A young Jewish DP child wearing a fur coat and clutching a doll, poses next to a suitcase as her family prepares to depart from the Lampertheim displaced persons camp for the United States.
Overview
- Caption
- A young Jewish DP child wearing a fur coat and clutching a doll, poses next to a suitcase as her family prepares to depart from the Lampertheim displaced persons camp for the United States.
Pictured is Mirjam Kushelewicz. - Date
-
1948
- Locale
- Lampertheim, [Hesse; Mannheim] Germany
- Photo Credit
- United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Miriam Kushelewicz Levitt
Rights & Restrictions
- Photo Source
-
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Copyright: United States Holocaust Memorial MuseumProvenance: Miriam Kushelewicz LevittSource Record ID: Collections: 1999.78.1
Keywords & Subjects
Administrative Notes
- Artifact Photographer
- Max Reid
- Biography
- Miriam Levitt (born Mirjam Kushelewicz) is the daughter of Elias Kushelewicz and Esther Koenigstein. She was born in the Lampertheim DP camp on June 6, 1946. Her father, Elias, was born in Lida, Belorussia in 1915. He was a yeshiva student who spent the war years in the Red Army in the 10th Lithuanian rifle division as a marksman. Towards the end of the war he was injured and he was released from the army. He eventually made his way back to Lida where he learned that everyone in his entire family, including his father, stepmother, brothers and cousins had been massacred during an Aktion in May 1942. His house was totally destroyed. All that remained was a piece of a bed. Elias then left Lida for Poland.
Esther Koenigstein was born in Lodz Poland in October 1912. Her father had died before the war began. After the start of World War II, she, her mother and young nephew became imprisoned in the Lodz ghetto. Esther arranged to hide her nephew in a bunker in their apartment. However, he died at the age of three. Esther removed her star and walked out of the gate and buried him outside the ghetto. Prior to her departure, she managed to find a hiding place for her mother on a farm. Esther left the ghetto in approximately 1942 and proceeded on foot east until she eventually reached Novosibersk in Siberia. By coincidence she met her two brothers there. After she learned that the war was over, Esther returned to Poland and met Elias. They, along with Esther's mother snuck into a mail truck and crossed the border into Germany. Esther, Elias and Mirjam immigrated to the United States in 1948. One of Esther's brothers, Mordechai (Motek) Koenigstein, became trapped in Russia after the war. He succeeded in leaving the Soviet Union for Israel only in 1958. He then contacted Esther and reunited with her in the United States.
- Record last modified:
- 2004-11-22 00:00:00
- This page:
- https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/pa1116487
