Wladyslaw Holcman hikes in the Tatra Mountains,with his girlfriend and future wife, Felicja Krepel two weeks before the outbreak of war.
Overview
- Caption
- Wladyslaw Holcman hikes in the Tatra Mountains,with his girlfriend and future wife, Felicja Krepel two weeks before the outbreak of war.
- Date
-
August 1939
- Locale
- [Tatra Mountains] Czechoslovakia
- Photo Credit
- United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Wladyslaw Holcman
Rights & Restrictions
- Photo Source
-
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Copyright: United States Holocaust Memorial MuseumProvenance: Wladyslaw HolcmanSource Record ID: Collections: 2001.245.1
Keywords & Subjects
Administrative Notes
- Biography
- Wladyslaw Holcman was born on March 18, 1916 in Lodz, Poland. His father, Mojzesz Holcman, (b. June 20, 1879) was a merchant and his mother, Sara Wajnberg Holcman, (b. December 27, 1888) was a housewife. Wladyslaw was the oldest of four children. His siblings included: Kazimierz (Kazik), born September 1, 1917; sister, Anna Hanka, born October 29, 1920; and youngest brother, Jechezkiel (Jerzy), born April 20, 1925. Kazimierz immigrated to Uruguay in 1936. Anna Hanka studied in Belgium and later moved to Grenoble, France where she continued her university education.
When the Germans occupied Lodz, Mojzesz and Sara Holcman were forced into the ghetto along with their youngest son, Jechezkiel. Kazimierz tried unsuccessfully to bring them to Uruguay. Kazimierz died in Uruguay in April 1942. In France, Anna Hanka survived the war posing as an Aryan with the help of false identification papers.
On September 8, 1942, Sara Holcman and her sister, Renia, were deported to the Chelmno death camp, during the "Gehsperre aktion", where they perished. On August 22, 1944, Jechezkiel was deported to Auschwitz and later transferred to Gusen, and Mauthausen. Mojzesz Holcman worked in a block committee and later in the feather workshop, which was located in a church in the Lodz ghetto. He died in the ghetto after his son's deportation.
In November 1939, Wladyslaw (Wladek) Holcman and his girlfriend, Felicja (Fela) Krepel, fled Poland to the Soviet administered area. They visited Felicja's uncle in Maniewicze, and later moved to Luck, where they married on December 27, 1939. The young couple volunteered for labor and was sent to Voroshilovsk (Stavropol). For a short time Wladyslaw studied at a Polytechnic in Moscow, then in Kuybyshev (today: Samara), USSR. In August 1941 he was sent to work in an ozocerite (mineral hydrocarbon wax, used in making electrical insulation) mine in Shor-Su, Uzbekistan. Felicja and Wladyslaw lived in Shor-Su, Uzbekistan till the end of 1946. Their son, Jurek, was born there on October 7, 1945. In 1946, the Holcman family repatriated to Poland and settled in their hometown Lodz. Their daughter, Liliana was born there in 1950. Twenty years later, in 1970, Felicja and Wladyslaw Holcman and their children left Poland for Denmark.
- Record last modified:
- 2017-08-09 00:00:00
- This page:
- https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/pa1180313
