Members of the Sonenson family visit the shtetl Selo, a community for the insane.

Photograph | Photograph Number: 39241

Date: 1941
Locale: Dekeshene, [Vilnius; Valkininkas] Poland
Variant Locale: Lithuania
Selo
Dekshna
Photo Designation: LIFE BEFORE THE HOLOCAUST: Yaffa Eliach Collection -- Families S
Photo Credit: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of The Shtetl Foundation

Event History: The mental asylum of Selo was established in the town of Dekeshene, a small Jewish farming village one mile from Olkeniki. In the middle of the 19th century, many of its residents immigrated to Palestine and the town's population dwindled. Eventually, one resident decided that the isolated, quiet community would be an ideal location for an asylum for the mentally ill and converted his home into a pension. People from throughout the region brought their ill relatives to the town, more pensions were established and eventually majority the town's residents were mentally ill.

[Source: Eliach, Yaffa. There Once Was a World. Boston: Little Brown, 1998. pp. 383-385.]
Keyword: ASYLUMS
FAMILIES (PREWAR JEWISH)
GROUP PORTRAITS
JEWS (POLISH)
MENTALLY/PHYSICALLY DISABLED
SONENSON FAMILY (EISISKES)
TOWER OF FACES
Artifact Photographer: Arnold Kramer
Photo Source: The Shtetl Foundation

Copyright: Agency Agreement

Provenance: Shefsky Family

Source Record ID: RN7-33
Restriction: NOT FOR RELEASE without the permission of the The Shtetl Foundation
: Record last modified: 2002-10-02 00:00:00
This page: https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/pa1124758

Search Our Collections