Autobiographical sketch, scrapbook, motion picture film, and photographs, relating primarily to Latvian refugees in Germany and the United States. Includes translations.

A Latvian-American photographer and television cameraman, Eduards Kraucs was born in Riga on August 21, 1898. During World War I his family was evacuated to Moscow, where he graduated from high school and the Geological Institute. In 1921 Kraucs returned to Latvia, where he enlisted in the army as a volunteer and began taking photographs and motion picture footage for Latvian news organizations. When Russians and later Germans occupied Latvia, his filming was used by both organizations. In the late 1940s, Kraucs and his wife worked as farm laborers in Displaced Persons camps in Hochfeld, near Augsburg, West Germany, where he filmed the inhabitants of the camp. In 1948 he made a film for the International Refugees Organization on the screening and immigration of refugees to the U.S. for CBS. In 1950, the Kraucs immigrated to the U.S., settling in Colorado Springs, Colorado, where Kraucs worked for the Alexander Film Company, later acquired by CBS and renamed KKTV-11. Kraucs worked for KKTV-11 for 26 years, arranging for many Latvian broadcasts and interviews through the 1960s and 1970s.

1 manuscript box, 1 envelope, 1 album box, 474 filmstrips, 3 motion picture film reels (2.4 Linear Feet)

For copyright status, please contact the Hoover Institution Library & Archives.

The collection is open for research; materials must be requested in advance via our reservation system. If there are audiovisual or digital media material in the collection, they must be reformatted before providing access.