(HOLOCAUST). Four manuscript documents related to cases of Agunoth (Chained Wives) in the immediate post-war years.

(HOLOCAUST). Four manuscript documents related to cases of Agunoth (Chained Wives) in the immediate post-war years.

Detailed below. Hungary/Slovakia, 1946-47

<<*>> 1. The Special Beth Din to Help Agunoth in Hungary. Decision confirming the death of Chaya Sarah Fischer and permitting her sister to marry her widowed husband, Mordechai Stein. Budapest, 6th Iyar 1946. On verso, blank form for spouses to accept the decision of the court.

<<*>> 2. Printed form completed in manuscript testifying to the death of a woman. Texts in Hebrew, Yiddish and Hungarian. With signatures of Beth Din members. 1946.

<<*>> 3. A request to the Beth Din to permit the marriage of a man to his sister-in-law, presuming his wife had died. The sister-in-law was 38 years old at the time, with four children and would have little other option to wed. With signature of the petitioner, Salamonne Schlesinger. 1946.

<<*>> 4. The Special Beth Din to Hep Agunoth in Eastern Slovakia. Typed document concerning one Sarah Rivka Sohnberger. Signed by Rabbi Raphael Bloom. Kosice (Koshitz), 28th Iyar, 1947. Bloom would later record his experiences serving on the Beth Din in Kosice, see: https://zachor.michlala.edu/inquiry/arch.asp? num=615&mesT=2&month=89&sortT=1. On the agonizing issue of post-war Agunoth, see Esther Farbstein's important essay: https://zachor.michlala.edu/mechkar/mechkar.asp? numMechkar=36.