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Title: Irma C. Erman papers
Date (inclusive): 1891-1999
Collection Number: 78036
Contributing Institution: Hoover Institution Library and Archives
Language of Material: In German, English, and Mandarin Chinese
Physical Description:
10 manuscript boxes, 19 oversize boxes, 1 painting
(24.7 Linear Feet)
Abstract: Irma Erman (1908 August 10-2000 December 10) was a German-Jewish writer and artist, and refugee to Shanghai and the United
States. The collection documents her life and creative work, and includes poetry, plays, artworks, correspondence, research
materials, and photographs. Also contains materials by her friend and fellow refugee to Shanghai and the United States, Dr.
Ernst Blumenberg.
Creator:
Erman, Irma C., 1908-2000
Physical Location: Hoover Institution Library & Archives
Boxes 11-29 and art rack items may not be used with permission of the Archivist. The remainder of 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.
For copyright status, please contact the Hoover Institution Library & Archives.
Acquired by the Hoover Institution Library & Archives in 1978.
[Identification of item], Irma C. Erman papers, [Box no., Folder no. or title], Hoover Institution Library & Archives.
When the processing archivist received the collection, the records were not in a discernable order. About half of the paper
materials were held in three-pronged folders, with additional papers, photographs, artworks, and some frames interfiled inbetween.
These folders form the basis of the series, as there were distinct folders for letters and associated research materials,
writings, legal materials, and materials from Erman's friend Ernst Blumenberg. The materials in these folders have been rehoused.
Where possible, folder titles have been retained. Series and file-level notes indicate if the processing archivist rearranged
the materials chronologically to facilitate use. Other paper materials have been organized alongside these folders in series.
Loose photographs have been rehoused for preservation, with slight arrangement by date (if applicable).
The majority of the artworks were received by the processing archivist having undergone preliminary preservation treatment
by Hoover staff.
Irma C. Erman (1908 August 10-2000 December 10) was a German-Jewish and, later, American writer and artist. Born to Joseph
and Clementine Ermann in 1908, Erman grew up with her sister Elly in Hannover, Germany. In 1930, she married Paul Cohn (1897
December 14 – 1952 January 20), then a co-owner of a men's clothing business. Erman traveled extensively in the coming decade,
visiting England, Portugal, Greece, Argentina, and Uruguay, among other destinations.
These travels took place amid dramatic restriction of the rights of Jews by the Nazi-led German government. Following the
events of Kristallnacht in 1938, during which Cohn's business was targeted, Erman and Cohn fled Germany. In 1939, they arrived
in Shanghai, taking advantage of the city's lack of visa requirements. Together with the city's community of over 20,000 Jewish
refugees, in 1943 they were forced by Japanese officials to reside in the "Restricted Sector for Stateless Refugees," dubbed
a ghetto by its Jewish residents.
In 1948, Erman and Cohn left Shanghai for San Francisco, California, arriving in August. Cohn died in 1952. Erman would live
in Northern California for the rest of her life.
In 1955, Erman married Eugene Mullaly Vinson. They divorced shortly thereafter, in April 1956. That same year, Erman made
her first return trip to Hannover in order to pursue restitution claims. The partial success of these claims, in addition
to her status as a landlord in California, were likely Erman's primary means of support.
Erman devoted significant time to creative pursuits. She wrote poetry in German throughout her time in Shanghai and in the
decades after. She brought these poems together in the unpublished collection "Einige Gedichte," first in 1978 and again in
1986. In 1991, she self-published a collection of her poetry, featuring German poems with English and Mandarin Chinese translations,
as "For One World in Peace: Memories of a Woman Poet & Painter of the 20th Century."
By the 1950s, Erman was also active as a visual artist, working in acrylic, watercolor, and pastels. Landscapes—most often
remembered from the past—were among Erman's most frequent genres, though she also produced detailed studies of plantlife.
Erman also created what she termed "collages," stone and geode fragments attached to boards in patterns.
Erman also wrote two plays during the 1970s. She spent much of the decade working on a script that offered a fictionalized
account of her flight from Germany and time in Shanghai, first titled "A Second in History (A Document for Peace)" (1971)
before becoming "Odyssey Shanghai (A Monument for Peace)" (1978). In 1976, she drafted "A Dream Drama with Justitia," a play
that, in part, dramatizes the story of the Swiss police officer Paul Grüninger. Erman never staged or published these plays,
but sent them to the Hoover Institution and Leo Baeck Institute for preservation.
Irma Erman died in 2000.
Scope and Content of Collection
This collection documents the life and creative work of Irma Erman (1908 August 10-2000 December 10), a German-Jewish writer
and artist, and refugee to Shanghai and the United States. A majority of the collection consists of materials related to Erman's
artistic and writerly practice. Handwritten, typed, and printed versions of her poetry, some of it first drafted in the 1930s
and 1940s; multiple versions of Erman's plays from the 1970s; and several pages of autobiographical prose document Erman's
thinking and reflection on her time in Shanghai, antisemitic persecution, war and peace, friendship, art, and the natural
world. Among the dozens of artworks, mostly created between the 1970s and 1990s, are watercolor and acrylic paintings, pastel
drawings, and three-dimensional "collages."
Other materials stem from Erman's friendships, research and civic interests, and daily life. The collection includes a substantial
volume of poetry by and letters from Dr. Ernst Blumenberg (1888-1973), a fellow German-Jewish refugee in Shanghai and, in
the decades after, Erman's close friend. Other correspondents include Michiko Shibata, the widow of Mitsugi Shibata, who served
as a Japanese consul in Shanghai during World War II; German U-boat captain and later NATO official Erich Topp and his family;
German consul in San Francisco Heinz Pallasch; and others. In addition to a small cache of vital records, her biographical
file includes records of Erman's 1950s and 1960s efforts to win restitution as a victim of National Socialist persecution.
Photographs spanning the 1910s to the 1990s offer evidence of Erman's relationships and travels, including some photos from
her 1930s journey to Shanghai. The collection also includes a small recipe book documenting Erman's evolving engagement with
multiple food cultures.
The collection has been arranged in seven series: Biographical file, Correspondence, Writings, Ernst Blumenberg poetry and
letters, Artwork, Photographs, and Miscellaneous.
The Leo Baeck Institute holds the Irma C. Erman collection, AR 4106.
Subjects and Indexing Terms
World War, 1939-1945 -- Jews
Jews -- Germany
Paintings
Germans -- United States
Art objects
Antisemitism -- History
Germans -- China
Drama
Jewish refugees
Dramatists, German
California, Northern
Poetry
Grüninger, Paul, 1891-
Shibata, Mitsugi, -1977
Blumenberg, Ernst