Pillow sham with embroidered animals made by a Jewish immigrant

Object | Accession Number: 2012.72.6

Overview

Brief Narrative: Large, square pillow sham top cover with a red, embroidered design made by Edna (Yetta) Kwasznik Eckstein, who immigrated to the United States with her young son from Ratno, Russia (Ratne, Ukraine) in 1912. They joined her husband, Sam, who had left Ratno in 1908 and settled in Denver, Colorado. The pillow sham, one of a set of four, may have been brought with her.
Date: emigration: 1912
Geography: use: Denver (Colo.)
Credit Line: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of Samuel Veta
Contributor: Artist: Edna Eckstein
Subject: Edna Eckstein
Biography: Yetta (Yitke) Kwasznik was born approximately June 26, 1885, in Ratno, Russia (Ratne, Ukraine) to a Jewish family. She had a younger brother Motel, born in 1888. On June 15, 1906, she married Shlomo (Samuel) Eckstein, who was born in Ratno around January 15, 1878. A son, Edmund (Edward), was born in the fall of 1907. The next year, Samuel immigrated to the United States, sailing from Hamburg, Germany, and arriving in New York on May 25, 1908. He settled in Denver, Colorado. Yetta and Edmund joined him there in 1912. Yetta began to use the name Edna. Samuel was a laborer and eventually a driver with the Teamsters union. The couple had four more children: Rebecca, (April 16, 1913- September 12, 1971), Annie born 1915, Isadore, born 1918, and Abraham, born 1922. Edna received several letters from her brother Motel pleading for financial support, but after 1931, she received no more letters and had no further contact with her family in Eastern Europe. Rebecca (Betty) married Leo Veta and they adopted an infant girl and, in 1950, an infant boy, whom they named Samuel. Samuel’s biological mother, Ruth Haneman, had fled Nazi Germany with her family for Shanghai, China. Both her parents died in Shanghai in 1943, leaving sixteen year old Ruth responsible for her younger siblings. Samuel, age 68, died on March 9, 1946. Edna, age 92, died on January 12, 1977.

Physical Details

Classification: Furnishings and Furniture
Category: Household linens
Object Type: Pillow shams (lcsh)
Physical Description: Square, white cloth with a ruffled border and an animal and floral design embroidered in red thread in the center. The design features two birds, facing each other, sitting on tree like perches with three bulbous flowerlike attachments. Below are two fanciful, lion like creatures, facing each other, on each end of a curved, horizontal line. Around the edge of the square is a continuous, embroidered border with a flower in each corner connected by a looped line. There is an open seam in the ruffle and some staining.
Dimensions: overall: Height: 33.750 inches (85.725 cm) | Width: 33.125 inches (84.138 cm)
Materials: overall : cloth, thread

Rights & Restrictions

Conditions on Access: No restrictions on access
Conditions on Use: No restrictions on use

Keywords & Subjects

Topical Term: Immigrants--Russia--United States--Biography. Jews--United States--Biography.
Geographic Name: Russia--Emigration and immigration--History--20th century. United States--Emigration and immigration--History--20th century.

Administrative Notes

Legal Status: Permanent Collection
Provenance: The pillow sham was donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2012 by Samuel Veta, the grandson of Edna Eckstein.

Record last modified:: 2022-08-03 09:24:54
This page:: https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn47023

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Also in Ruth Haneman and Edna Eckstein family collection

The collection consists of documents, correspondence, and photographs relating to the experiences of Ruth Haneman and her family, who fled Nazi Germany for Shanghai and, after the war, emigrated to the United States, and of artifacts, correspondence, and photographs relating to the experiences of Edna Kwasznik and Samuel Eckstein in Russia and then the United States during the early 20th century.

Date: approximately 1906-1958

Eckstein and Haneman family papers

Document

Collection of photographs, documents, and correspondence relating to the Haneman family from Berlin, who immigrated to Shanghai in 1939; Ruth Haneman was the donor's biological mother. Among the documents are Japanese visas; registration documentation; passports; and a death announcement for Charlotte Hanemen from the "Shanghai Jewish Chronicle," dated September 10, 1944. The collection also includes material concerning the Echstein (donor's) maternal adoptive family, which immigrated to the United States from Ratno, Poland; includes photographs; letters; and a Ketubah between Yutta Itka Kwasznik and Shlomo Samuel Eckstein (donor's adoptive grandparents), signed in Ratno, Poland on June 15, 1906.

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Pillow sham with embroidered animals made by a Jewish immigrant

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Pillow sham with embroidered animals made by a Jewish immigrant

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