This collection has access restrictions. For details, please see the restrictions.
This is a finding aid. It is a description of archival material held in the Wilson Library at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Unless otherwise noted, the materials described below are physically available in our reading room, and not digitally available through the World Wide Web. See the Duplication Policy section for more information.
Size | 0.5 feet of linear shelf space (approximately 100 items) |
Abstract | Henry Zvi Ucko (1910-1995) was a writer, teacher, and rabbi in Germany until political conditions and growing anti-semitism led him to emigrate. In 1939, he fled to Amsterdam and then immigrated to the Dominican Republic, where he organized a congregation in Santo Domingo (Ciudad Trujillo) and began researching the history of Jews in that country. He moved to the United States in 1946. The collection includes correspondence, writings, notes, photographs, reference material, clippings, and prayer books relating to 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 Lopez 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 the 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. |
Creator | Ucko, Henry Zvi. |
Curatorial Unit | University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Library. Southern Historical Collection. |
Language | English |
Processed by: Nancy Kaiser, August 2004
Encoded by: Nancy Kaiser, August 2004
Diacritics and other special characters have been omitted from this finding aid to facilitate keyword searching in web browsers.
Back to TopThe following terms from Library of Congress Subject Headings suggest topics, persons, geography, etc. interspersed through the entire collection; the terms do not usually represent discrete and easily identifiable portions of the collection--such as folders or items.
Clicking on a subject heading below will take you into the University Library's online catalog.
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.
Back to TopThe 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 Lopez 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.
Back to TopNote that notebooks include page references to issues of the periodicals Boletin del Archivo General de la Nacion (Dominican Republic) and Documentos para la Historia de la Republica Dominicana.
Items separated include oversize papers (OP-5146/1), photographs (PF-5146/1), and volumes (SV-5146/1-2).
Back to Top