Jeannette Hammer Kaufmann memoir

Identifier
irn49794
Language of Description
English
Alt. Identifiers
  • 2013.41.1
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 Madelyn Levy

Madelyn Levy donated her aunt's memoir to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2012.

Scope and Content

Consists of a photocopy of a memoir, 20 pages, written soon after the end of the war by Jeannette Hammer Kaufmann, originally of Vienna, Austria. Married with two sons prior the war, she describes life after the Anschluss, their attempts to emigrate and being sent to the Opole ghetto in 1941. The family was able to escape from Opole to join Jeannette's parents in the Kunów ghetto. The family then moved to Bodzechów, where Jeannette's husband found a job as a chauffeur at a labor camp; Jeannette describes witnessing the liquidation of Kunów as they were leaving the ghetto and the residents were being deported to Treblinka. She describes the conditions in Bodzechów, the execution of her sister's family, and being sent to the Starachowice labor camp. In August 1944, they were deported to Auschwitz; in October 1944, Jeannette's husband and sons were transported out of the camp. Jeannette describes her forced labor breaking down the crematorium at Auschwitz, her deportation to a forced labor camp near Breslau at the beginning of January 1945, a forced march to Gross-Rosen, her deportation to Mauthausen and from there, to Bergen-Belsen. After liberation, she discovered that her husband, who, unbeknownst to her, was also in Bergen-Belsen, perished three days before liberation and her sons perished at Ohrdruf.

Conditions Governing Reproduction

Copyright Holder: Madelyn Levy

People

Subjects

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.