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Szyfra Majranc papers

Document | Digitized | Accession Number: 2005.218.1

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    Szyfra Majranc papers
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    Overview

    Description
    The Szyfra Majranc papers consist of biographical materials, correspondence, diaries and other personal writings, photographs, and printed materials documenting Szyfra and Nechemia Majranc, their Horowitz and Majranc relatives, their prewar lives in Łódź and Sanok, and hiding and living under false identities in Rzeszów.

    Biographical materials include an invitation to Szyfra and Nechemia Majranc’s wedding annotated by Szyfra Majranc and Rabbi Tuvia Horowitz as well as certificates issues by the Polish Embassy in Rome stating that Szyfra and Nechemia Majranc’s Polish citizenship was being verified.

    Correspondence includes letters and postcards from Szyfra Majranc, Rabbi Tuvia Horowitz, and a member of the Polish underground called “Władek” who helped the Majranc family obtain false papers. One of Rabbi Horowitz’s letters is addressed to his friend Dr. Jung asking him to arrange for immigration papers to the United States for his family and describes deteriorating circumstances in L’viv. Władek’s letter offers help to the Majranc family, relates the deportation of Jews from Sanok, and describes the situation in L’viv.

    Diaries and other personal writings document Szyfra and Nechemia Majranc’s experiences hiding under false identities with their daughter and Szyfra’s sister in Rzeszów. Writings include emotional and intimate diary entries, short stories, allegories, poems, and notes.

    Photographs depict Hersz Tzvi, Bracha Tauba, Israel, Mordechai, Levi, Nechemia, Szyfra, and Marylka Majranc; Tuvia, Ita, Mendel, and Rivka Horowitz; Rabbi Abraham Mordechai Alter; Szyfra’s friend Minka Spira; and Rabbi Horowitz’s friend Dr. Jung. The photographs were taken in Kolumna, Krakow, Łódź, Rome, Rzeszów, Sanok, Szczawnica, and Wisniowa. Additional photographs depict an Agudat Israel convention and a military parade of the Podhale Brigade.

