Meir and Paula Stein diaries and photographs

Meir Stein (1909-1970) was born in Bielsko, Poland and married Paula (b. Pola Znamirowska in Prezdborz, Poland, 1909-1988). They had one son, Israel, born in 1934 in Warsaw, Poland. After the outbreak of the war in 1939, they fled from Warsaw to Vilna (Vilnius, Lithuania) which was under Soviet rule. Meir attempted to obtain paperwork to immigrate to Palestine, but they were interned in the Vilna ghetto before the papers were approved. In 1941, the family fled to the Białystok ghetto where Paula worked as an operator for the Organisation Todt. Meir temporarily went to the Warsaw ghetto to look for other family members, but he returned after he witnessed the deteriorating conditions. While working as an operator, Paula became friends with a German soldier, Herbert Coehn, who agreed to help her family go into hiding. With the help of Stefania Dobrowolska, Meir, Paula, Israel, and Mata Klein, Israel’s aunt, went into hiding from 1943 until 1944. During this time, Meir and Paula began writing about their experiences. After the war, Meir, Paula, and Israel went to Belgium before immigrating to Israel in 1949.