The “Archives of the Jews of Poznań and Wielkopolska” will be launched at the University Library of the University of Adam Mickiewicz (UAM) in Poznań. The collection will include documents, memoirs, letters, postcards, photos, sound and film recordings and other memorabilia, creating the traces of the past of Jews living in Poznań and in the Wielkopolska region.

The aim of the “Archives” is to obtain archival materials from the descendants of Poznań and Wielkopolska Jews, develop and digitize them and make them available for scientific and popular science purposes, in cooperation with the “Tu żyli Żydzi” Foundation.

The first material was the legacy of Noach Lasman (1924-2018), a geologist and writer, born in Kalisz (1924-2018), who lived in Poznań with his family from 1927 and studied there at the Berger Gymnasium.

During the occupation he was in Podlasie, being a prisoner of the labour camp in Siedlce. Lasman also hid in a forest near Łosice, and in August 1944 he joined the 2nd Polish People’s Army.

After the war, from 1948-to 1957 he lived in Poznań, studied geology and worked as a geologist in the building materials industry. In 1957, he emigrated with his family to Israel and worked as a geologist in Israel, Madagascar, Ethiopia, Colombia and Nicaragua.

After retiring, at the turn of the 1970s and 1980s, he devoted himself to collecting materials on the fate of Poznań Jews during and after World War II. He corresponded with people from all over the world, and wrote memoirs and novels based on his experiences. He also organized meetings of Poznań Jews. In 2019, the book “Memories of three worlds” was published, collecting various published and unpublished memoirs of Lasman, edited by Andrzej Niziołek.

Adrian Andrzejewski