Dola Kestenbaum Körbel Kleinman collection

Dorota Dola Kestenbaum (1908-1991) was born in Przemyśl, Poland on February 15, 1908. She was the daughter of Majer Kestenbaum and Judyta Haber Kestenbaum. She had four siblings: Filip, Jakub, Dawid and Lucia. Both of Dola’s parents and all of her siblings were forced into the Przemyśl ghetto. Her parents and Dawid were deported to the Belżec death camp on July 27, 1942. Lucia, Jakub and Filip were deported to the Belżec death camp on September 3, 1943.

Dola married Dr. Stanisław Körbel, a lawyer. Dola and her husband, who lived in Nowy Sacz, were good friends of Dr. Mendel Edmund Kleinman (d. 1973), Lidia’s father and Aniuta Szwarcman Kleinman, Lidia’s mother. Dr. Stanisław Körbel served in the Polish Army during the German invasion of Poland in September 1939. He was taken as a prisoner of war by the Soviets, who annexed the eastern part of Poland at the same time. He was shot and killed in Katyń in April 1940. In 1941 Dola, who stayed with her lawyer friends Moszyński in Lwów, was arrested and deported to Semipalatinsk in Kazakhstan. She returned to Poland in 1945, changed her name to Danuta Kowalewska and in 1946 she married Dr. Mendel Edmund Kleinman, Lidia’s father. Subsequently they immigrated to Israel. In 1968 they moved to Frankfurt, Germany.