Archive of Elias Auerbach, Israeli Physician and Author: 2 Letters and 3 Documents from the WWI Period 1909, 1914, 1915, 1916

Archive of Elias Auerbach Israeli Physician and Author: 2 Letters and 3 Documents from the WWI Period 1909, 1914, 1915, 1916

Elias Auerbach Israeli Physician and Author 2 His orig. Letters from Alexandria and Constantinople to Haifa, 1909, 1914, in German

1. Letter from Constantinople on form of Dr. V. Jacobson

2. Letter sent from Hotel “Europa” in Alexandria.

Size of letters: 27 x 20.5 cm. (10.6 x 8 inches)

3. Military Travel Ticket II. Class, 1916, on reverse side written name - Dr. Auerbach

4. Address (Appeal) "Ein Wort an die Herren Kameraden!" - March 4, 1915

5. Bund deutscher Offizierfrauen (German women's organization, WWI)

Elias Auerbach, also Eliyahu Orbakh (Hebrew: אליהו אורבך; born July 28, 1882, in Ritschenwalde, German Empire; died July 15, 1971, in Haifa), was an Israeli physician and author.

Elias Auerbach was the youngest child of Rabbi Baruch Menachem Auerbach in Ritschenwalde in the Prussian province of Posen. He attended elementary school. In 1890, the family moved to Berlin, where he attended the Königstädtisches Gymnasium (Royal City Gymnasium) from 1893. Auerbach studied medicine at the University of Berlin from 1900 and received his doctorate in 1905 with a dissertation entitled "Innervation of the Cerebral Vessels." He opened a private practice in Berlin-Wilmersdorf. He was a co-founder of the Zionist student fraternity VJSt Hasmonäa and later also became a member of VJSt Jordania Munich.[1] He was a member of the sports club Bar Kochba. In 1903, he participated as a journalistic observer in the 6th Zionist Congress in Basel, as well as in Basel in 1905 and in The Hague in 1907.

He married Rachel Rosenthal in 1909; they had two children. They emigrated to Palestine in 1909. In Haifa, he co-founded the first Jewish community and established the first Jewish infirmary in his medical practice. He founded the sports club Maccabi Haifa in 1912. At the outbreak of war in 1914, he received a conscription notice from the German army and set off for the German Empire, fearing otherwise that he would be drafted into military service in the Ottoman Empire. He served as a military doctor at the front. His wife died of the Spanish flu in Vronki in 1919. Auerbach married Grete Heilborn, with whom he had two more children. He was only able to return to Israel in 1920, as the British Mandate authorities in Palestine considered him a former enemy in the war. In Haifa, he specialized as a gynecologist. From 1930 to 1933, he stayed in Berlin while his wife was ill and receiving treatment there. During this time, he taught biblical studies at the Academy for the Science of Judaism. Between 1932 and 1936, the two volumes of his major work, "Desert and Promised Land, " were published.In 1942, Auerbach/Orbakh was elected to the Haifa City Council for the German immigrant party, Aliya Hadasha, and became its parliamentary group leader. He was also elected as a deputy to the Jewish Assembly, the Assefat Hanivcharim, in 1944. With the founding of the State of Israel in 1948, he withdrew from active politics and concentrated on his medical practice, retiring in 1959. He published an autobiography in German in 1969, which was posthumously published in Hebrew in 1997.

3. Military Travel Ticket II. Class, 1916

This is an official railway travel document entitling a military member (officer or soldier) to free travel on the railways of the German Empire.

What is visible on the form:

Heading: Militär-Fahrschein II. Class — "Military Travel Ticket, 2nd Class"

Number: Nr. 4302952

Date: September 9 (or 17), 1916

Indicated: for 1 officer or 2 enlisted men

Route: from — Brunn (?) → to — Hainu (probably Hainu = Hanau?)

Signature and seal of the military administration

Indicated: "zur einmaligen Fahrt" — "for one trip"

On the side is the tear-off stub line "Stamm II." This is a typical military railway pass issued to members of the German Army for travel within Germany.

4. Address (Appeal) "Ein Wort an die Herren Kameraden!" - March 4, 1915

This is a printed official address to officers and soldiers, signed:

Der Kommandant – e.g.: v. Boehn, General of the Cavalry 3rd Division.

The text is a moral and disciplinary address calling on soldiers to maintain order and honor as officers while stationed in Berlin in the rear.

The main ideas of the address:

War requires iron discipline, even in a peaceful capital.

Officers must be an example to soldiers.

Avoid visiting cabarets, bars, and nightclubs while in uniform.

Avoid alcohol abuse.

Protect your health so you can return to the front.

An officer's honor equals the honor of the army and the Fatherland.

The document was distributed among officers on leave in Berlin in 1915.

5. This is a document from a German women's organization dating back to World War I/early Weimar Republic.

Bund deutscher Offizierfrauen e. V.

Address: Berlin SW 11, Hallesche Straße 20

Bund deutscher Offizierfrauen (Bundescher Offizierfrauen) is a women's organization founded in Imperial Germany (c. 1915–1918).

Purpose: to support the families of officers, especially those wounded, active, and fallen at the front. Main functions (according to the document):

assistance to the families of fallen officers

child guardianship

assistance in the return of disabled officers to civilian life

fundraising

clothing distribution

free delivery of the organization's magazine, "Das Offiziershaus"

membership fee: 3 marks every six months + an introductory fee of 1 mark

final text: "Erbitten Weitergabe an Angehörige."

("Please pass on to relatives.")

So, this is a propaganda or information leaflet distributed among officers' families.

This is an original propaganda and information leaflet of the Union of German Officers' Wives, distributed among military families during or immediately after the First World War.