Salo Haar takes his son Roman sledding in the Rzeszow ghetto.
Overview
- Caption
- Salo Haar takes his son Roman sledding in the Rzeszow ghetto.
- Date
-
January 1941
- Locale
- Rzeszow, [Rzeszow] Poland
- Variant Locale
- Reichshof
- Photo Credit
- United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Roman Haar
- Event History
- In 1939 approximately 14,000 Jews lived in Rzeszow. German troops occupied the city on September 10, 1939 and immediately began repressive actions against the Jews. In December 1941 a formal, closed ghetto was established. A campaign against the Jewish leadership resulted in the shooting of 35 people in late April and early May 1942. In June 14,000 Jews from the surrounding district were resettled in Rzeszow. These Jews, together with about 8,000 from the city, were deported to Belzec in a mass action that took place on July 7-13, 1942. On the way to the railroad station in Staroniwa, 238 people were killed on the spot, while another 1,000 were taken to the nearby Rudna Forest and shot there. On August 8, 1942 about 1,000 women and children were deported from the ghetto to the Peikinia concentration camp, where they were soon killed. In November 1942 only about 3,000 Jews remained in the Rzeszow ghetto, which was converted into a labor camp. This camp was divided into two isolated sections: Camp A for forced laborers and Camp B for their families. In September 1943 the inmates of Camp A were transferred to the Szebrica labor camp, where most perished. Those in Camp B were deported to Auschwitz in November 1943. A group of 200 prisoners remained behind to gather up the personal property of the former inmates. Of that group 60 escaped and the rest were transferred to the Plaszow concentration camp.
See "Rzeszow" in Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, Volume 2 Part A.
See Also https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005070.
See Also https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005593.
Rights & Restrictions
- Photo Source
-
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Copyright: United States Holocaust Memorial MuseumProvenance: Roman HaarSource Record ID: Collections: 2002.362
Keywords & Subjects
Administrative Notes
- Biography
- Roman Haar is the son of Salo and Erna Haar. He was born July 9, 1935 in Danzig, where his father worked as a salesman. Erna converted to Judaism before her marriage to Salo, and Roman's birth certificate listed the religion of both parents as "Mossaich". Roman had a half-brother named Joachim Fritsche (b. 1927) from his mother's first marriage. When in December 1939 the Nazis ordered all foreign-born Jews to leave Danzig, Joachim, who was Christian, was allowed to remain and moved in with his mother's parents. Salo moved Erna and Salo to his hometown of Rzeszow, Poland where his aunts, sister and family lived. There, the Haars rented a large apartment on one of the main streets of the town, and Salo went into the grocery business with a Polish partner. In 1941 all Jews in Rzeszow were required to move into a ghetto, Salo and Roman moved, but Erna, who claimed she was German, remained in their old apartment outside the ghetto working as a domestic for the Germans who had confiscated the apartment. She also worked as a cleaning woman for the Germans. When the ghetto was closed, Roman was smuggled out to his mother. On July 7, 1942 during a deportation action from the ghetto to Belzec, Salo was shot and killed. All of the rest of his family, with the exception of his sister, who was temporarily spared but later killed, were taken to Belzec and killed. Erna claimed that Roman was the illegitimate son of a German father. She appealed to the German authorities that Roman be exempt from ghettoization. On November 15, 1942, women and children were deported from the ghetto to the Belzec death camp and killed. Three days later, the German authorities rejected Erna's claim to exempt her son. On November 19, 1942, she received a registered letter ordering that Roman enter the Jewish quarter immediately or further action would be taken against her. Erna ignored the order and for the next year-and-a-half hid Roman in the kitchen of the apartment where she was a domestic. In May 1944 Erna decided to return with Roman to Danzig where her father lived. A local policeman recognized Erna and remembered that she was Jewish. Though he harassed her and seized her passport, no further action was taken since the war seemed to be nearing its end. Roman was liberated in Danzig by the Russians on March 26, 1945. Erna and Roman remained in Danzig until August of 1945, when they moved to the Foehrenwald displaced persons camp. They lived there for the next four years until immigrating to the United States in August 1949.
- Record last modified:
- 2013-07-16 00:00:00
- This page:
- https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/pa1126487
