Portrait of Mordechai and Braina Intriligator.
Overview
- Caption
- Portrait of Mordechai and Braina Intriligator.
The inscription on the back reads [translated], "Siauliai, 22/11/37. For my dear brother and sister and little nephew. Your Braina and Mordechai." - Date
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1937 November 22
- Locale
- Siauliai, Lithuania
- Variant Locale
- Schaulen
Schavli
Shaulyai
Shaulyay - Photo Credit
- United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Chaya Landau
Rights & Restrictions
- Photo Source
-
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Copyright: United States Holocaust Memorial MuseumProvenance: Chaya Landau
Keywords & Subjects
- Photo Designation
-
LIFE BEFORE THE HOLOCAUST -- Lithuania -- Family/Friends/Portraits
Administrative Notes
- Biography
- Chaya Intriligator was born in Kovno, Lithuania on October 3, 1938 to parents Mordechai (b. 190?, Kovno) and Braina Freida (nee Richman, b. 1905, Siauliai, Lithuania) Intriligator. Mordechai and Braina had married in Kovno two years earlier. Mordechai was the son of Yehuda Arie and Shaine Beila Intriligator, and had seven siblings: Josef, Chasia, Avram, Baruch (b. 1910), David, and [two siblings’ names are unknown]. David immigrated to Palestine before the war. Braina was the daughter of Yehuda Yitzhak and Chaya Nesia Richman, who were also from Kovno, and in the lumber business. She had four siblings: Zacharyia (Aron/Jack), David, Yaakov, and Devora. Jack left for the U.S. at the age of sixteen as a stowaway on a ship and settled in the Chicago area.
At the start of WWII, Lithuania was initially annexed and occupied by the Soviet Union. After the Germans invaded in the summer of 1941, they established a ghetto in Kovno. Mordechai, Braina, and Chaya were forced to move in to the ghetto, along with Mordechai’s parents and Braina’s siblings. In October of that year, Mordechai was killed by the Einsatzgruppen in the Ninth Fort massacre, near Kovno. His mother, Shaine, died in the ghetto. Braina’s father, Yehuda, and her brother, Yaakov, were sent to Dachau. Braina remained in the ghetto and was able to find work, but made plans to escape. She managed to leave together with Mordechai’s brother Yaakov, who carried three-year-old Chaya in a knapsack, as they travelled first by boat, then by horse and carriage. At their destination they became separated. Chaya was subsequently hidden in three to four different places, sometimes closed in a room alone, but her mother was not far away and was able to visit occasionally. In July 1944 Chaya was moved to a farm owned by Ruzgys Kazimieras and Marcijona Ruzgien, near Labardzinai, where she was reunited with her mother. They stayed there until November 1944, at great risk to their host family and their young daughter.
After the war, Braina and Chaya returned to Kovno for a short time, and found that Braina’s brother Yaakov had survived Dachau, and her brother David had survived in hiding. Her sister, Devorah, and her father, Yehuda, had perished. Braina and Chaya left the area, arriving in Germany by 1946. David initially remained in Kovno. He was a doctor, and also worked with the underground to help send Jews illegally to Palestine. Fearing that he would be caught, he soon also left the area, going first to Poland, then to East and West Belin, and finally ending up in Munich. There, he reunited with Braina and Chaya, and stayed for two years.
Braina and Chaya had initially hoped to immigrate to Israel, but were convinced by Braina’s brother Jack to join him in the United States. They arrived in Boston in April 1949, and settled in Chicago, where Jack had a clothing shop. Chaya attended high school there, and went on to earn a degree at the University of Michigan. In the summer of 1962, Chaya travelled to Israel, where she met her future husband, Yehuda Landau, an architect and survivor from Krakow. They married in 1964 and had four children and sixteen grandchildren. Yehuda died in 2005.
Braina and Chaya kept in touch with the family who rescued them, and continue to exchange letters with them. The couple was recognized by the Lithuanian government for their heroism.
- Record last modified:
- 2019-08-08 00:00:00
- This page:
- https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/pa1185148
