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Two Jewish women pose outside in Wollstein, Germany.

Photograph | Photograph Number: 26655
Two Jewish women pose outside in Wollstein, Germany. Pictured are Elsa Mendel (right) and her friend, Lina Nachman (left). Elsa Mendel is the aunt of donor Werner Mendel. Lina survived several concentration camps and immigrated to the United States after the war.

Two Jewish women pose outside in Wollstein, Germany.

Pictured are Elsa Mendel (right) and her friend, Lina Nachman (left). Elsa Mendel is the aunt of donor Werner Mendel. Lina survived several concentration camps and immigrated to the United States after the war.

Date
Circa 1936
Locale
Wollstein, Germany
Variant Locale
Wolsztyn
Poland
[Poznan]
Photo Designation
JEWISH LIFE IN NAZI GERMANY -- Daily Life/Families/Street Scenes
Photo Credit
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Werner Mendel

About This Photograph

Biography
Werner Mendel is the son of Albert and Flora (Vogel) Mendel. He was born November 9, 1934 in Mainz, Germany, where his father was a successful cattle dealer. Werner had an older brother, Ernst (b. 1930). Werner's father was arrested in 1937 for alleged tax evasion and imprisoned in a concentration camp. Some years earlier, Werner's aunt, Flora Mendel (later Blum), had immigrated to the United States at the urging of her mother, Emma. Emma had had a premonition that Hitler would rise to power and threaten the safety of European Jewry. Emma instructed her daughter to move to the United States and marry a rich American Jew, who would later be able to help the family escape Germany. Once in America, Flora married Aaron Blum, a successful New York businessman. When she received news of her brother Albert's arrest, Flora returned to Germany, where she arranged for the release of numerous family members, who were incarcerated in concentration camps, including Albert. A series of well-placed bribes allowed Flora to arrange for the travel of nearly fifty members of her German family to Cherbourg, where a ship was waiting to transport them to America. Werner's entire family was among this group. The Mendel family arrived in New York in June 1937.

Keywords and Subjects

Rights and Restrictions

Photo Source
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Copyright: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Provenance: Werner Mendel
 
Record last modified: 2003-06-12 00:00:00
This page: https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/pa1096204