Janina Birenstam papers

Janina Birenstam was born Janina Bolkowska on January 2, 1915, in Łódź, Poland. Her father, Edward Bolkowski, was an engineer, and her mother, Gustawa Bolkowska, was a biologist. Both of Janina’s parents died before World War II. Her brother, Kazimierz Bolkowski, born in 1909, was married to Zofia Epstein, and they had a son, Edward, born in 1939. Janina’s brother and his family were deported to Auschwitz concentration camp where they all perished. Janina Bolkowska enrolled at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków, Poland, in the philosophy department in October 1935. She had completed her third year of studies when Germany invaded Poland in September 1939. Janina returned to Łódź but decided to hide rather then enter the Łódź ghetto. She left Łódź in October 1939 for Piotrkow Trybunalski, Poland, and later moved to Czestochowa and Warsaw, Poland. In April 1940 Janina Bolkowska left Warsaw and reached Lvov (L’viv), Ukraine, via Bialystok. In Lvov she worked as a nurse and later moved to Rovno (Rivne) and Kiev, Ukraine. In June 1941 she was evacuated to Ili, Khazakhstan, near the Chinese border. Janina worked in a school for Polish and Polish-Jewish children under the directorship of Edward Kofler. In 1946 Janina returned to Poland. She met and married Ignacy Birenstam in May 1946 in Warsaw. In 1968 Janina Birenstam emigrated from Poland to Sweden.

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of Janina Birenstam

Janina Birenstam donated the collection to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 1998.