“NATIONAL WEEKLY FOR THE SURVIVING REMNANT”: IMPORTANT AND SCARCE EARLY RUN OF THE ZIONIST NEWSPAPER UNSER WELT (OUR WORLD), 1946-51

(JUDAICA) (HOLOCAUST SURVIVORS). Unser Welt [Our World]. Partial (nearly complete) run from 1946, Number 1 through 1951, Number 2. Munich and Paris: 1946-51. Folio, earlier numbers (1946, Number 1 through 1948, Number 18) bound in half black cloth and boards; remaining numbers (1948, Number 19 through 1951, Number 2) unbound, folded once as issued. $15,000.

Scarce, nearly complete run of the earliest issues of the Zionist newspaper Unser Welt, “Our World,” the “National Weekly for Jewry in Europe,” published in Munich just after World War II and the Holocaust.

Unser Welt was a Zionist-oriented publication with a deep respect for the Revisionist wing of the Zionist movement, with editorial offices in Munich and Paris. Initially, for the first two numbers, the newspaper was called Hamdina ("The State"); this collection contains both Numbers 1 and 2 of Hamdina (all published under that name) along with Number 1 of the newly titled Unser Welt, all from 1946. By the late 1940s, however, Unser Welt's circulation reached several European nations besides Germany, namely Switzerland, France, Austria, Belgium, Sweden and Italy, and its sub-title proclaimed it to be the "National Weekly for Jewry in Europe." The very fact that Unser Welt sought to be the publication of European Jewry spoke volumes about a conscious decision of a number of Jews to remain in the continent where two-thirds of their brethren had been murdered. This collection includes from 1946, both Numbers 1 and 2 of Hamdina, then of Unser Welt, Numbers 1, 5, 8-15, 18, 20-21, 23-30; from 1947, Numbers 31, 33-45a, 48-82; from 1948, Numbers 1-18, all of which are bound together in one folio volume. The collection also gathers, from 1948, Numbers 19-49, 51-62, 65-69; from 1949, Numbers 3-13, 15-17, 20-30, 35-42, 44/45-46, 49; from 1950, Numbers 1-50; and from 1951, Number 2. These are all unbound, folded once as issued. Text in Yiddish, with photographic and line illustrations.

A few minor closed tears and mild edge-wear to unbound numbers. Exceptionally good condition. Scarce.