Close-up portrait of two women, one of whom is drinking from a large mug, in the Lodz ghetto.
Overview
- Caption
- Close-up portrait of two women, one of whom is drinking from a large mug, in the Lodz ghetto.
Pictured are Helena Zemler (left) and Melania Fogelbaum (right). - Date
-
1942
- Locale
- Lodz, [Lodz] Poland
- Variant Locale
- Litzmannstadt
- Photo Credit
- United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Helena Zymler-Svantesson
Rights & Restrictions
- Photo Source
-
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Copyright: United States Holocaust Memorial MuseumProvenance: Helena Zymler-SvantessonSource Record ID: Collections: 2005.197.1
Keywords & Subjects
Administrative Notes
- Artifact Photographer
- Max Reid
- Biography
- Helena Zemler (now Zymler-Svantesson) is the daughter of Wolf Zemler (b. 1889) and Balbina Sztatler Zemler (b. 1892). She was born in 1924 in Bedzin, Poland and her older brother, Bernard was born in 1921. In 1929 the family moved to Lodz where Wolf worked in an office. In September 1939 Germany invaded Poland and the following April the family was forced into the Lodz ghetto and lived on Muhlstrasse 13. During her imprisonment in the ghetto Helena Zymler befriended Melania Fogelbaum, a poet and a painter. Melania Fogelbaum was born on June 5, 1911 and lived in the ghetto with her mother, Cyla Fogelbaum, who was born on November 21, 1874. Melania's mother, Cyla, died in the Lodz ghetto on February 25, 1942. Melania Fogelbaum served as a spiritual and cultural leader to a group of youths in the ghetto. They gathered in her small room in an attic, listened to music and recited poems. Melania was afflicted with tuberculosis and was unable to work. The youths shared their own meager rations with her for more then two years. On August 1, 1944 Melania Fogelbaum was deported to the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp and killed on arrival. Helena Zymler was deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau at the same time. In October 1944 she was transferred to Halbstadt labor camp in Czechoslovakia, a sub-camp of Gross Rosen. She was liberated on May 8, 1945 by the Soviet Army. In 1950 Helena Zymler-Svantesson received a notebook with Melania's poems, her correspondence and a few photographs from Nachman Zonabend, who rescued the Lodz ghetto chronicle and many other documents.
- Record last modified:
- 2015-07-22 00:00:00
- This page:
- https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/pa1159652
