News

Sacher Israeler Identified

Born in Krakow, Poland, on January 19, 1931, Steve (formerly Sacher) Israeler was the youngest of six children. His father, David, had a textile business on the main street of the city’s Jewish quarter, and his mother, Regina (Ryfka) (née Wolf), was a housewife. His older siblings were Miriam, Rose, Janka, Helen, and Walter (Zev).

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Moszek Sztajnkeler Identified

Born Moszek Sztajnkeler in 1928 in Zakrzówek, Poland, Morris Stein passed away in North Carolina in 2014. His son, Jack Stein, says that Morris struggled to talk about his experiences during the Holocaust. As a child in Israel, Jack did not ask his father about his life during World War II because it caused him so much pain. Many years later, during the 1990s, Jack’s younger brother, Harry, worked with their father over many months to record his memories of life before and during the Holocaust.

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Vittorio Vivanti Identified

Vittorio Vivanti’s widow, Carla Vivanti, tells us that this photo was taken in an orphanage in Rome, where Vittorio lived from age six to age 13. The picture probably was sent to a Jewish foster family in the United States that sent gifts to Vittorio. He remembered having a plaid shirt that he was very proud of—a gift received at a time when was little to be happy about.

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Vitalis Obadia Identified

Raphaël Obadia had never seen this photograph of his late father, Vitalis, and was very surprised when he saw it online. Raphaël recognized his father because he has another photo of him that was taken one or two years earlier than the one on our website. Vitalis passed away in 2005 and never talked much about his experiences during the Holocaust. Raphaël shared with us what he could about his father’s life during that period.

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Regine Probstein Identified

A member of the Museum staff was able to locate Regine Probstein through the Page of Testimony about her father that she submitted to Yad Vashem in 1997.

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Marcel Probstein Identified

Marcel Probstein was born in the Pletzel, the Jewish ghetto of Paris, on June 5, 1942. His parents were Hinda Baila Klajner Probstein (born June 26, 1907), from Wiskitki, Poland, and Szaja Probstein (born August 23,1894), who was born in Przemysl. Szaja came from a large family, all of whom perished in the Holocaust. Marcel’s mother arrived in Paris in 1926, where she met and married his father.

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Jacques, Lazare, Maurice, Salomon, and Suzanne Dziesietnik Identified

The members of the Dziesietnik family remember having their photographs taken at a studio on rue de Charonne in Paris sometime in 1945 or 1946. By then, they had lost their father in the Holocaust.

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Marijan Dubno Identified

After learning that Marijan Dubno had passed away in 1989, a museum volunteer was able to locate his daughter Ava. We are grateful to Ava for sharing with us what she knew about her father’s life during World War II and his life afterward in the United States.

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Esther-Paulette Kotek Identified

Esther-Paulette Kotek was born on March 21, 1938, in Paris. Her parents were both born in Poland; her mother, Zlata, in 1913 in Ozarów and her father, Chaim, in 1916 in in Opatów. They were married in Paris.

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Jacques Herszkowicz Identified

Jacques Herszkowicz—who now lives in Denmark and is known as Jacques Hersh—learned about his picture on the Remember Me? website from his niece, who lives in the United States. Jacques recognized his photograph right away and even remembered the sweater he was wearing in the picture. Jacques’s parents, Mordka Herszkowicz and Helen (née Najman), immigrated to France from Poland during the 1930s. Mordka went first and was later joined by Helen and their two older children, Charles and Rosette (also known as Rachla). Mordka was a tailor, and Helen helped out with sewing at home while taking care of the family. Jacques was born in France in 1935.

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Jacob Jacobowicz Identified

After Marla Byrnes saw her father’s photograph on the Remember Me? website, her son Patrick Byrnes wrote to us with this information to share about his grandfather.

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Giuliana and Alberto Moscato Identified

Giuliana and Alberto Moscato along with their four siblings spent six months hiding in a slaughterhouse at Portuense, a destitute neighborhood on the periphery of Rome where a peasant prevented Giuliana's family and others from being discovered. The conditions were harsh, but the Moscato children were kept safe there. The same was not so for the children’s mother, Fortunata.

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Sergio Di Castro Identified

Sergio Di Castro was born in Rome in 1935. When he was eight years old, he saw a squad of Italian fascists push his father onto a truck in the middle of the market on Piazza Vittorio. He never saw his father again.  Even today, he cannot retell the story without feeling the pain and the loss that terrible moment meant to his entire life. His nephew, Fabio Di Nepi, found Sergio's picture on the Remember Me? site and helped us contact him and record his story.

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Elena, Alberto, Lello, and Colomba Astrologo Identified

Colomba Astrologo was only four years old the morning her father left home after breakfast to go to work. He never came back. She cannot remember him, but her older siblings do. They also remember life in hiding during the German occupation of Rome, and the decades-long uncertainty of not knowing where their father was.

