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Portrait of a large, religious Transcarpathian Jewish family.

Photograph | Photograph Number: 22054
Portrait of a large, religious Transcarpathian Jewish family. The oldest daughter had moved to Holland and just gotten engaged. She came home to visit her family and arranged for the photo to be taken to show her fiance. Pictured are the Mechlovitz family. Seated left to right are Baruch, Chaim, (name of child between his legs is unknown), Etel holding a baby (name unknown), Pearl and Alter. Standing are Moshe, Baruch Zelda, Duvid Meyer, Chia Sura (Chiam's niece), Chia Hensa and Shia. The farmer, Chaim Simcha Mechlowitz, became immortalized as the farmer in Roman Vishniac's collection "A Vanished World."

Portrait of a large, religious Transcarpathian Jewish family.

The oldest daughter had moved to Holland and just gotten engaged. She came home to visit her family and arranged for the photo to be taken to show her fiance.

Pictured are the Mechlovitz family. Seated left to right are Baruch, Chaim, (name of child between his legs is unknown), Etel holding a baby (name unknown), Pearl and Alter. Standing are Moshe, Baruch Zelda, Duvid Meyer, Chia Sura (Chiam's niece), Chia Hensa and Shia.

The farmer, Chaim Simcha Mechlowitz, became immortalized as the farmer in Roman Vishniac's collection "A Vanished World."

Date
1935
Locale
Vysni Apsa, [Transcarpathia; Ukraine] Czechoslovakia
Variant Locale
Vysna Apsa
Felsoapsa
Verkhneye Vodyanoye
Verkhne Vodyane
Hungary
Ukraine
Vrchni Apsa
Photo Designation
LIFE BEFORE THE HOLOCAUST -- Czechoslovakia -- Family/Friends/Portraits
Photo Credit
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Lisa Wahler

About This Photograph

Biography
Lisa Wahler is the daughter of Brucha Zelda (later Bertha) Mechlowitz. Brucha Mechlowitz was born on April 21, 1921 in Vysni Apsa, a small rural community in Transcarpathia. She was the daughter of Chaim Simcha and Etel Mechlowitz. Her father, an Orthodox farmer and tanner, became immortalized in one of Roman Vishniac's most famous photographs of prewar Eastern Europe. Chaim had one child, Shia by his first wife. After his wife passed away, he married Etel and subsequently had nine more children: Chia Hensa, Duvid Meyer, Brucha Zelda, Moshe, Baruch, Alter, Pearl and two younger children. After Hungary seized control of the Carpathian region, both Shia and Duvid Meyer were conscripted for forced labor. They survived the war and immigrated to Israel. Moshe also was in a forced labor battalion, but he went from there to the Russian army and remained in the Soviet Union until shortly before his death. In the 1930s Chia Hensa immigrated to Holland where she married. She perished in the Holocaust.

Brucha Zelda also moved to Holland before the war to live with her sister. From there she went to Belgium where she married Henry Chutz in 1942. About six months after they married they were taken to Auschwitz. Henry died less than a year later of typhoid fever. Brucha Zelda survived incarceration and a death march and was liberated by the American army in May, 1945. She returned to Belgium and married a fellow survivor, Kurt Tichauer.

After their older daughters immigrated to Western Europe, Chaim and Etel remained in Apsa with their younger children. In 1941, Chaim and his family were expelled from their home and were forced to wander though the Carpathian mountain area looking for a place to stay. They eventually returned to Apsa only for Etel to die of pneumonia. Chaim remarried about a year later. In March 1944 Germany seized control of Hungary and began transporting the Jewish population to Auschwitz in late spring and early summer. Chaim, his wife, five younger children and three step-children were among those deported. All but Pearl perished.

Keywords and Subjects

Rights and Restrictions

Photo Source
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Copyright: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Provenance: Lisa Wahler
 
Record last modified: 2019-12-13 00:00:00
This page: https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/pa1162158