Raphael Aronson photograph collection

Raphael Aronson was born in 1918 in Kovno (Kaunas), Lithuania. He attained a commission as a lieutenant in the Lithuanian Army before World War II. He was an architecture student in Kovno in 1939. He was forced to enter the Kovno ghetto on June 21, 1941. He married his wife later that year in the ghetto. After failing to hide from the July 8, 1944, liquidation aktion of the Kovno ghetto, he and his wife were separated. He was deported to Dachau, a concentration camp in Germany, and then to Landsberg, a subcamp of Dachau in Germany, where he worked as a carpenter. He was liberated by the United States Army during a forced march. After liberation, he traveled to Dresden, Germany, and was imprisoned by the Soviets. He escaped and traveled to Graz, Austria, and was detained by the British to prevent his travel to Palestine (Israel). He received permission to move to Linz, Austria, then moved to Łódź, Poland, in an attempt to immigrate to Palestine. He was reunited with his wife and immigrated in 1947 to the United States.