Edwarda Powidzki collection

Correspondence, photographs, and writings that illustrate the experiences of Edwarda Stopczynska (donor), a non-Jewish Pole, during the Holocaust in Poland. The collection includes letters sent from Edwarda and her maternal uncle, Stefan Dembski, who was arrested with Edwarda and interrogated in Auschwitz for their political activities, to their mother and sister, Stanisława Chentkowska, in Ząbkowice, Poland. Also includes a 1943 calendar clandestinely taken and inscribed by Edwarda; documents issued to Stanisława and post-war to Edwarda; notes written by and to Edwarda from people interned with her; a poem she transcribed from memory that was conceived by internee Krystyna Zywulska; immediate pre-war, wartime and postwar photographs illustrating Edwarda, Stefan, Stanisława and the three other women with whom Edwarda survived. Stefan, convicted for his resistance activities, was executed in Auschwitz November 9, 1943.