Klapholc and Shoval families photograph collection

Gusti Shoval was born as Gitl Guta Klapholc on July 3, 1923 in Oświęcim, Poland to Chaim Jakub Klapholc (1890-1944) and Sabina Szajndl Rotenberg Klapholc (b. 1894 or 1900-1944). The family owned a delicatessen store in Oświęcim, which was well known in town and the vicinity for its selection of luxury goods. The store was located at the main square of town, Rynek Główny. Chaim Klapholc was a very religious man who started his day praying in the nearby synagogue, while his wife opened the store for business. The family lived at 2 Jagiellonska Street in Oświęcim. Chaim and Sabina had five children: Dawid Klapholc (b. 1920); Gitl Guta Klapholc (later Gusti Shoval, b. July 3, 1923); Arie Lejb Klapholc (b. 1925); Adela Ida Klapholc (b. 1927); and Henia Klapholc (b. December 1936). In addition, the family adopted Chaim’s nephew, Mordechai Hersh, after his father, Salomon Shlomo, died. The children attended Polish elementary schools. In the afternoons Gusti and Adela went to Beit Yaakov School to learn Jewish subjects and the boys attended a yeshiva. In September 1934 Gusti was sent to Krakow, Poland to attend a commerce school where her older brother Dawid attended the same school. Gusti and her brother lived with a distant relative in Krakow while attending school. In December 1936, Henia Klapholc was born and the family hired a nanny, Maria Molenda, to care for the baby. Maria had a daughter, Hanka Molenda, who was born in 1927, out of wedlock. On September 1, 1939 Germany invaded Poland. Gusti was unable to return to school. Her parents sent Gusti and her two sisters to their paternal grandparents, Dawid and Chaja Klapholc in Bochnia, Poland. However, after a few weeks the girls returned home. The Germans burned down the Oświęcim synagogues and the anti-Jewish repressions started immediately. In April 1940 the Germans confiscated the luxury store owned by the Klapholc family and nominated a “treuhänder” a trustee (Herr Müller). The family continued to work in the store. The Jews of Oświęcim were ordered to live in a single part of town and were forced to perform manual labor in building the future Auschwitz concentration camp. Slowly, the Oświęcim Jews were forced to leave town. In April 1941, just before Passover, the Klapholc family with the remnants of the Jewish population left Oświęcim. The Klapholc family went to Chrzanów, Poland, where Shlomo Klapholc, Gusti’s paternal uncle, and his family resided. The Klapholc family rented a room on 3 Garncarska Street, and Chaim Klapholc made and sold candy to support his family. Shortly after their arrival, Gusti was forced to work in the brick factory of the forced labor camp Trzebinia. She was forced to walk about 10 kilometers to the camp and back, but was able to return to her parents’ home each night. The work day lasted for twelve hours. In April 1942, Gusti, her brother Leib, and her sister Adela were deported to a transit camp (Durchgangslager) in Sosnowiec, Poland. After a few days, the Klapholc siblings were separated. Adela Klapholc was sent to a forced labor camp in Czechoslovakia. Leib Klapholc was deported to Blechammer, a sub-camp of the Auschwitz concentration camp. Gusti and arrived at a forced labor camp in Gruenberg on May 30, 1942. At the same time that his siblings were deported, Dawid Klapholc took his youngest sister, Henia Klapholc, to live with her previous nanny, Maria Molenda, in the village of Libiąż, Poland. Their parents remained in the Chrzanów, Poland. In the Gruenberg concentration camp, a sub-camp of the Gross-Rosen concentration camp, Gusti worked alongside other Jewish women in a textile factory. In December 1944, she was transferred to the Neusalz concentration camp. In February 1945, Gusti was sent to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp where she received the prisoner number 05019590, and contracted typhus. She was liberated from the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp by the British Army on April 15, 1945. Sick with typhus, Gusti was sent to a hospital. After three months, she was transferred by the Red Cross to a hospital in Sweden where she stayed for several more months before being placed in a convalescent home near Stockholm. After her recovery, Gusti started working in a clothing factory near Gothenburg, Sweden. While in Sweden, Gusti learned her brother, Arie Leib Klapholtz, had survived the Holocaust and was living in Palestine. In 1949, Gustive arrived in Israel and worked in the Ata textiles factory as a cutter. Soon after, she met fellow Holocaust survivor, Heniek Wasserlauf. Heniek Wasserlauf was original from the Kraków area of Poland. They married on July 1, 1951. They had two children: Jaffa (b. 1952) and Jacob Kobi (b. 1958). In 1975, the family changed their last name to Shoval. Jaffa Faimaru Shoval is the mother of two children, and Jacob and Bonnie Shoval are the parents of Ben and Zvi Shoval. Heniek Wasserlauf Shoval died in 1980. Gusti Shoval currently lives in Bnai Brak, Arie Leib Klapholtz married Zivia in 1954. They eventually changed their last name to Givon. Chaim and Sabina Klapholc, along with their children Dawid and Adela Klapholc did not survived the Holocaust. Chaim Klapholc died at the Auschwitz concentration camp in 1944. Sabina Klapholc died in either Będzin or Auschwitz concentration camp in 1944. The fate of their youngest daughter, Henia Klapholc is unknown. Her nanny, Maria Molenda, claimed that when Henia contracted typhus, Maria brought her back to her parents in the Chrzanów ghetto, where she likely perished. However, Gusti believes that Maria simply kept her younger sister as her own child.

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of Jacob Shoval

Funding Note: The cataloging of this collection has been supported by a grant from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany.

Jacob Shoval donated the Klapholc and Shoval families photograph collection to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2011.