Documentation of the Bikur Cholim Association in Graz from the Osoby Archive in Moscow, 1923-1938

Documentation of the Bikur Cholim Association in Graz from the Osoby Archive in Moscow, 1923-1938
 
 The Association was founded in 1923 (a time of intense economic crisis) with the goal of providing assistance to the sick and giving charity to those in need.
 
 In the collection there is correspondence of the Association and of its Chairman, Elias Gruenschlag (who was active in the Zionist Movement in Austria as well), among other correspondence, with the Graz community and with Jewish and Zionist organizations in Austria; correspondence regarding matters pertaining to welfare and assistance (including the collection of money for Association activities, such as sending poor children on vacations in the countryside), along with requests for assistance; protocols of meetings; financial reports of the Association and account books; regulations; lists of members; appeals to members of the community to support the Association financially; lists of those in need (such as children who were sent to the countryside); lists of contributors; invitations to events held by the Association; Association membership cards; a card catalogue of those being supported with a record of the amounts they received.
 
 In some of the files there is also material personally related to Elias Gruenschlag, such as correspondence between him and Zionist organizations in Austria regarding his Zionist activities, documents related to his business (he was a lumber merchant); his membership cards in various organizations and so on. Furthermore, the last file in the collection, that contains two editions of German Zionist newspapers from 1937 (on one of which Gruenschlag's name is marked as the addressee) apparently belongs to Gruenschlag personally, and not to the Association.