Advanced Search

Learn About The Holocaust

Special Collections

My Saved Research

Login

Register

Help

Skip to main content

Two young girls in the Kovno ghetto wearing Stars of David that were fashioned out of wood by their uncle.

Photograph | Photograph Number: 10945
Two young girls in the Kovno ghetto wearing Stars of David that were fashioned out of wood by their uncle. Pictured are Henia Wisgardisky (right) and her cousin, Bluma Berk. This photograph was taken a few months before Henia's mother smuggled the two girls out of the ghetto. Both children were hidden by Lithuanian families and survived the war.

Two young girls in the Kovno ghetto wearing Stars of David that were fashioned out of wood by their uncle.

Pictured are Henia Wisgardisky (right) and her cousin, Bluma Berk. This photograph was taken a few months before Henia's mother smuggled the two girls out of the ghetto. Both children were hidden by Lithuanian families and survived the war.

Date
July 1943
Locale
Kaunas, Lithuania
Variant Locale
Kauen
Kovno
Kowno
Photo Designation
GHETTOS (MAJOR) -- KOVNO (Lithuania) -- Children/Youth/Zionist Groups
Photo Credit
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Henia Wisgardisky Lewin

About This Photograph

Biography
Henia Wisgardisky (now Henia Lewin) is the daughter of Jona and Gita (Salat) Wisgardisky from Kovno, Lithuania. In the summer of 1941 soon after the German invasion of Lithuania, the Wisgardisky family was forced into the Kovno ghetto. During the Children's Action of 1942, Henia was hidden in a secret room that her father built in a pantry in their apartment. Later she was smuggled out of the ghetto and placed with the Stankiewicz family. Jonas Stankiewicz had worked as the foreman in Jona Wisgardisky's chemical plant before the war, and had taken it over after the occupation. After successfully securing a hiding place for their daughter, the Wisgardiskys fled from the ghetto. They found refuge on a potato farm, where they lived in a root cellar. After the war they recovered Henia from the Stankiewicz family and made their way to Germany. For several years they lived in the Zeilsheim displaced persons camp before emigrating to Palestine. Later the family moved to Canada.

Shoshana Sarid (born Bluma Berk) survived the war in hiding with a Lithuanian family. Bluma's father, Berl Berk, was killed by the Germans at the Fourth Fort in Kovno, during the Intelligenzaktion (the action against intellectuals) on August 18, 1941. Her mother, Yente, was deported to Stutthof, but survived.

Keywords and Subjects

Rights and Restrictions

Photo Source
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Copyright: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Provenance: Henia Wisgardisky Lewin
Source Record ID: Collections: 2006.144
 
Record last modified: 2007-01-10 00:00:00
This page: https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/pa1045813