Multi-colored crocheted sweater received in a forced labor camp
- Date
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use:
1944-1945 November 20
- Geography
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received:
Ludwigsdorf (Concentration camp);
Ludwikowice Klodzkie (Poland)
- Classification
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Clothing and Dress
- Category
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Women's clothing
- Object Type
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Sweaters (lcsh)
- Credit Line
- United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of Regina Eber
Sweater jacket worn by 23 year old Regina Wygodska from 1944 to 1945 in Ludwigsdorf concentration camp in Poland. The sweater was given to her by Master Didtrich, the man she worked for doing electrical repair. Much of her work was outside in the brutal cold, so he requested warm clothing for Regina. The sweater was obtained from the warehouse of clothing confiscated from prison inmates. Regina was wearing the sweater on May 5, 1945, when the camp was liberated by Soviet forces. Not long after liberation, she met Rubin Eber and they decided to marry. Regina wore the sweater for the ceremony on November 20, 1945. When they arrived, and Mrs. Davidovicz, the wife of the man performing the ceremony, saw Regina, she turned white and began to cry. She told Regina that this was "the sweater that my mother made in the Łódź ghetto from small remnants of wool left over from many other sweaters" and that her mother had been murdered at Auschwitz. Regina took off the sweater and tried to give it to her, but Mrs. Davidovicz refused to take it. Regina preserved the sweater as a sacred object and never wore it again. Regina and her family were confined to the Warsaw ghetto not long after the German occupation of September 1939. Regina and her sister, Irene, escaped before the ghetto was destroyed following the Ghetto Uprising in spring 1943. They assumed false identities, but were deported by the Germans that summer. Irene was sent to Auschwitz and gassed upon arrival. Regina was sent to Ginterbrucker, then Ludwigsdorf concentration/labor camp where she was liberated. All of her family was killed during the Holocaust.
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Record last modified: 2022-04-04 07:45:36
This page: https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn519056
Also in Regina Betty Eber collection
The collection consists of a sweater and photographs relating to the experiences of Regina Betty Eber during the Holocaust when she was imprisoned in several concentration camps in Poland as well as her experiences after liberation in displaced persons camps.
Regina Eber photographs
Document
Collection consists of photographs of mass graves and other photographs pertaining to the donor's experiences in the Holocaust.