Mina Goldstein Papers

Document | Not Digitized | Accession Number: 1996.149

Overview

Description: The collection documents the Holocaust-era experiences of Mina Goldstein (née Lewkowicz), a survivor of the Łódź ghetto and Ravensbrück concentration camp. Included are wartime photographs taken in the Łódź and Warsaw ghettos, a studio portrait of Mina and her parents wearing Star of David badges, Documents include postwar identification cards issued to Mina identifying her as a Jewish refugee in the Düppel Center displaced persons camp and as a former prisoner of Ravensbrück, and her future husband Jakob Grochowski (Goldstein) as a former prisoner of Mauthausen. Also included is a newspaper clippings from Sweden regarding former prisoners of Ravensbrück and a document related to restitution.
Date: inclusive: 1935-1950
Credit Line: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of Mina Goldstein
Collection Creator: Mina Goldstein
Jakob Grochowski
Biography: Mina Lewkowicz (sometimes spelled Minna, later Mina Goldstein) was born on 1 April 1924 in Łódź, Poland. After the German invasion of Poland in 1939 she and her parents were interned in Łódź ghetto in March 1940. Mina and her mother Zlata were deported to the Ravensbrück concentration camp in October 1944. Mina worked in the tailor shop sewing SS uniforms. She was paid in camp scrip, but there was nothing to buy with it. Mina was rescued by the Swedish Red Cross in April 1945, when Ravensbrück inmates were transported to Sweden by special arrangement with the German government. Her mother perished in Ravensbrück. She was reunited with her father at a displaced persons camp in Berlin after May 1945. Mina later married Jakob Grochowski (born 20 July 1915), a survivor of the Płaszów ghetto and Mauthausen.

Jakob Grochowski changed his name from Goldstein to Grochowski to escape antisemitism in postwar Poland. [see curatorial file]

Physical Details

Language: German Swedish
Genre/Form: Photographs. Identity cards. Clippings.
Extent: 1 folder
System of Arrangement: The collection is arranged as a single series.

Rights & Restrictions

Conditions on Access: There are no known restrictions on access to this material.
Conditions on Use: The Museum is in the process of determining the possible use restrictions that may apply to material(s) in this collection.