Papers of the members of family Puhk

This collection contains documents about Marie Puhk-Birse, including personal documents and diaries kept during spending her time in DP camp. She was the daughter of Jaak Johann Puhk, founder of J. Puhk & Sons, who lived in Sweden, mostly from the post-World War II period. Marie Puhk was born on 27 September 1885 in Viljandimaa, Kõo parish, and her parents were company « J. Puhk ». Puhk & Sons’ founder Jaak Puhk and his wife Anna-Louise (née Kasvandik). In 1906 Jaak Johann Puhk qualified as a dentist at the University of Tartu. Marie Birse moved to Estonia, lived in Tallinn and Viljandimaa, and acquired a cattle farm in Ruusa, Põlvamaa. Marie Puhk left Estonia in 1941 in the course of resettlement together with her daughter Sigrid Buske, who was married to the Baltic German Oswald Buske, and her son J. Buske. She lived in several places in Germany (escaped from Poznan in January 1945 to Nöbdenitz in Tüüringen, later a Soviet occupation zone, settled in March 1946 in the refugee camp Kleinheubach in the US zone), moved to Belgium with her children in 1947, lived in Södertälje, Sweden, from 1950. Marie Puhk died on 13 August 1952 and was buried in Södertälje cemetery.