The collection includes more than 100 letters to Benningsen from P.P. Ignatév, the last Minister of Imperial Russia, written in 1920-1921; and correspondence between Benningsen and his wife, Ekaterina Platonovna Benningsen, and Ksenii︠a︡ V. Denikina. Several manuscripts by E. P. Benningsen are also included: a long memoir which treats the history of the Benningsen family, his own government and Red Cross service, the 1917 Revolution and the Civil War, and emigration in France and Brazil. There are copies of his lectures and articles on historical topics; a lengthy essay on the character of modern politics called "Ce que la vie m'a enseigne"̀; and a number of reviews of books dealing with Russia. There are two sets of subject files: one containing materials relating to the activities of the "Soi︠u︡z Pazheĭ" (an emigre organization of former members of the Corps of Pages); the other, materials relating to the efforts by former officers of the Kavalergardskiĭ Regiment to recover a trove of silver objects belonging to them that they had deposited in the State Treasury at the beginning of World War I and which finally ended up in Belgrade. A brief biographical note on her husband by Ekaterina P. Benningsen and a few photographs complete the collection.

The papers consist of correspondence, minor and fragmentary manuscripts, and clippings. The bulk of the collection consists of manuscripts and fragments, including a brief autobiography and manuscripts on the Kadets, the Civil War, and ROOVA.

This collection contains an eclectic variety of materials collected by Jewish historian, archivist, and bibliographer Zosa Szajkowski (1911-1978). Materials include organizational records, documents, correspondence, periodicals, printed ephemera related to Eastern European Jewish life in France in 1920s and 1930s and on the territories of modern Ukraine, Lithuania, Poland and Russia in the first quarter of the 20th century.