Harvey Seymour Sussman papers

The Harvey Seymour Sussman Papers consist of correspondence and memorabilia, which document Harvey Sussman's military service during World War II. The papers highlight his participation in the Army Specialized Training Program (ASTP) studying Malay at Yale University. Additional correspondence and memorabilia record Sussman's OSS assignments in the Far East and his travels through Europe and Asia on his way to this posting. Sussman's student years at Yale following the end of the war and his work as a Malay translator are also recorded in the papers. Harvey Sussman donated his papers to the Yale University Library in 1990, following a reunion of ASTP participants at which he exhibited many of these papers. Materials given to Sussman by other reunion participants supplement these papers.

The papers are arranged in two sections: Correspondence and Memorabilia. Correspondence includes Sussman's frequent letters to his family in Baltimore and later to his fiancée Muriel Hodes in New Haven. Sussman's letters from Camp Lee and from Yale describe the daily routine of a young Jewish soldier's life and detail the rigorous program of training for an ASTP participant. Though for security reasons he was not able to describe the work he was doing during his time in the Far East, Sussman's letters after his arrival are full of the daily details of military life.

Memorabilia includes announcements, programs, and course notes from the ASTP program at Yale, as well as playbills and invitations from the New Haven area. The section also includes military orders, travel brochures, postcards, and photographs from Sussman's assignments. Examples of Sussman's contract work as a Malay translator for the State Department are also in this section. Several files document Sussman's efforts to locate former ASTP members and to prepare a reunion at Berkeley College in May 1990. These files include correspondence with members and officials at Yale helping to organize the reunion, as well as programs and memorabilia from the reunion. The photographs include pictures of the ASTP participants and of colleagues on assignment in the Far East during World War II and photographs taken at the reunion. Printed materials of a conference dealing with the Office of Strategic Services is also included in the papers.

With his papers, Sussman also donated his short-snorter, a record of his military travels in currency, and other paper money and coins. These are now located in the Yale University Art Gallery's collection of Coins and Medals.