Call Number:

Ms. Coll. 807

Repository:

University of Pennsylvania: Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts

Extent:

18 boxes

Preferred Citation:

Jack Rosenfeld papers, Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts, University of Pennsylvania

Date:

1910-2003 (inclusive) and 1942-1945 (bulk)

Creator:

Rosenfeld, Jack

Form:

Writings (documents), Photographs, Memoirs, and Correspondence

Abstract:

Collection of correspondence, writings, memorabilia, and photographs of Jack Rosenfeld, mainly pertaining to his service in the United States Army during the Second World War, from September 1942 to November 1945. Rosenfeld's extensive wartime correspondence with his fiancée, family members, and friends offers glimpses into the experiences of everyday Americans during the war, both from the point of view of individuals serving in the Armed Forces, and from that of the civilian community at home, especially in Philadelphia. The correspondence also gives an impression of Jewish community life in Philadelphia at the time, and of the perspectives of American Jews on the war. A little more than half of the correspondence is in the form of the miniaturized facsimiles known as Victory Mail, or V-Mail. Jack Rosenfeld's writings include a memoir about his wartime experiences (dated 1995), and an autobiographical essay about his family and childhood. Documents and ephemera from Rosenfeld's military service include materials related to his participation in musical theater productions by the Army's Entertainment Section of Special Services. The majority of the photographs were taken during the Second World War in the locations where Rosenfeld was stationed in North Africa, Italy, France, and Germany.

Jack Rosenfeld was born March 13, 1921, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His parents, Samuel Rosenfeld and Pauline Rosenfeld (née Snyderman), were Jewish immigrants from the town of Belaya Tserkov, which at the time of their immigration around 1908 was located in the Russian Empire (in the Kiev district of present-day Ukraine); they spoke Yiddish as their first language.

During Jack Rosenfeld's childhood his family lived at first in South Philadelphia, on 26th Street, where his father owned a candy store. He had a brother, Max, who was the oldest sibling, and an older sister, Bess. After the store went out of business, the family moved in 1934 to 2529 N. 33rd Street, in the Strawberry Mansion neighborhood of North Philadelphia. Following his graduation from Northeast High School in 1938, Jack worked in the accounting department at Food Fair Stores. He enlisted in the United States Army on August 19, 1942.

At the time that Jack Rosenfeld began his military service, his parents were living at 3204 W. Berks Street. In September or October 1942, they moved to 5832 Montrose Street, in West Philadelphia. Jack's brother and sister were by this time already married, and lived with their families at 6128 Carpenter Street, near the new home of their parents. The letters that Jack wrote home to his parents during his military service were usually addressed simultaneously to his whole immediate family including his siblings and their spouses: Max Rosenfeld, and Max's wife, Rose Rosenfeld, and Bess Katz (née Rosenfeld), and Bess's husband, Martin Katz.

Following basic training at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, Jack Rosenfeld was promoted to corporal and in March 1943 was transferred to Ft. Sill, Oklahoma, for training as a radio operator in field artillery. After two months of advanced training, he was promoted to sergeant, and on May 9, 1943 he sailed for North Africa, arriving on May 24.

Upon arrival in North Africa, Rosenfeld was selected to serve as a court reporter for the board of officers who conducted hearings about the reclassification of officers. During that time he was stationed in the cities of Oran, Algiers, Bizerte and Tunis. When the board disbanded, around December 1943, Rosenfeld was assigned to be confidential secretary of "A" Force, an organization led by British Brigadier Dudley Wrangel Clarke that was responsible for the Allied cover and deception operations in the Mediterranean and Middle East. As a member of "A" Force Jack Rosenfeld was stationed at first in a town outside of Algiers. His "A" Force unit moved to Naples, Italy, on July 8, 1944; and to southern France in mid to late September 1944. In late March 1945 the unit arrived in Heidelberg, Germany.

The "A" Force unit with which Rosenfeld served was designated as the second Tactical Headquarters and led by Colonel Eugene Sweeney. It was formed to carry out cover and deception for Italy and the invasion of southern France. In France it was attached to the 7th Army Headquarters, and in Germany it was part of the 6th Army Group.

In his work with "A" Force Jack Rosenfeld was responsible for recording all traffic and keeping the situation map and deception map. He also recorded and transmitted traffic for double agents; prepared and delivered deception documents; and recorded the minutes of brainstorming sessions devoted to developing deception traffic and operations. He had top-secret clearance, and could not discuss any details of his work in his correspondence with family and friends.

On May 10, 1945, the United States Army awarded Jack Rosenfeld the Bronze Star Medal in recognition of meritorious achievement, for his performance of duties as "A" Force confidential secretary during military operations in France and Germany from September 20, 1944 to April 29, 1945.

Throughout the war Jack Rosenfeld corresponded regularly with his fiancée, Sylvia Solov, the daughter of Carl and Selma Solov, also of Philadelphia. By the time that Jack entered the military the couple had already begun to think about marriage; Jack announced their engagement in letters to his family in late November and early December 1942.

