Advanced Search

Learn About The Holocaust

Special Collections

My Saved Research

Login

Register

Help

Skip to main content

Pin made by a concentration camp inmate bought by 2 child inmates for their mother

Object | Accession Number: 1990.51.2

Floral cloth brooch given to Sala Spett by her children, Monius (later Martin) and Rozia, while the family was imprisoned in Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany between May 1943 and April 1945. It was bought on her birthday, May 19, 1943, "as a remembrance by my children, Rozia, 9, and Monius, 14, and my husband, for a slice of bread which meant a day's hunger in Bergen-Belsen." The brooch was handmade by a young girl from Warsaw who was in their camp. The family was from Tarnow, Poland. Sala was an American citizen raised in Poland. Her husband worked at the city's tax office. After the German occupation in September 1939, the family lived in the ghetto and in hiding. In 1943, they were deported to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. They were liberated while on an evacuation train by American troops on April 13, 1945. The Spett family emigrated to the United States in 1947.

Date
creation:  1943 May
received:  1943 May 19
Geography
creation: Bergen-Belsen (Concentration camp); Belsen (Bergen, Celle, Germany)
received: Bergen-Belsen (Concentration camp); Belsen (Bergen, Celle, Germany)
Classification
Jewelry
Category
Pins (Jewelry)
Object Type
Brooches (lcsh)
Credit Line
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of Martin Spett and family In memory of Arthur and Sala Spett
 
Record last modified: 2022-07-28 18:11:47
This page: https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn521607