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Sam Kornhauser papers

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The Sam Kornhauser papers documents the experiences of the Kornhauser and Ament families in German-occupied Poland during World War II and consist of biographical materials and photographs documenting his parents, Stephen and Amalia Kornhauser, and members of the Kornhauser and Ament families who survived the Holocaust in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Belgium before immigrating to the United States and Brazil. Biographical materials document Stephen and Amalia Kornhauser; Stephen’s siblings Leon Kornhauser, Fela Kornhauser, and Ursula Kornhauser Goldkorn and her husband Berek; his father Israel Kornhauser; and Amalia’s sister-in-law Manya Ament. Stephen and Amalia Kornhauser materials primarily consist of false identification papers in the name Wizniewski, but they also include two 1938 patent documents in Stephen’s name (Salomon) for xylolite floors, one authentic 1950 travel document for Amalia, and the 1952 passenger list for the steamship Liberté bearing the names of the Kornhauser family (Salomon, Amalia, and Isidora). Leon Kornhauser materials include a 1945 identification certificate; a 1952 passenger list showing his immigration to Brazil and a map of the port of Genoa; records documenting his crystal and glass coating business in Brazil in the 1950s; 1960s and 1970s correspondence from friends and relatives in Israel; and a 1998 letter about Kornhauser’s chance encounter with Pope John Paul II in the 1930s. Ursula and Berek Goldkorn materials include identification papers from Poland, Germany, Belgium, and Brazil and a false certificate using the name Wizniewski. There is a similar false certificate for Fela Kornhauser. This series also includes the personal narrative of Amalia Kornhauser’s sister-in-law, Manya Ament, describing the outbreak of war in Poland, the German occupation, the birth of Manya’s daughter Jeanine in the Bochnia ghetto, their escape to Czechoslovakia and Hungary, and liberation. Photographs depict Kornhauser and Ament family members and friends in Poland, Belgium, and Germany, the opening ceremony of the Jewish Committee in Selb, Germany, in 1946, and the folding camp chair patented by Israel Kornhauser. This series also includes a photograph of four men in striped prisoner uniforms that is believed to represent Leon Kornhauser upon his liberation at Dachau.

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