In most of the correspondence that Jack and Sylvia exchanged during the war, they included at the head of each letter a motto or slogan that they had worked out between them at Jack's initiation around November 1942: "Our love is as strong as our desire to crush fascism."

Jack Rosenfeld's "A" Force unit was poised for transfer to the Pacific when Japan surrendered on September 2, 1945. He departed for the United States from Marseille, France, on October 27, 1945. Arriving in New York on November 6, he proceeded to the Indiantown Gap Military Reservation, in Pennsylvania, where he was processed for discharge. He received his official separation and honorable discharge from the Army on November 11, 1945. He and Sylvia married in Philadelphia on December 2, 1945.

In postwar life, Jack and Sylvia Rosenfeld resided in Philadelphia and raised two children, a son, Arthur Rosenfeld, and a daughter, Ruthie Rosenfeld. Around 1950 Jack Rosenfeld earned a diploma in advertising from the Charles Morris Price School of Advertising and Journalism, and subsequently founded the Atlas Duplicating Service. Later, he was for many years director of the Philadelphia Printing School. He was also a leader in secular Jewish groups, including the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Philadelphia; the Congress of Secular Jewish Organizations; and the Sholom Aleichem Club, a Philadelphia club that fosters community activities with a focus on Yiddish culture.

Jack Rosenfeld died on July 16, 2004, in Philadelphia, at the age of 83.

The collection's body of correspondence, memorabilia, and photographs, together with the accompanying autobiographical writings and research notes of Jack Rosenfeld, document how one member of the American Armed Forces during the Second World War interpreted the war effort, and his personal role in the events, including his participation in confidential intelligence operations that were key to the Allied victory in the war. The materials provide a window into the experiences of American military personnel during the war, as well as of civilians at home, who were often involved in some aspect of the war effort in community groups. The collection has the potential to lend valuable insights into American social history, including the history of American Jewish life, in this period, with a particular focus on Philadelphia.

The correspondence in the collection provides a lively and rounded impression of the separate perspectives, and mutual exchanges between one American soldier, Jack Rosenfeld, and the civilian community supporting him back home. The correspondence spans the entire course of Rosenfeld's military career, from basic training, beginning in September 1942, through to assignments in North Africa and Europe, ending with the Allied occupation of Germany in mid to late 1945. It includes what is probably the majority of the letters written by Jack Rosenfeld himself during this time, and virtually all of the correspondence that he received during these years, not only from his fiancée and future wife, Sylvia Rosenfeld (née Solov), and his immediate family, but also from members of his extended family, and from friends.

Forty-two of the correspondents in the collection, or approximately one-third, are individuals who were also serving in the Armed Forces during the war, either relatives or friends of Jack from home, or colleagues from the service. For a list of those correspondents, see the Index at the end of this finding aid.

Jack Rosenfeld's own letters are preserved most notably in the case of his correspondences with Sylvia Rosenfeld; and with his parents, Samuel and Pauline Rosenfeld (for an overview of the correspondence, see the Series Description under Series I). The correspondence of Jack and Sylvia is by far the most extensive, totaling 1891 items (including V-Mail), fairly equally divided between letters from Sylvia to Jack, and those from him to her. Throughout much of the period they wrote letters daily, or even twice a day. Jack's correspondence with his parents is also very significant (approximately 506 items, including V-Mail), with Jack's letters home accounting for about two thirds of it. Jack's letters to his parents were usually written in the spirit of a communal address to his whole family; they were shared with his two married siblings and their families. The next most extensive accumulations in the collection, also including a few letters written by Jack, are his separate correspondences with his sister, Bess Katz; and with his brother, Max Rosenfeld, as well as Max's wife, Rose Rosenfeld. (Jack also received letters from Bess's husband, Martin Katz, who, beginning in September 1943, was also serving in the Army.)

Correspondence to Jack from his father, Samuel Rosenfeld, is written in Yiddish. Of the total of 123 items in Yiddish, approximately half are accompanied by English translations made by Jack's sister, Bess Katz, including virtually all of the regular correspondence, and a little more than a third of the V-Mail correspondence.

One aspect of the correspondence unique to the war era is the significant number of items that exist only in the special format known as Victory Mail, or V-Mail, that was used by the United States Postal Service for conveying correspondence to and from American service personnel overseas. The V-Mail system, which was initiated in summer 1942 and continued to be used until fall 1945, saved valuable cargo space at a time when the shipment of war materials was of paramount importance. Letters were written on a special one-page "V-Mail" form, which served simultaneously as letterhead and envelope. The sheet had a prescribed space for the text of the letter, and boxes at the head for the names and addresses of sender and recipient; the sheet could then be folded to make a distinctive envelope, which could be addressed and posted as usual. The Postal Service would open and microfilm these V-Mail sheets, and only the rolls of microfilm, which occupied a small fraction of the cargo space that would have been required for the original mail, were sent overseas. Upon reaching their destination, the letters were printed from the microfilm at a reduced size, so that the item received by the addressee was a miniaturized facsimile of the original letter, measuring approximately one-quarter of a standard letter-size sheet.

