Lachter family photographs

Izak (Yitzchock) Lachter was born in 1921 to Moshe Lachter, who had six siblings: Malka, Breindel, Etl, Mordechai "Mottel," Aryeh, and Bluma. Izak grew up in Turobin, Poland, and had five siblings: Avraham (Avrumcha), Nechama, Yosef, Miriam, and Oyzer. Izak's mother (née Diamant) died around 1932, and his father, Moshe, raised him and his five siblings.

When the Germans invaded Poland in September 1939, Moshe Lachter was living in Turobin with his family. Turobin changed hands several times during the first weeks of the war before the Germans finally took control. Izak worked for about a year at a German factory in Lublin. He escaped and spent the rest of the war in the woods and in hiding. His brother Yosef and their cousin Harry retreated with the Russian army and spent the war as factory workers in Kirovograd, Russia. In the evenings, Harry took courses to become a truck driver and ended up in Tashkent. Yosef joined the Anders Army, deserted in Palestine, and changed his last name to Diamant.

After the war, Izak returned to Lublin and intended to go home to Turobin, but he met an acquaintance who warned him against it. Izak was told that his family had been killed during the war and that local Poles had murdered two other Jewish survivors who had attempted to return. That same night the house where Izak and several Jewish comrades were staying was raided by members of the Polish Home Army. They were saved at the last minute when a Russian patrol appeared on the scene and fired on the Poles. Izak decided to leave Poland forever. He fled to the American zone of Germany, where he took up residence at the Lampertheim displaced persons camp. He met Chava Surah Tropen (Eva Lachter), and the couple married on July 20, 1946.

Eva Lachter was born Chava Surah Tropen on March 24, 1920 in Bełżyce, Poland. Her father was deported from the Bełżyce ghetto to Majdanek in March 1942. On May 8, 1942 the entire ghetto was liquidated. Most of the Jewish population was herded into the synagogue and burned alive or shot on the spot. Chava Surah was one of the few who was spared to perform labor, but the rest of her family were killed. She was deported to the Budzyń concentration camp and transferred to Majdanek and then Auschwitz. In January 1945 she was forced on a death march to Germany. She was liberated at Bergen-Belsen by the British on April 15, 1945.

In 1946 or 1947 Izak discovered his brother Yosef was alive in Palestine. He and Chava planned to join him, but Yosef convinced them to go to America instead. Izak and Chava Lachter immigrated to the United States with their 19 month old son Chaim via Bremerhaven aboard the USS General Howze in 1949.