Inventory of the Henry Zvi Ucko Papers, 1852, 1931-1993

Collection Number 5146

Manuscripts Department, Library of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Contact Information:

Manuscripts Department

CB#3926, Wilson Library

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Chapel Hill, NC 27514-8890

Phone: 919/962-1345

Fax: 919/962-3594

Email: mss@email.unc.edu

URL: http://www.lib.unc.edu/mss/

Descriptive Summary

Repository

Southern Historical Collection

Creator

Ucko, Henry Zvi.

Title

Henry Zvi Ucko Papers, 1852, 1931-1993

Call Number

5146

Language of Materials

Materials in English

Extent

Items: About 100

Linear Feet: 0.5

Administrative Information

Restrictions to Access

No restrictions.

Acquisitions Information

Received from Lenora Ucko of Durham, N.C. in February 2004 (Acc. 99721).

Processing Information

Processed by: Nancy Kaiser, August 2004

Encoded by: Nancy Kaiser, August 2004

Preferred Citation

[Identification of item], in the Henry Zvi Ucko Papers #5146, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Copyright Notice

Copyright is retained by the authors of items in these papers, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law.

Online Catalog Headings

These and related materials may be found under the following headings in online catalogs.

American Jewish Historical Society.

Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany.

Dominican Republic--Ethnic relations.

Jews--Cultural assimilation--Dominican Republic

Jews--Dominican Republic--History.

Judiasm--Prayer-books and devotions.

López Penha, Haim Horacio.

Refugees, Jewish--Dominican Republic.

Sephardim--Latin America--History.

Trujillo Molina, Rafael Leónidas, 1891-1961.

Ucko, Henry Zvi.

Biographical Note

Henry Zvi Ucko was born 13 May 1910 in Koenigsberg, Germany. He studied at Universities Koenigsberg in Freiburg from 1928 to 1933. He prepared a doctoral thesis, but no degree was conferred due to political conditions and growing anti-semitism in Germany. In 1938, he served as a rabbi, cantor, and teacher at a high school for the study of Judaism and at a Jewish teacher's education institute. In 1939, Ucko fled Nazi Germany to Amsterdam and then immigrated to the Dominican Republic. En route to Santo Domingo, he lost all his belongings when the boat he traveled on, the Simon Bolivar, either was torpedoed by the Germans or hit a land mine in the North Sea, killing 80. Ucko organized a congregation in Santo Domingo (Ciudad Trujillo), where he and his first wife, Ellie, lived until moving to the United States in 1946. Rabbi Ucko led congregations in Massachusetts (1946-1956) then Mason City, Iowa, and Fayetteville, N.C. (ca. 1959-1983). In 1985, he married Lenora Greenbaum, and in 1988 they moved to Chapel Hill, N.C.

Ucko's research interests during the 1940s and 1950s focused on the history of Jews in the Dominican Republic. In 1945, he gave a public presentation of his dissertation "La Fusion de los Sefardies con los Dominicanos." Ucko returned to the Dominican Republic in 1957 to conduct more research. It is not clear that the research from this trip was ever published. Ucko's book of short stories, The Triumph and Other Stories, was published in 1993.

Henry Zvi Ucko died in 1995.

Collection Overview

The collection includes correspondence, writings, notes, photographs, reference material, clippings, and prayer books relating to Henry Zvi Ucko's research into the history of Jews in the Dominican Republic, especially the assimilation of Sephardic Jews into Dominican society. Correspondence chiefly concerns Ucko's attempts to secure funding and a publisher for his research. Also included is correspondence with Haim Horacio López Penha, a writer from the Dominican Republic who encouraged Ucko to write a history of the Jews in the Dominican Republic, and with President Rafael L. Trujillo Molina, who pledged the interest and cooperation of the Dominican government in support of Ucko's research. Writings and notebooks are based chiefly on research conducted in Dominican Republic in the summer of 1957, with the support of the American Jewish Historical Society and the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany. Also included are photographs of tombstones in the Jewish cemetery in Santo Domingo, probably taken during Ucko's research trip in 1957; reference material about Jews and the Dominican Republic; and two prayer books. Many items, including letters and writings, are in Spanish, and some have English translations. Three letters are in German, and the prayer books are in Hebrew, one with an English translation.

Items Separated

Items separated include oversize papers (OP-5146/1), photographs (P-5146/1), and volumes (V-5146/S1-S2).

Detailed Description of the Collection