Ada Abrahamer papers

Ada Breitkopf Abrahamer (1921-2009) was the only child born to Gustaw Breitkopf and Eleonora Ernestina (Erna) Reif. Ada and her parents were in Kraków, Poland when Germany invaded in 1939. Her father, Gustaw, fled east under the common assumption that only men were in danger. Ada, her mother and grandmother remained at home until they were forced into the Kraków ghetto in April 1941. Ada worked clearing snow, cleaning and disinfecting military installations and working at the Feldzeugdienstelle Munitions Factory. Shortly before the ghetto was liquidated, Ada's grandmother Ida Maria Reif passed away, and in March 1943 Ada and her mother were sent to the Plaszów concentration camp. After a month spent under horrific conditions, they were selected to work in Oskar Schindler's airplane parts factory, the Neue Kuehler Fabrik. They remained there until September 1944. Ada was then returned to Plaszów for a month and then deported to Auschwitz where she stayed for three weeks. In November 1944, she was sent to the Lichtewerden bei Freudenthal (Consolidated Flaxspinning Factory) in Sudetenland. Ada was finally liberated by the Russian Army on May 6, 1945. Her mother Erna was sent to different concentration camps and died in 1944 in Skarżysko-Kamienna Werk C. Throughout her ordeal, Ada kept a diary recording her experiences in the various camps. It was confiscated on three occasions, but she was able to retrieve it each time. After liberation, Ada returned briefly to Krakow before making her way to Austria where she settled in the Bindermichl displaced persons camp near Linz. There she met Rafael Abrahamer (b. 1913), a jeweler who fled east in the beginning of the war and joined the Polish army. He was captured by the Russians and spent the bulk of the war in prisoner of war camps in Siberia. They married on March 30, 1947 and immigrated to the United States on October 30, 1948. Though Ada survived the Holocaust, all of her immediate relatives perished including her two grandmothers, Ida Maria Reif and Shifra Breitkopf, her Uncle Adolf and Aunt Sara Breitkopf and their children Blanka, Nussa, Tadek, Yurek and Edward, her Uncle Ignatz Breitkopf, Uncle Jacob Breitkopf, Uncle Max Reif and Aunt Basha Reif.

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of Nora Abrahamer

Funding Note: The accessibility of this collection was made possible by the generous donors to our crowdfunded Save Their Stories campaign.

Nora Abrahamer donated her mother's collection to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in April 2015. Nora Abrahamer donated an accretion of her mother's collection to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum on August 19, 2015