Advanced Search

Learn About The Holocaust

Special Collections

My Saved Research

Login

Register

Help

Skip to main content

A letter written by Vasi Berger, a friend of the Elberts to Gejza and Melania Elbert about the deportation of their children.

Photograph | Photograph Number: 23493
A letter written by Vasi Berger, a friend of the Elberts to Gejza and Melania Elbert about the deportation of their children. Berger writes that she saw Alexander, Hugo and Alice Elbert at the train station and were very happy to have the opportunity to see them once more before the train left for Poland and the camps. She advises Gejza and Melania to give Denise up for adoption to a Christian family in order to save her life.

A letter written by Vasi Berger, a friend of the Elberts to Gejza and Melania Elbert about the deportation of their children.

Berger writes that she saw Alexander, Hugo and Alice Elbert at the train station and were very happy to have the opportunity to see them once more before the train left for Poland and the camps. She advises Gejza and Melania to give Denise up for adoption to a Christian family in order to save her life.

Date
1942 June 02
Locale
Zilina, [Slovakia] Czechoslovakia
Variant Locale
Sillein
Zsolna
Slovakia
Photo Designation
NAZI SATELLITE STATES -- Slovakia -- JEWS
Photo Credit
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Denise Elbert Kopecky

About This Photograph

Biography
Denise Kopecky (born Denise Elbert) is the daughter of Hugo and Alice (Winczer) Elbert. She was born August 22, 1941 in Nemecka Lupca, Slovakia, where her father had owned a wholesale business before the war and her mother had taught piano. In March 1939 Nemecka Lupca became part of the newly independent state of Slovakia, whose fascist government moved quickly to impose restrictions on its Jewish population. These measures were intensified in the summer of 1941 when Slovak troops entered the war as allies of the German Reich. Deportations of Slovak Jews to ghettos and camps in Poland began in March 1942 and continued through October. After having their business Aryanized and their personal property confiscated, Denise's parents and uncle Alexander Elbert were deported to the Lublin district in June 1942. She was left behind with her grandparents, Gejza and Melania Elbert. Her grandfather, however, died suddenly the following month. Denise, who was then less than a year old, was saved from deportation by Maria Bela, a Christian friend of her parents, who had secured a new birth and baptismal certificate for her from a local Lutheran minister in May 1942. After the death of her husband Melania fled with the child to the mountains, where they remained for several months. In 1943 they returned to Nemecka Lupca after receiving assurances from the Slovak woman who had taken over Hugo's business, that it was safe to do so. A short time later, however, they were rounded-up and sent to Theresienstadt, where they remained until their liberation by the Soviets in May 1945. Denise was only three years old when the war ended. Following their release Melania and Denise returned to Nemecka Lupca. Denise later married Richard Kohn, a fellow survivor from Slovakia who had been interned as a young boy in the Novaky labor camp.

Keywords and Subjects

Rights and Restrictions

Photo Source
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Copyright: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Provenance: Denise Elbert Kopecky
 
Record last modified: 2001-02-26 00:00:00
This page: https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/pa1087711