Paul Hollander: personal papers

<strong style="text-decoration-color: initial; box-sizing: border-box; color: #ff0000; font-family: Roboto, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-align: left;">This material has been digitised. Readers should book a reading room terminal to access it.</strong> This collection of copy papers contains material which documents the activities of Paul Hollander, a German Jewish refugee in France who joined the French Foreign Legion at the beginning of World War II and was subsequently sent to a forced labour camp in North Africa. Of particular interest in this collection are reports on conditions in the labour camps of Colomb Behar, Kenadsa (Algeria) and Bour-Arfa (French Morocco) (963/11) and the prison camp of Hadjerat m'Guil (963/7)<br /><br />At 963/19 is a copy letter from Dr. C. F. J. Bergmann regarding the possibility of compensation payments from the French Government. See Wiener Library Document collection number 616 for Bergmann's original diary recording his experiences in Hadjerat m'Guil. Paul Hollander was born in Cologne in 1908 where his family had a successful business manufacturing organic fat. After leaving school he decided to work abroad to improve his language skills. He spent time in London, Rotterdam and France where in 1938 he, quite by chance, stumbled into a career in journalism.<br><br>At the outbreak of war he volunteered for the French forces but as a German he was immediately interned. His only alternative was to volunteer for the French Foreign Legion where he served for a little under a year as <em>engagé volontaire pour la durée de la guerre</em>. After which time he spent the next two and a half years in various camps including Kenadsa. In the Spring of 1943 he managed to bluff his way out of the camp and arrived in Algiers where he joined the British Alien Company. He died on 19 September 2008. Open