Luba Mendelsberg letters

Luba Mendelsberg was born Liebe Ryoka in 1895 in Warsaw, Poland. At the age of 28, Luba married Meyer Mendelsberg (1890-1955) and with him had a daughter, Miriam in 1922. Soon after her daughter’s birth, Luba and Miriam traveled to Montevideo, Uruguay while Meyer traveled to France. In 1929, Luba and Miriam immigrated to United States aboard the SS American Legion, to meet Meyer who had been living in New York since 1924. The couple settled in the Bronx, where Luba worked as a finisher and Meyer as a secretary.

In 1946, Luba reconnected with her nephew, Samuel Krum (1913-), a veteran of the Polish Army who had been captured by Soviet forces and made to work building a railroad in Siberia before eventually returning to Warsaw to find his entire family had been killed in concentration camps. In 1946 Samuel discovered Luba was his only remaining relative and the two began a lengthy correspondence. In 1947, Luba and Meyer supplied Samuel, his wife Rosa (1923-), and their daughter Miriam (1946-) affidavits of support to leave Poland for the United States, but Samuel was never able to obtain visas from the American consulate. To support his family while he waited for immigration documents to arrive, Samuel bought a sewing machine and began making and selling pocketbooks. In January 1948, Samuel and his family immigrated to Paris, France after turning down visas from Norway feeling their terms for refugees were too strict. Shortly after moving to Paris, Samuel and Rosa had a son, Lazar (1948-), though they found their standard of living in France was no better than it was in Warsaw. For this reason, Samuel again sought immigration papers and in 1950, moved to Melbourne, Australia. In Melbourne, Samuel and his brother Joseph opened a small factory and manufactured pocketbooks. Samuel continued to write to Luba until her death in 1951 and then to Meyer until his death in 1955. Samuel and his family remained in Australia.