name, then by town/location or cooperative/farm name if the exact location is unknown. |
| Extent: | 3 linear metres (2440 photographic images) |
