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Group portrait of young women in the gymnasium for Deaf students. The donor's mother, Rebeka Jaglom Wajcblum, is standing in the back row, third from the left.

Photograph | Photograph Number: 18667
Group portrait of young women in the gymnasium for Deaf students. The donor's mother, Rebeka Jaglom Wajcblum, is standing in the back row, third from the left.

Group portrait of young women in the gymnasium for Deaf students. The donor's mother, Rebeka Jaglom Wajcblum, is standing in the back row, third from the left.

Date
1908
Variant Locale
Warszawa
Varshava
Warschau
Photo Designation
LIFE BEFORE THE HOLOCAUST -- Poland -- School/University/Youth Groups
Photo Credit
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Anna and Joshua Heilman
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About This Photograph

Biography
Ester (Estusia) and Hanka (later Anna Heilman) Wajcblum, were the daughters of Jakub and Rebeka (Jaglom) Wajcblum. Both parents were Deaf. Ester was born in Warsaw in 1927 and Hanka, in 1928. Their older sister, Sabina, who married Mieczyslaw Zielinksi, spent the war in the Soviet Union. After the family was forced into the Warsaw ghetto, their father was assigned the task of making wooden crosses for grave markers at German military cemeteries. The family was deported to Majdanek in May 1943, where Jakub and Rebeka perished. Ester and Hanka were transferred to Auschwitz- Birkenau in September 1943, where they were assigned to forced labor at the Union munitions plant. After being recruited into the fledgling resistance movement by Ala Gertner, Ester and Hanka became involved in pilfering gunpowder from the munitions plant and transferring it to Roza Robota. She, in turn, transferred it to the Sonderkommando underground. On October 7, 1944 the gunpowder was used in blowing up crematorium IV in Birkenau. Ester was among the four young women who were arrested as co-conspirators. After being tortured, she was publicly hanged in Auschwitz-Birkenau on January 5, 1945. Hanka was later transferred to Neustadt Glewe labor camp, a sub-camp of Ravensbrueck, where she was liberated in May 1945 at the age of sixteen. After the war she immigrated to Palestine, where she married Joshua Heilman in March 1947.

Keywords and Subjects

Rights and Restrictions

Photo Source
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Copyright: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Provenance: Anna and Joshua Heilman
 
Record last modified: 2007-08-15 00:00:00
This page: https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/pa1066535