The 29 Yiddish letters in this archive are addressed to Senya Fléchine and his lifelong companion Mollie Steiner during their stay in Berlin and Paris. They are restricted to personal and family matters and do not reflect on the great political and social upheavals in the interwar period.
Senya (Simon) Fléchine was born in Russia in 1894 and emigrated to the U.S.A. in 1910. He became a photographer and was active in the anarchist movement. In 1917, after the outbreak of the Russian Revolution, he returned to his native Ukraine. From 1921 onward, life became very difficult for anarchists, and in 1923, after having met Molly Steiner (born as Marthe Alperine in 1897, and who lived until 1980). She was deported from the U.S.A. in 1921, after many convictions for anarchist activities, and they fled together to Berlin. There they were active among the Russian emigrants until 1933, when they fled to Paris upon the Nazi takeover of France.
In 1940 they emigrated to Cuernavaca, Mexico, where they remained. The couple ran a photographic studio and remained in contact with their anarchist comrades around the world.
Inventory of Senya Fléchine Papers