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Juanita Carmi papers

Document | Accession Number: 2016.207.1

Photographs (10), of the family of Juanita Carmi, including pre-World War II photos of her paternal aunt, Nechuma Chmielnicki Fuks, and pre- and post-war photos of her stepfather, Markus Kavior. Also includes the certificate of naturalization (United States) for Markus Kavior (1952), as well as a research paper written by Carmi in 1992, for a course at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, titled "Out of Hell: The Immigrant Experience of Jewish Holocaust Survivors." This paper was based on interviews conducted by Carmi with six Holocaust survivors, and audio-recordings of those interviews are cataloged separately.

Date
inclusive:  1948-1992
Language
English
Yiddish
Extent
3 folders
Credit Line
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of Juanita Carmi

About This Document

Document Creator
Juanita Carmi
Biography
Juanita Carmi was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 1935, to Yechiel and Frymet (nee Lefkowitz) Chmielnicki, who had immigrated from Poland in 1928. In addition to Juanita, the Chmielnickis had two sons. In 1941, the family left Argentina for the United States, on the S.S. Uruguay, arriving on December 15. Juanita's parents divorced in 1948, and in 1951 her mother married Markus Kavior (born 1888), a Holocaust survivor who was originally from Łódź, Poland. Kavior's father had owned a textile factory in Łódź, and when Markus was deported to Auschwitz, one of the factors he attributed his survival to was that his background in running a textile factory led him to similar work as a forced laborer in the camp. After liberation from Auschwitz and the end of the war, Markus returned to Łódź and discovered that his wife and children had been killed, his family's factory nationalized, and his home occupied by someone else. Since he had a sister living in New York, he immigrated there. Juanita, after her family's immigration, grew up in New York, and became a schoolteacher in Greenburgh, NY. In 1984 she changed her last name to Carmi, as relatives of hers who lived in Israel had done, including her cousin, Aharon Carmi. After she retired, she returned to college and earned a master's degree in history in 1995 at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, and during her coursework, one of her projects led her to a research project that provided the occasion to conduct oral histories with four Holocaust survivors from the Baltimore area.

Keywords and Subjects

Administrative History

Holder of Originals
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Legal Status
Permanent Collection
Provenance
Gift of Juanita Carmi, 2016.

Rights and Restrictions

Conditions on Access
There are no known restrictions on access to this material.
Conditions on Use
Copyright to the research paper, interview questions, and oral histories is retained by Juanita Carmi. Other material 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.

 
Record last modified: 2023-02-24 14:26:29
This page: https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn533444

Also in Juanita Carmi collection

Photographs of the exended family of Juanita Carmi (nee Chmielnicki), including pre-World War II photos from Poland, post-war photographs of her step-father, Markus Kavior, and the latter's naturalization (United States) certificate. Also include is material related to a historical research project conducted by Carmi in the 1992, for a university class, in which she interviewed four Holocaust survivors about their experiences as displaced persons in the immediate aftermath of World War II. This material includes four audiocassette recordings of the interviews, a typed list of questions, and the resulting research paper that drew upon the interviews as source material. Also included is an audiocassette recording of an interview conducted with Carmi's cousin, Aharon Carmi, which was part of a radio program broadcast in Israel in 1991.

Oral history interview with Edith C.

Oral History

Edith C. discusses her life immediately after WWII; being taken to Switzerland by the French resistance; joining her mother in Toulouse, France; going to the United States in 1952 on a scholarship after completing her baccalaureate requirements at the University of Toulouse; the difficulty she experienced trying to find a job in New York; her thoughts on being an American; and the difficulty of sharing her Holocaust experiences with her family members.

Oral history interview with Morris B.

Oral History

Morris B. discusses his life immediately after WWII; living in a displaced persons camp in Germany; his desire to go to Palestine; going to Italy; deciding to go live with his aunt in Canada; arriving in Manitoba in March 1948; getting married to an American woman; apprenticing to an upholsterer; and his thoughts on being an American.

Oral history interview with Rachel B.

Oral History

Rachel B. discusses her life in hiding a Catholic convent in Belgium; receiving an excellent education while in hiding; her experiences in the time immediately after WWII; her active social life; working for the American PX; getting married in December 1945 to a German-born man; immigrating to the United States; the difficulty she experienced trying to find a job in New York; her thoughts on being an American; and the difficulty of sharing her Holocaust experiences with her family members.

Oral history interview with Paul Kassy

Oral History

Paul Kassy discusses his liberation from Buchenwald; going to Paris, France, with the help of the OEuvre de secours aux enfants; staying in a private school in Normandy for some time; working at the American PX in Paris; finding out that his mother war still alive and trying to get to Romania; a Jewish US Army chaplain who he got to know in Vienna, Austria; immigrating to the US in March 1947; serving in the US Army and being receiving a medical discharge; and applying to college in 1954.

Radio broadcast interview with Aharon Carmi

Oral History

View All 6 Items in the Collection