Jewish sisters celebrate birthdays in Davos, Switzerland.
Overview
- Caption
- Jewish sisters celebrate birthdays in Davos, Switzerland.
Pictured are Minna Kuperman (right) with her sister Helen and her fiance Zvi (Hersh) Karp reflected in the mirror. Helen and Zvi shared a birthday on September 1st. - Date
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1948 September 01
- Locale
- Davos, Switzerland
- Photo Credit
- United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Liora Givon
Rights & Restrictions
- Photo Source
-
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Copyright: United States Holocaust Memorial MuseumProvenance: Liora Givon
Keywords & Subjects
Administrative Notes
- Biography
- Minna Kuperberg Karp was born on May 5, 1923 in Lodz, Poland to Jewish parents Chaya (nee Ziradov, b. 1894) and Mordechai Kuperberg (1889-1942). Morchechai was the son of Pinchas Kuperberg. Minna had six siblings: Yehuda, Israel (b. 1916?), Zlata ("Sosia," b. 1918), Paulina ("Pesia," b. 1922), Hinde (b. 1924), and Wolf (b. 1930). Minna’s father had a small workshop where several employees made slippers from pre-cut felt. These were sold at the local market as well as wholesale. Her mother died when she was a baby.
The family observed Jewish holidays, and Yehuda attended a Yeshiva. Minna completed seven years of elementary studies, but was not able to continue on to high school due to antisemitism and a lack of funds. During her last year of schooling she met her future husband Zvi at a dance, and they soon became inseparable. On September 1, 1939 Zvi celebrated his nineteenth birthday, the same day that WWII began. The German military entered Lodz and antisemitic measures were soon instituted. Businesses were expropriated, houses and apartments were confiscated, and Jews were forced to wear the yellow star. Religious Jews were humiliated by forced beard shaving, and public hangings were conducted to terrorize the population. On December 10, 1939 Nazi official Friedrich Uebelhoer ordered the construction of a Jewish ghetto. By May 1940, the Kuperberg family had been forced in, and the ghetto was sealed.
Minna, her sisters, and her mother were able to register for work. Initially, Minna worked taking apart rucksacks from German soldiers who had died, which were then washed and resewn. Later she worked in a factory braiding wheat to create insulation for the shoes of German soldiers serving in Russia. Her mother worked peeling potatoes in the soup kitchen and was occasionally able to take peels home, which she used to make cakes. When the ghetto workshops closed, Minna received a deportation order, but managed to have her name removed from the list and remain with her family. She was then able to get a job in a factory making and finishing the interiors of coats for the soldiers. Later still, she worked as an instructor for braiding wheat.
Young men were given the option of working outside the ghetto in Germany. Zvi and his brother Shimon registered for this, as they believed that they would be paid and they wanted to help their parents. Shimon worked as a barber, and Zvi worked in a factory. They were initially sent to different camps, but later reunited. Although they did not know it at the time, while they were away their father died in the ghetto of pneumonia. Zvi’s mother and younger brother were deported east.
After about two years, ghetto residents were forced from their apartments. The very young and the elderly were selected for deportation and killed, including Minna’s one-year-old niece, the daughter of Yehuda and his wife. Minna’s father died of hunger in the ghetto in July or August 1942.
She and her sisters remained for another two years. During the last days some 25,000 of the Jewish inhabitants were murdered at Chelmno. Minna and her family hid temporarily in a bunker which her younger brother and friends had prepared years earlier, but came out when they heard that those caught in hiding would be killed. In August, the family was deported to Auschwitz. Minna’s mother and brother were separated from her and her sisters, and she never saw them again. At one point, the sisters were sent to the location of the gas chambers and waited all day in the sun, but were ultimately sent back to their barracks. They learned later that there had been a malfunction with the gas chamber that day, saving them.
After about six weeks in Auschwitz, Minna and her sisters were again loaded on trains, this time bound for Bergen Belsen. Shortly after arriving there, they were transported to the city of Magdeburg, where Minna, Zlata, and Paulina worked at a metal factory, and Sosia worked in the infirmary. Sosia was later selected to be sent back to Bergen Belsen, causing great anguish, as it was the first time the sisters had been separated. Not long afterward German officials marched Minna, her sisters, and the other female prisoners to an open area, threw grenades back toward the crowd of remaining women, then disappeared. In the confusion, Minna and her sisters continued on, first seeking shelter in a bunker, and eventually learning that the war had ended.
They returned to their home in Lodz to find that their apartment had been ransacked, with almost nothing remaining. Minna was able to recover only a class photo of herself from elementary school. A Polish man claimed their apartment as his property, so they stayed with a friend of Zvi’s until other lodging could be found. They learned that Sosia had survived and was in Bergen Belsen DP camp, so they set out to find her. The sisters were reunited and made plans to immigrate to Canada, where they had cousins, but it was discovered that Minna had tuberculosis and would not be allowed to enter. Instead, she was sent to Switzerland for rest and rehabilitation. Before leaving, she learned that Zvi had survived and was in Tel Aviv. The couple corresponded for two years, until they were able to reunite and marry.
- Record last modified:
- 2019-08-09 00:00:00
- This page:
- https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/pa1185138
