Porcelain figurine of a young girl in a white dress given to a Ukrainian Jewish family

Frida Farbenblum was an elderly Jewish woman who lived on Kinizsi Street in Beregszász, Czechoslovakia (now Ukraine). She would sometimes babysit her neighbor’s daughter Katalin Weinrauch. Beregszász was a city with a large Jewish population of over 5,000, comprising approximately 25% of the total population of the city. In 1938, Germany and Italy forced Czechoslovakia to cede the region encompassing Beregszász to Hungary. After this event, anti-Semitism increased, trade permits were withdrawn from Jewish businesses, and Jewish men were forced into labor battalions. In 1941, 500 Jews were expelled from Beregszász to the Soviet Union. Later that year, 250 Jews without Hungarian citizenship were deported to German occupied Ukraine where they were murdered. On March 19, 1944, the Germans occupied Hungary, and arrived in Beregszász on March 31. They quickly appointed a Judenrat, imposed a curfew, confiscated radios and cars, and cut the Jews’ telephone lines. In April 1944, a ghetto was established at the brick factory of Vari and 12,000 Jews from Beregszász and the surrounding area, including Frida, were transferred there. Before leaving for the ghetto, Frida gave a few trinkets to Katalin and her family to remember her by. In May 1944, the inmates of the ghetto were deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau killing center in German occupied Poland. Frida was murdered at Auschwitz. One of her sons survived the war and came back to Beregszász, but left shortly after.