Studio portrait of Samuel (Shimku) Klein with his first wife, Ruki, and their son, Hershel.
Overview
- Caption
- Studio portrait of Samuel (Shimku) Klein with his first wife, Ruki, and their son, Hershel.
- Date
-
1935 - 1940
- Locale
- Baia-Mare, [Transylvania; Crisana-Maramures] Romania
- Variant Locale
- Nagybanya
Hungary - Photo Credit
- United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Liviu Vanau
- Event History
- This portrait is part of a collection of more than 400 studio portraits of Jewish men and women taken in the city of Baia Mare (Nagybanya) between 1935 and 1940. Baia Mare is a town in Transylvania, northwestern Romania. The town was occupied by Hungary in 1940 and by Germany after March 1944. The Germans established a ghetto in the vacant lot of the Koenig Glass Factory in Baia Mare in April 1944 and deported its almost 6,000 Jewish inhabitants to Auschwitz in two transports on May 31 and June 5, 1944.
These portraits document the range of Jews who lived in the town prior to deportation. Included in the collection are many wedding and prewar family portraits. However others were probably taken for identification papers; the subjects in these photos are often not smiling and the backdrop is bare. The photographer associated the negatives with the names so that he could sell extra duplicates later, a common practice with his business. Mr. Liviu Vanau purchased the collection of glass negatives, and the Museum paid to have the original negatives digitized.
https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/romania.
Rights & Restrictions
- Photo Source
-
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Copyright: United States Holocaust Memorial MuseumProvenance: Liviu VanauSource Record ID: Collections: 2013.527.1
Keywords & Subjects
- Photo Designation
-
LIFE BEFORE THE HOLOCAUST -- Romania -- Family/Friends/Portraits
Administrative Notes
- Biography
- Samuel (Shimku) Klein was born in Nagybanya, Romania. He married Ruki (maiden name unknown) and they had a son, Hershel. During the war, Shimku worked as a driver and mechanic in a forced labor camp. In 1944 Ruki and Hershel were deported, and killed in Auschwitz. After liberation, Shimku met Klara Berger, from Maramoros Sighet, and they were married in in 1946. Shortly thereafter, they went to the Schwabish Hall displaced persons camp in Germany, where Shimku took a sewing machine repair class offered by ORT. They immigrated to Canada in 1948, after Shimku's sister, who had immigrated to America in the 1920s, was able to find a Canadian farmer to sponsor them.
- Record last modified:
- 2016-09-21 00:00:00
- This page:
- https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/pa1173127
