Group portrait of Jewish orphans who had survived Theresienstadt with the wife of Czech President Edvard Benes and the wife of the American Ambassador Laurence Steinhart. Each child holds a newly received toy.

Photograph | Digitized | Photograph Number: 45898

Overview

Caption: Group portrait of Jewish orphans who had survived Theresienstadt with the wife of Czech President Edvard Benes and the wife of the American Ambassador Laurence Steinhart. Each child holds a newly received toy.

Among those pictured is Judis Baehr.
Date: 1947
Locale: Prague, [Bohemia] Czechoslovakia ?
Variant Locale: Praha
Czech Republic
Photo Credit: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Judis Baehr Urbanova

Photo Source: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Copyright: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Provenance: Judis Baehr Urbanova

Keyword: AMBASSADORS/DIPLOMATS/ENVOYS CHILDREN (0-3 YEARS) CHILDREN (4-12 YEARS) CHILDREN/YOUTH CZECHS DOLLS GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS GROUP PORTRAITS INTERIORS JEWS (CZECH) ORPHANS STUFFED ANIMALS SURVIVORS THERESIENSTADT TOYS/BALLS/GAMES WOMEN
Photo Designation: DISPLACED PERSONS/RETURN TO LIFE -- DP Camps/Postwar Communities -- Czechoslovakia

Biography: Judis Baehr (born Judis Urbanova) was born in Germany (most likely Berlin) in 1940. Her Jewish mother died when she was only six days old. Judis never learned the cause of her mother's death nor any information about her father. After her mother's death, Judis went to live with her mother's sister, Regina Heitmann, and her non-Jewish husband, Hans. When in 1942 it became too dangerous for Regina to keep the baby at home, she placed her in a Jewish nursing home in Oranienburg. Six months later, two-year-old Judis was deported with the home's elderly residents to Theresienstadt. She was left on the train after its arrival at the station near Theresienstadt, and was discovered in the corner of a car under a blanket by Mr. Winterstein, a young Jew working on the station platform. Winterstein brought Judis to the ghetto, where he and his nineteen-year-old bride, Elizabete, adopted her. In 1943 or 1944 Elizabete was deported to Auschwitz. Judis remained in the ghetto, where she was liberated in May 1945. Elizabete survived the war and was reunited with Judis in Prague after the liberation. Although Judis' Aunt Regina in Berlin wanted to take her back after the war, Elizabete would not relinquish the child and continued to raise her as her own.