Portrait of the donor's grandparents and other extended family members in Krakow before the war.
Overview
- Caption
- Portrait of the donor's grandparents and other extended family members in Krakow before the war.
- Date
-
Circa 1925
- Locale
- Krakow, [Krakow] Poland
- Variant Locale
- Krakau
Cracow - Photo Credit
- United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of George Hoffman
Rights & Restrictions
- Photo Source
-
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Copyright: United States Holocaust Memorial MuseumProvenance: George Hoffman
Keywords & Subjects
Administrative Notes
- Biography
- Jerzy (later George) Hoffman was born November 29, 1933 in Katowice, Poland to Wiktor and Ester (Neche) Hoffman. Wiktor was the son of Chaim and Feigla Hoffman, Ester was the daughter of Jakub and Rywka Fass. Wiktor worked as a sales executive for Bayer, and the family lived in Krakow prior to the war. At the start of World War II, Jerzy's family obtained a car and fled to the Russian border; after many days of traveling and sleeping in barns, the Hoffmans were forced to turn around since the Germans had bombed the bridges and they could not cross a river. The family returned to Krakow where, in 1941, the city's Jews were forced into a ghetto. During the initial formation of the Krakow ghetto, Jerzy's father obtained Aryan papers, and the Hoffmans passed briefly as Christians. Soon, however, the family was discovered, arrested, and sent to a prison within the ghetto walls. Jerzy's parents were deported to Auschwitz in 1942 and perished there. Hiding among the adults during deadly selections, Jerzy remained in the Krakow ghetto searching for food. When the ghetto was liquidated in March 1943, Jerzy once again hid among adults who were able to work, and he was transferred along with them to the Plaszów concentration camp - he hid in the bunks of Plaszów during the day so as not to get caught, and his uncle brought him food in the evenings. That same uncle also smuggled him out of the camp by bribing a guard to look the other way as men left on a work detail; he arranged for a farmer to hide Jerzy in exchange for jewelry. However, once the jewelry ran out, Jerzy was evicted from the farm and forced to wander from farm to farm looking for work. He eventually returned to Krakow, where he worked selling newspapers and lived in fear of being arrested by the Gestapo. One night, as he slept in a railroad station waiting room, Jerzy was picked up by the police and sent to a juvenile detention home, where he was required to do hard labor in city parks. Slipping out one day when the guards were not looking, Jerzy journeyed back to the countryside, where he found a variety of jobs (including one with the German police). Around the age of 11, Jerzy found a hiding place in an orphanage in a monastery, and he remained there until he was liberated by the Russians in 1945. Two years later, along with his cousin and only surviving relative, Stefania Hoffman, he left for England on a children's transport organized by Rabbi Schonfeld who had come to Poland to search for Jewish orphans.
- Record last modified:
- 2008-07-07 00:00:00
- This page:
- https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/pa1164413
