Portrait of Fela Berkowicz Rappel. She was later killed in Treblinka.
Overview
- Caption
- Portrait of Fela Berkowicz Rappel. She was later killed in Treblinka.
- Date
-
1939
- Locale
- Warsaw, Poland
- Variant Locale
- Warszawa
Varshava
Warschau - Photo Credit
- United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Ruth Berkowicz Segal
Rights & Restrictions
- Photo Source
-
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Copyright: United States Holocaust Memorial MuseumProvenance: Ruth Berkowicz SegalSource Record ID: Collections: Exh. Loan: Segal, Ruth Berkowicz
Keywords & Subjects
- Keyword
- CLOSE-UPS JEWS (POLISH) WOMEN
Administrative Notes
- Artifact Photographer
- Max Reid
- Biography
- Ruth Segal (born Rys Berkowicz) was born in Warsaw, Poland in September, 1921 to Lejba Berkowicz and Hela Awerbuch Berkowicz. She had three younger siblings, Henryk, Noemi and Bernard. Lejba produced and exported pickles and was a member of the Bund. After the German invasion of Poland, Lejba and his brother Jozef left Warsaw in compliance with a September 7 radio announcement that all men of military age should head east. The following month, Rys left home to find her father who was staying with Hela's sister Aniuta Garber in Brest. The Garber home was filled with refugees fleeing the German sector of Poland. However, her aunt's family themselves were in hiding from the Soviets for fear that they would be rounded up as capitalists. Lejba, Jozef and Rys decided to proceed on to Vilna in independent Lithuania. The following month, two other brothers, David and Solomon, joined them in Vilna. They had left Warsaw with the encouragement of their wives after the Germans began rounding up Jewish males for forced labor. In Vilna, the Berkowicz family socialized with other Bundists, and Rys dated Mozes (later Martin) Segal whom she had met in Warsaw shortly before the war. After the family learned about the distribution of transit visas to Japan, Lejba went to Kovno to get Sugihara visas for Rys, himself, and his three brothers. Though they did not have any end destination visas, he went to the Soviet offices to request exit visas. He obtained one for Rys but not for the men. On his insistence, she proceeded on alone. Rys stayed in Moscow for a few days while awaiting the Trans-Siberian railroad. She arrived in Vladivostok in January 1941 and then boarded a ship for Tsuruga, Japan. From there she went to Kobe where she was helped by the local Jewish community. Two weeks after she left Lithuania, her father and his brothers obtained visas and joined her in Kobe. In Japan they had to obtain destination visas. Lejba tried unsuccessfully to go the United States where two other brothers already were living. Meanwhile, the Polish consul in Wellington heard about the stranded refugees and arranged for 24 refugees to receive visas to New Zealand. Rys, her father and three uncles decided to go to New Zealand while awaiting a chance to join their family in America. In New Zealand, Rys first studied English, and then attended nursing school in Hastings. In 1943 they were granted visas to America and came to the United States on board a ship carrying wounded American Marines from the Pacific. They landed in San Francisco and moved to New York. In 1945 Rys married Mozes Segal who, after leaving Vilna on a Sugihara visa, came directly to America from Japan. He had served during the war in the army intelligence. Of all the Berkowicz family left behind, only Genia, Jozef's wife survived. Most of the rest of the family including Hela, Henryk, Noemi and Bernard were killed in Treblinka after their deportation from the Warsaw ghetto.
- Record last modified:
- 2001-10-23 00:00:00
- This page:
- https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/pa1117705
