Sylvia Malcmacher papers

Sylvia Malcmacher was born Zlata Distel in Wilno (Vilnius), Poland (now Lithuania) on July 9, 1926. She was one of three daughters. In October 1941, she was forced to live in the Vilnius ghetto with her family. Her eleven-year-old sister, Shifra, was taken away and murdered in the nearby Ponary forest. In September 1943, after the liquidation of the ghetto, Zlata was taken to Kaiserwald and then to Stutthof. There, her father was separated from his wife and two remaining daughters. They later learned that he was killed on a ship in the Baltic Sea. Zlata was separated from her mother and sister and sent to Muhldorf, where she was assigned to do the laundry of German soldiers. After her liberation on May 5, 1945, she learned that her mother and sister had died of typhus at Stutthof. She was the only survivor of her family. In the Feldafing displaced persons camp, she met Israel Malcmacher. They married in 1946 and immigrated to the United States with their young daughter in 1949, settling in Cleveland. The couple had two daughters. Sylvia, who had taken ORT classes at Feldafing, worked as a seamstress, and Israel (who later became Isador) worked at Brookside meats.