The collection contains a total of 2,067 items of V-Mail, accounting for a little more than half of the correspondence. Nearly all of the V-Mail dates from June 1943 to September 1945. The collection contains some regular mail during that same period, since correspondents were not required to use V-Mail forms, and regular first-class mail continued to be conveyed overseas (also, some correspondence written on V-Mail forms but deemed unsuitable to be photographed, for instance, because of the size of the handwriting, was conveyed in the original paper form); however, a significant proportion of correspondence in the collection dating from this period is present only in the form of the miniaturized V-Mail facsimiles. Although it is possible to peruse these items with the naked eye, one will likely need to use a magnifying glass if consulting a large number of them, or to request enlarged photocopies of the relevant items for ease of reading.

Scattered in the correspondence, among items that were enclosed, are clippings; newsletters; fliers and other ephemera; and photographs. The presence of photographs in correspondence files has been noted in the inventory list. The commercial greeting cards found in the correspondence are often cards especially designed for sending to American servicemen, and make reference to the war or military life. In the V-Mail subseries, a few items bear personally drawn or designed greetings on religious holidays or other special occasions.

While the correspondence richly conveys a sense of the atmosphere of the period and the texture of everyday life under wartime conditions, Jack Rosenfeld's memoir about his military service, in the Writings series (Folders 331-333), written many years later, in 1995, provides a broader frame of reference. Jack wrote the memoir as he and his wife, Sylvia, were about to celebrate their fiftieth wedding anniversary. Interestingly, since he and Sylvia had married in December 1945 immediately following his discharge from the Army, the year in which he undertook this personal work of remembrance was also the fiftieth anniversary of the end of the war. In connection with the writing of the memoir, Jack read published histories about the intelligence operations in which he had participated, as well as historical fiction about the war. The collection originally included his personal copies of 21 works related to the history of the war. For a list of those books, see the note on Separated Materials, below.

Other materials found in the series of Writings indicate that Jack Rosenfeld had the intention of expanding his memoir. An additional essay that he wrote about his family and his memories of childhood (Folder 334), with handwritten emendations dating from after July 2000, provides indispensible biographical information, and also illuminates relationships among some of the correspondents. His titling of this piece suggests that he intended it to serve as an introduction to the memoir about his military experiences. Also included in this series are notes that Rosenfeld took upon re-reading his own wartime correspondence (Folder 335); in the notes he arranges various experiences and events brought out in the correspondence along a timeline from April 1943 to August 1945. Notes and drafts found laid in his personal copies of books about the war (Folders 336-337), with one set of notes dated 2003, also indicate that his research into the period continued to occupy him long after he had completed his memoir for his family in 1995.

In his memoir Jack Rosenfeld especially focuses on his work as confidential secretary of "A" Force, the Allied military organization responsible for cover and deception operations in the Mediterranean and the Middle East. The intelligence operations in which he participated continued to be classified as top secret for years after the end of the war; it was only in the early 1970s that details began to be made public. In his memoir, Rosenfeld draws extensively from Anthony Cave Brown's historical work Bodyguard of Lies, first published in 1975. In his writing and further research, Jack Rosenfeld sought to place his personal experiences into historical perspective.

Also worth mentioning in the Writings series are a letter to the editor and a prose piece that Rosenfeld wrote while he was still in the service (Folder 330).

The Memorabilia series, with the majority of items dating to the Second World War, adds additional heft to the collection's documentation of the period. Items pertaining specifically to Jack Rosenfeld's military service include his medals, dog tags, and uniform pins (Box 14); and considerable print memorabilia such as copies of military orders, and military and other ephemera collected during his service (Folders 338-347). Also included here are some additional clippings, newsletters, and pamphlets (Folders 352 and 354). Of the wartime memorabilia, a significant subcategory comprises items that relate to Jack's participation in theater and musical productions by the Army's Entertainment Section of Special Services (Folders 341-345). These items, including scripts, song lyrics, and programs, reveal an aspect of military life not often thought of in connection with the war, namely, how soldiers exercised their creative talents to produce their own shows for the entertainment of other soldiers. In addition, two posters in the Oversize series (Folder 357) stem from Rosenfeld's work in organizing a Soldier Show Contest in Paris, France, in August 1945.

With regard to materials in the collection other than writings that are removed in time from the period of the Second World War, there is a relatively small amount of material in the Memorabilia series concerning Jack Rosenfeld's postwar life, as a well as a folder of items pertaining to his parents (including a passport in Russian, issued in 1910, the earliest dated item in the collection). Also included are materials from the Veterans History Project of the American Folklife Center, which Rosenfeld contacted in January 2003; and clippings and periodicals saved by him from 1997 to 2003, all relating to the history of the Second World War.

In the Photographs series, the first album, accounting for two-thirds of the photographs in the collection, consists almost entirely of photographs taken during the war, the majority of them taken by Jack Rosenfeld in the locations overseas where he was stationed. A second album contains family photographs from the postwar period, from the 1950s on, with most of them taken on a handful of occasions in later years, perhaps in the 1990s.