Joseph Winkler memoir

Identifier
irn36399
Language of Description
English
Alt. Identifiers
  • 2010.275
Dates
1 Jan 1974 - 31 Dec 1974
Level of Description
Item
Languages
  • English
Source
EHRI Partner

Extent and Medium

box

1

1 CD-ROM,

Archival History

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Acquisition

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of Maria P. Winkler

Dr. Maria Winkler donated the Joseph Winkler memoir to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2010.

Scope and Content

Consists of one memoir, 660 pages, untitled, by Joseph Winkler, originally born in Sambor, Galicia, in 1903. The memoir was dictated in August 1974 and transcribed. In his memoir, Mr. Winkler describes his childhood, life under Russian occupation during World War I, and seeing his town become Polish territory. He got a job at a petroleum refinery in Drohobycz in 1927, received his doctorate in chemistry, and met and married Eugenia (Genia) Weidenfeld, with whom he had a daughter, Lili. He describes the German invasion of Poland in 1939 and life under the Russian occupation. After the Germans invaded in 1941, Dr. Winkler separated from his wife and daughter and fled into Russia, where he worked until the end of the war. In the summer of 1944, he returned to Drohobycz to discover that his Genia and Lili had been killed in 1942. In October 1944, he married Aniela (Nellie) Lurie and immigrated back to Poland. As a refinery expert, he viewed the IG Farben plant in Auschwitz immediately after the liberation of the camp. Nellie gave birth to a daughter, Maria, in 1945, and Joseph went to the United States as a Polish representative to try to convince Polish scientists to return to Europe. He returned briefly to Poland and immigrated with Nellie and Maria to the United States in 1947, living first in New Jersey, and then in California. Joseph and Nellie had a son, John, in 1953. Also includes a family tree.

System of Arrangement

The Joseph Winkler memoir is arranged in a single series.

People

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.