"My European Childhood"

Identifier
irn36010
Language of Description
English
Alt. Identifiers
  • 2008.184.1
Dates
1 Jan 1960 - 31 Dec 2007
Level of Description
Item
Languages
  • English
Source
EHRI Partner

Extent and Medium

folder

1

Archival History

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Acquisition

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of Kayla Szumer

Kayla Szumer donated her late husband's memoir to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum on June 1, 2008.

Scope and Content

Consists of one memoir, 92 pages, entitled "My European Childhood," by Adam Zygmunt Szumer, originally of Nieglowice, Poland. In the memoir, he describes his childhood in Nieglowice and Jaslo, where his parents worked for a small oil refinery. At the time of the German invasion of Poland, the family temporarily relocated to Stanislawow in eastern Poland, before moving to Drohobycz in late 1939. In 1942, Adam acquired Aryan papers and temporarily went into hiding with two Polish Catholic sisters, but was returned to his parents after a traveling mishap. He describes the Drohobycz ghetto and labor camps, and his work as a lab assistant in the oil refinery. The family hid in a bunker in the garden during and after the liquidation of the Drohobycz ghetto in March 1944 and were liberated by the Russian army in the summer of 1944. The family returned to Poland in 1945 before moving to Paris in 1947 and then to the United States. They were not allowed to remain in America, and so, after one month, flew to Australia.

Conditions Governing Reproduction

Copyright Holder: Mrs. Kayla Szumer

Subjects

Genre

This description is derived directly from structured data provided to EHRI by a partner institution. This collection holding institution considers this description as an accurate reflection of the archival holdings to which it refers at the moment of data transfer.