Miriam Klein photographs

Miriam Klein was born Amalia Marysia Reinharz in Przemyśl, Poland, on August 31, 1933 to Isser Reinharz (1893-1954) and Berta Sturm Reinharz (b. February 15, 1895). Isser had two sons from his first marriage to Bertha Felsenbach: Leonard (Lonek, b. 1920) and Samuel (Samek, b. March 12, 1923.) Isser and Berta married in 1931. He specialized in orthopedic shoemaking and employed 6-10 people in his workshop. Berta became gravely ill after Marysia’s birth and was unable to care for her, so Marysia was raised by two maternal aunts, Sala Scheck and her husband Emil, and Pepa Sturm and her husband. The families spoke German at home. Isser was a member of the Bund, and Leonard, a talented violinist, was a dedicated Communist. The family was assimilated except for Emil Scheck, who received a pensioner from Austria for wounds received during his World War I military service. Emil taught Marysia the Hebrew alphabet.

Nazi Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939 and reached Przemyśl on September 14th. The San River running through the divided German and Soviet territory, and Marysia and her family lived in the Russian sector. Living conditions among the Jewish population deteriorated rapidly. All privately owned houses were transferred to the city administration, and Isser was forced to work in a Seltzer factory. Marysia, just starting elementary school, studied in Russian and Yiddish. Isser desperately looked for ways to get Leonard out of Przemyśl. He tried to send him to his brother in America or to study in Palestine, but his late wife’s family opposed this. In June 1941, Leonard joined the Soviet Army and was killed in action during the German invasion of the Soviet Union. On June 28th, the Germans took over all of Przemyśl and established a ghetto, which was sealed in summer 1942. Marysia’s caretakers were forced into the ghetto in 1941. Isser, Bertha, Samuel, and Marysia were exempt because of the specialized work done in his workshop until summer 1942. During an Aktion the late July, Marysia’s uncle Emil Scheck was selected for deportation, and he visited Marysia to say goodbye dressed in his best suit. Isser used leather purses and other materials abandoned by the deportees to continue to make shoes.

In September 1943, Isser arranged for Marysia to leave the ghetto for the local convent under the coat of a woman who worked in the garden of ghetto commandant SS-Unterscharführer Josef Schwammberger. She was told to run towards Kazika Romankiewicz, a Polish woman who lived across the street from the ghetto, to be taken to the Sacred Heart Convent. A ghetto guard who had been paid off by Marysia’s brother Samuel pretended to shoot at them but made sure to miss. Mrs. Romankiewicz smuggled other Jewish children out of the ghetto under the pretext of gathering potato peels and hiding the children under potato sacks on her wagon. Marysia had false papers issued under the name “Maria Ramocka” and was one of a dozen Jewish children hidden in the convent that also cared for about 50 Polish children from the Volhynia region whose parents had been killed by Ukrainian nationalists. During church services, the Jewish children were placed in the back so the Catholic children would not notice mistakes in their prayers or gestures. The Mother Superior, Sister Emilia Malkowska, hid the Jewish children during the frequent German searches of the convent, often behind the altar. After the final destruction of the Przemyśl ghetto, a Polish woman brought a few Hebrew prayer books to the convent, and one of the nuns gave them to Marysia to use.

Meanwhile Samuel had a permit from the ghetto commandant to travel to surrounding villages to purchase materials needed for the production of goods, and in January 1944 he smuggled his parents out in a horse drawn wagon. They hid at the farm of Polish couple Franciszek and Magdalena Banasiewicz in Orzechowce, outside Przemyśl, with a dozen other Jews. On July 28, 1944 the Soviet Army liberated Przemyśl, and Berta Reinharz rushed to the Sacred Heart Convent to recover Marysia. Marysia’s aunts and uncles had been deported and murdered in Belzec extermination camp. Hanka Rubin’s family had been discovered in hiding in Tarnawce and executed with their rescuers, Mr. and Mrs. Kurpiel, a few days before liberation.

In 1948, the Reinharz family left Poland for Sweden to await visas for the United States. In May 1950, Marysia decided to immigrate to Israel instead aboard the ship Kedma. She met Berek Dov Klein from Chrzanow who had survived Auschwitz and Buchenwald. The couple married in 1952 and had two sons. Samuel immigrated to America, married fellow survivor Pola Preger from Będzin, and had two children. The Banasiewicz family, who had hidden Isser, Berta, and Samuel, were honored by Yad Vashem as Righteous Among the Nations. Berta immigrated to Israel following Isser’s death in 1954. Dov Klein died in 2000.