Work permit used by the donor's father, Leo Kulka, during his years in hiding in occupied Warsaw. Leo Kulka and his family lived in Poland as Czechoslovakian citizens.
Overview
- Caption
- Work permit used by the donor's father, Leo Kulka, during his years in hiding in occupied Warsaw. Leo Kulka and his family lived in Poland as Czechoslovakian citizens.
- Date
-
1943 - 1944
- Locale
- Warsaw, Poland
- Variant Locale
- Warszawa
Varshava
Warschau - Photo Credit
- United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Robert Kulka
Rights & Restrictions
- Photo Source
-
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Copyright: United States Holocaust Memorial MuseumProvenance: Robert Kulka
Keywords & Subjects
Administrative Notes
- Biography
- Robert Kulka is the son of Leo Kulka and Gisela Kulka nee Huppert. He was born on April 14, 1931 in Katowice. Both of his parents were born in Czechoslovakia; his mother in Ostrava Moravska and his father in Hruschau. They lived in Poland where Leo operated an optician business in Bielsko. Robert had two older siblings, Jan Dawid, born on September 13, 1924 and Erica Irena, born on November 12, 1926. The Kulka family felt assimilated, and Robert attended a Polish language Jewish school. In August 1939, Gisela and her two younger children left Bielsko for Jaroslaw. Leo Kulka and the oldest son Jan initially remained in Bielsko, but after the September 1 German invasion they traveled eastwards. Upon reaching Jaroslaw and realizing that they could not continue east, Gisela and the children returned home while Leo went to Krakow to work for the Voigt optical company. In October 1939 the Germans enacted the Nisko scheme to deport Jews under German rule to a "Jewish reservation" in the Lublin district. Jan, who was 15 years old, was taken to Nisko and later he reached Lwow. One month later Gisela and her two younger children joined Leo in Krakow. Leo felt that as Czechoslovak citizens they should not obey the German racial laws, and he did not allow his family to wear the armbands with the Star of David. Jan managed to return from the Soviet occupied territories in May 1940. In September of that year, he traveled to Hruschau, his father's hometown, and obtained a "Heimatschein" which stated that Leo Kulka was born there but did not mention his religion. Feeling insecure in Krakow, the family soon moved to Warsaw. There Leo Kulka registered in the Foreigners Office and was granted privileges equal almost to those of a German. In Warsaw, Leo and Jan established a wholesale optical frames business, together with Czeslaw Pawlowski (later honored by Yad Vashem as Righteous Among the Nations). The business lasted till mid 1943, and at that time Leo got a job in a German optical factory. While Robert attended Polish elementary school, Jan worked in a German bookstore and Erica stayed at home with her mother. The three Kulka men underwent a procedure to reverse their circumcisions but it was not successful. The family rented apartments from different people in various parts of town, and once the Gestapo came to arrest the landlady for being Jewish, as the five members of the Kulka family sat quietly in the living room. In August 1944, at the outbreak of the Warsaw uprising, Robert became separated from the rest of the family and only reunited with his family after eleven weeks in suburban Warsaw. At that time Leo Kulka decided to move his family to Lodz hoping that they would be safer there. Leo found employment as an optician with the German army, and Jan worked for an optical factory in Jena. He was later transferred to Toeplitz, near Karlove Vary and was liberated by the US Army near Prague. Robert Kulka, his parents and sister were liberated in Lodz in January 1945. Shortly after, the family returned to their hometown Bielsko-Biala. Leo Kulka reopened his optician's business and died in 1959. Gisela Kulka died in 1988. Robert, a textile engineer, and Jan, who runs the family business, still live in Bielsko and their sister, Erica immigrated to Israel.
- Record last modified:
- 2007-05-10 00:00:00
- This page:
- https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/pa1163150
