Glass kiddush cup with red and gold bands and the Hebrew word Shabbat saved from the Warsaw ghetto

Emanuel Stein was born in Krakow, Poland, on February 12, 1905. He received a PhD in Philosophy and a medical degree from Jagiellonian University in Krakow. He was practicing medicine in Krakow when Germany invaded Poland in 1939. His wife, Rose, her family, and his mother were able to relocate to the eastern part of Poland to be safe from the invasion. Dr. Stein left Krakow to join the Polish Army and eventually reunited with his family. Realizing that they needed to get out of Europe, they fled to Vilnius, Lithuania, in early 1940. They learned that the Dutch consulate was issuing visas to refugees, with no questions asked, for entry to Curacao in the Dutch West Indies. Lithuania was occupied by the Soviet Union in June 1940 and obtaining Soviet exit visas was difficult and expensive, requiring multiple interrogations and bribes. They left Vilnius in October 1940, and travelled to Japan via train. From there, they took a boat across the Pacific and arrived in Mexico in November 1940. While in Mexico, Dr. Stein and his wife had their first child on February 27,1942. They managed to obtain US visas and emigrated to New York in November 1942. By April 1944, Dr. Stein had his New York medical license. He set up his own medical practice which he conducted until retiring in September 1977. A second daughter was born in New York in 1947. Dr. Stein died on March 6, 1994.