Henryk Nirensztejn papers

Henryk Nirensztejn (born Chaim Goworczyk) was born on May 8, 1920 in Warsaw, Poland. His father, Jakub Goworczyk, was a tailor and owned a ladies outer apparel workshop and his mother, Doba Orensztajn Goworczyk, took care of the children. Henryk had three sisters: Sara (b.1915), Ester (b. 1924), and Brandla Bronia (b. 1925). In May 1940 the Goworczyk family including newly married Sara, her husband Chaim Klog and their son, Jureczek, were forced into the Warsaw ghetto. They found a place to stay with their aunt on 92 Pawia Street in the ghetto. At the same time Henryk decided to flee from Warsaw and reached Białystok via Małkinia. In June 1941, just before the German invasion, Henryk was evacuated to Fergana in Tashkent, USSR, and later transferred to labor battalions in Sverdlovsk, USSR. In 1943 he escaped and returned to Tashkent using false papers under the name Henryk Nirensztejn, the name he kept after the war. Henryk stayed in Fergana in Tashkent until May 1946, not knowing what happened to his family in Warsaw. None of Henryk’s immediate family survived the Holocaust. Henryk returned to Warsaw, Poland in May 1946 and settled there until September 1969, at which time he and his wife, Janina Szymańska, immigrated to Göteborg, Sweden.

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of Henryk Nirensztajn

The collection was donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 1999 by Henryk Nirensztejn.