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Nina Krieger Identified

Nobody in Nina Krieger's family knew about her past. Nobody suspected what she had witnessed during her childhood. To her family and friends in Italy, she was a beautiful woman—with the added exotic appeal of being a foreigner—who had a passion for music and a taste for elegant clothes.

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Angelo, Massimo, and Sandro Soliani Identified

Sandro Soliani and his brother Angelo remember having their pictures taken when they were children. The brothers, faced with the deportation of their father Arturo, reacted in two different ways: while Sandro always tried to avoid the painful memory, Angelo never stopped searching for information, as if understanding how the events happened could help him cope with them.  

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Marina Del Monte Identified

As soon as Marina Del Monte’s son showed her this picture, she recognized herself. She can’t remember when the photograph was taken, but it had been in her mother's house for years.

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Henri Barik Identified

Information about the late Dr. Henri Barik comes from several telephone conversations with his widow, Florence Barik, who lives in Jerusalem.

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Victor Herzog Identified

Not long ago, Victor Herzog Googled his name and was surprised to find it on the Museum’s Remember Me? website. He contacted the Museum but was reluctant to tell us his story. Given his family’s wartime experiences, his mother always instructed him to divulge as little information as possible. He and his sister still have this habit today.

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Umberto Cardoso Identified

According to Umberto Cardoso, this picture was taken when he was 16. He does not remember the exact circumstances in which it was taken, but he believes he was in Florence, Italy, at the time. His grandson noticed the picture on the Remember Me? website and told him about it. Umberto doesn’t know how to use the Internet, so he asked his granddaughter to contact the Museum.

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Micheline Zauberman Identified

Meir and Mina Zauberman raised their family in the 11th arrondissement in Paris, where there were many Jewish families. They had five children and Meir supported his family as a varnisher in a woodwork factory. Their daughter Micheline is pictured on the Remember Me? site. Born in 1938, Micheline has somewhat vague and detached memories of the years before and during the Holocaust. We spoke with Micheline as well as her sister Jacqueline. Jacqueline, who was older at the time of the war and has a strong interest in her family’s history, was able to provide additional details about the impact of the war on herself, her brothers and sisters, and her parents. Their other siblings include Jacques, now 90 years old, and Henri and Hélène, both deceased.

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Fischer Kampel Identified

Laurence Kampel lost his father, Fischel, when he was only seven years old and never had the chance to ask his father about his experiences during the Holocaust. We shared with Laurence documents about his father’s time during World War II from the Museum’s International Tracing Service collection; he told us that the records confirmed the information he had seen in his father’s personal papers, but he was amazed and grateful that there is still access to these records. Laurence shared with us what he could about his father’s life after liberation. Born in Bodzentyn, Poland, in 1930, Fischel was the only child of Lebusz Kampel, a merchant, and his wife, Hendla (née Niskier). In 1942, Fischel, his parents, and the other Jews of their town were taken to the camp Starachowice. Lebusz and Hendla were killed there, but Fischel survived and was taken to several other camps: first Auschwitz and then its subcamp Monowitz in 1943, then Oranienburg, a subcamp of Sachsenhausen, in 1944, and finally to Flossenbürg in 1945. In April 1945, the US Army liberated Fischel when he was on a death march from Flossenbürg to Dachau. He was taken to Neunburg, where he stayed for a time with American soldiers. He was taken eventually to Kloster Indersdorf, where his photograph was taken.

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Bronia Najmark Identified

Bronia Wiener was born Braindla Bronka Najmark on December 10, 1932, in Warsaw, to Leib and Malka (née Wald). Her younger brother Israel was born in 1936. The family was quite well to do. They were enjoying a relaxing summer in Legionowo, away from the big city, when Warsaw was occupied and as a result they could not return home. For some time they managed to get by, even without all their belongings in Warsaw. The children helped look for food and smuggled it into the ghetto in Legionowo to which the family was moved, bartering for what they needed for as long as that was possible. At one point, Bronia was arrested in Warsaw and did not return to Legionowo for a whole week. She spent time in the Pawiak Prison (during which time her mother was beside herself with worry) but miraculously managed to escape. Under very difficult conditions, while the family was living in a small room and had insufficient food, her brother Abraham was born. As their situation worsened, Bronia’s father, Leib, tried to return to Warsaw to bring some valuables so that they could survive in the ghetto. They waited for him anxiously but he never returned. They never found out what happened to him.

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South Florida Recap

On December 9, 2012, the Museum’s 20th Anniversary Tour arrived in Boca Raton, Florida.  You can learn more about the day’s events here.

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Franca Limentani Identified

Franca Limentani’s picture was taken on July 15, 1946, so it could be sent to the family in the United States that was helping her and her family right after the end of World War II. In May 1946, Mrs. Mina Tropp contacted the American Jewish Congress and chose to help four children: two young girls in Rome, Franca Limentani and Bruna Tagliacozzo, as well as Peter Cohen in Romania and Leon Pulka from Cherbourg.

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