    Printed materials include a newspaper clipping containing a poem by Menachem Riger titled “The Last Three” and the Hymn of the Jewish Partisans and an announcement about a memorial ceremony in New York City for Holocaust victims from Majdan, Poland, at which Szyfra Majranc was scheduled to speak.
    Date
    inclusive:  circa 1910-1947
    Credit Line
    United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of Theodore T. Mairanz and Ita Mond
    Collection Creator
    Steffa Mairanz
    Biography
    Steffa (Shifra) Horowitz was born February 3, 1921 in Rzeszów, Poland to Rabbi Tuvia Horowitz and Ita Spira. In 1932, she moved with her family to Sanok, Poland, where her father became the town rabbi. Steffa had three siblings: Menachem Mendel, Malka, and Rivka (b. 1936). In December 1938, Shifra married Nechemia (Tadek) Majranc (later Mairanz), born May 29, 1908. He was a rabbinical student from Łódź, who came from a wealthy family of Gerer Chasidim. The young couple moved to Łódź, but went to Kraków before the establishment of the Łódź ghetto in January 1940, following the German occupation of Poland in September 1939. They lived with Steffa’s cousin in Kraków, where she gave birth to their first child, Miriam Dvora (Marilka), on April 12, 1940. The family continued to move around in Poland, leaving places before the ghettos were established. They returned to Sanok where Steffa met friends who were working for the Polish underground and she began acting as a courier. Steffa always brought Marilka with her on underground business, both to protect her daughter and to appear less suspicious. When they heard that a ghetto was to be established in Sanok, Steffa and her family decided to go into hiding. They were able to secure false papers with new names: Shifra became Steffa; Nechemia became Tadek, and Miriam, Marilka, and they moved to Rzeszow. Steffa paid for expenses by selling her engagement ring and from 1940-1942, she worked as a chambermaid in local hotels. Her husband, Tadek, who could not pass for a Pole, hid for these two years inside a closet in their apartment.
    Steffa found hiding places for her parents and three siblings and made plans to get them out of the Łódź ghetto in 1942. Her parents, who spoke no Polish, managed to get papers from the Agudath Israel organization to escape to Hungary. They left on foot, leaving their younger children with a Polish friend in Sanok, until Steffa could retrieve them. They escaped through a forest, but were forced to return after her mother broke her leg. Later, they were deported to Sobibor death camp, where they were killed.
    Steffa sent false papers to her three siblings in Sanok and instructed them to take the train to Kraków, where she would meet them. Her brother refused to shave his beard. As he looked recognizably Jewish, it was agreed that the children would travel separately, although on the same train. When they arrived at the train station, her brother was immediately arrested and shot. The two young sisters witnessed this, and then departed on the train. However, they got off at the wrong stop, where they were arrested by the Gestapo and put in a dark, rat infested cell. Fifteen year old Malka was subsequently taken out and shot in front of her 5 year old sister, Rivka. Rivka was turned over to the Jewish police and brought to the Kraków ghetto, where she was taken in by her cousins, the Teitelbaums. The following year, 1943, after learning of her sister's whereabouts, Steffa arranged with her cousin, Ratza Teitelbaum, to smuggle Rivka out of the ghetto. Steffa retrieved Rivka after she was dropped by a group of slave laborers, among them Ratza’s brother, Menashe Teitelbaum, along a designated place in the street. She brought Rivka to join her family in Rzeszów. Previously, Steffa had also helped smuggle her husband’s mother, Brocha, and his 3 brothers, Levi, Yisroel, and Mordechai out of the Łódź ghetto. His father, Tzvi, had died of dysentery in the ghetto. They all made it to Rzeszów, except for Yisroel, who was arrested and murdered by the Germans. Steffa found them housing nearby, and they were able to disguise themselves as Aryans and could walk back and forth between the apartments.
    During the final days of the war, the bombing was so intense that Tadek was forced to leave the apartment and enter a shelter with other Poles. He was arrested, though not as a Jew, but as a Pole, and was taken to a slave labor camp with a group of Polish men captured by the Germans during their retreat from the Soviet Union. However, before the Germans were able to register their new inmates, Tadek managed to escape. Four days later he returned home to a liberated Rzeszów.
    In 1945, the entire Majranc family left Poland, traveling first to Austria, Hungary and Romania, before arriving in Italy, where they stayed for two years. Brocha and her two sons left for Palestine. Steffa, Tadek, and the girls waited for another boat bound for Palestine, but then unexpectedly received American visas. Steffa’s uncle, Rabbi Yisroel Spira, who lived in the United States, found out that she was alive and worked to get them to the US. With the help of members of the Agudath Israel organization, who had known Steffa’s father, he was able to bring them to America in 1947, where Steffa and Tadek would have two more children. Tadek died in July 1973, age 65 years.

    Physical Details

    Genre/Form
    Photographs. Diaries.
    Extent
    1 box
    System of Arrangement
    The Szyfra Majranc papers are arranged as five series:

    Series 1: Biographical materials, 1938, 1945
    Series 2: Correspondence, 1934-1943
    Series 3: Diaries and other personal writings, approximately 1943
    Series 4: Photographs, approximately 1910-1945
    Series 5: Printed materials, approximately 1943-1947

    Rights & Restrictions

    Conditions on Access
    There are no known restrictions on access to this material.
    Conditions on Use
    Material(s) in this collection may be protected by copyright and/or related rights. You do not require further permission from the Museum to use this material. The user is solely responsible for making a determination as to if and how the material may be used.

    Keywords & Subjects

    Administrative Notes

    Provenance
    Ita Mond and Theodore T. Mairanz donated the Szyfra Majranc papers to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in September 2005.
    Funding Note
    The cataloging of this collection has been supported by a grant from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany.
    The accessibility of this collection was made possible by the generous donors to our crowdfunded Save Their Stories campaign.
    Record last modified:
    2023-02-24 14:22:24
    This page:
    https:​/​/collections.ushmm.org​/search​/catalog​/irn522934