A studio portrait of Anita Kuenstler taken while she was in hiding at the age of two. She poses in a hat while also wearing a chain with a cross around her neck.

Photograph | Photograph Number: 58196

Date: 1942
Variant Locale: Krakau
Cracow
Photo Designation: RESCUERS & RESCUED -- Poland
Photo Credit: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Anita Kuenstler Epstein

Biography: Anita Epstein (born Anita Kuentsler) is the daughter of Salek and Eda Kuenstler. Her parents married in Krakow on August 30, 1939. Anita was born on November 18, 1942 in the Krakow ghetto. When she was three months old, her parents spirited her out of the ghetto, persuading a Catholic family named Zendler to hide her. The Zendlers, who had three children of their own, baptized Anita and raised her as a Catholic. Salek was killed in Mauthausen, but Eda survived two labor camps and incarceration in Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen from which she was liberated in April 1945. After hospital treatment for typhus she returned to Krakow and found Anita. Eda and Anita went with other Jews to a displaced persons' camp in Selb, Germany near the Czechoslovakian border. They lived in Selb until 1949 and then came to the United States on a troop ship, the USS Taylor.
Keyword: CHILDREN (0-3 YEARS)
CHILDREN/YOUTH
CLOSE-UPS
CRUCIFIXES
JEWELRY/JEWELS
JEWS (POLISH)
JEWS IN HIDING (WARTIME)
STUDIO PORTRAITS
Artifact Photographer: Max Reid
Photo Source: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Copyright: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Provenance: Anita Kuenstler Epstein

Source Record ID: Collections: 2001.321
: Record last modified: 2014-04-16 00:00:00
This page: https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/pa1143805

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