ABSTRACT
Taking their cue from anthropology, historians have recently suggested the biography as a useful metaphor when thinking about archives. This approach is particularly apt when applied to the physical existence of archives, reminding ‘us that archives, as objects, are also subjects of history’.1 Throughout the centuries Jewish archives had been frequently subjected to the destructive forces of history, and archives carried by the refugees from Hitler were no exception. As a result of anti-Semitic legislation in Nazi Germany and the rest of Europe under Fascist and Nazi rule, as well as the bureaucratic requirements of the flight itself, refugees’ possessions necessarily included identity documents; but identity was at issue in a broader sense as the documents taken with them served to preserve the identities of individuals and families. In the case of these documentary collections the biography metaphor can be further stretched: along with the refugees, the archive, embodying the legacy of individuals, families, and communities, became a refugee itself.
