Jacob and Rita Litman papers, including Samuel Golfard diary

Jacob Litman was born 2 June 1920 in Gomel, Russia, and later lived in Warsaw. In 1939, after the German and Soviet invasion of Poland, Litman went to live in Przemysliany, a town near Lwow (present day Peremyshliany, Ukraine). Initially he lived with the non-Jewish family of Tadeusz Jankiewicz, but later, after the German invasion of the Soviet Union and Soviet-held territories in 1941, he went into hiding, but eventually was forced to move into the Przemysliany ghetto. He was a forced laborer from 1942-1943, working in a stone quarry, a construction group, and a burial brigade. In the latter capacity, he buried Samuel Golfard after he was killed by the Nazis in 1943. Litman received Golfard's wartime diary from Tadeusz Jankiewicz, who also helped Litman escape from the forced labor camp and go into hiding. After the war, Litman found his way to Germany, where he worked in a displaced persons camp at Bayerisch Gmain, and married fellow Przemysliany survivor Rita Honig in 1947. The couple immigrated to the United States in 1949, settling in Utica, New York, where Litman found work as a teacher, before moving to Union, New Jersey, where Litman served as principal of Temple Beth Shalom's Hebrew School. He earned bachelors, masters, and doctorate degrees from New York University, and served that university as an adjunct associate professor, while working for the American Association for Jewish Education. Jacob Litman died in 2004. [Source: The Diary of Samuel Golfard and the Holocaust in Galicia, edited by Wendy Lower (Alta Mira Press, 2011)].

Rita Litman (née Honig 1920-2008) was born in Przemyslany, Poland (now Peremyshliany, Ukraine). During the German occupation of the region about Przemyslany, she hid in the nearby forests until the area was liberated by Soviet forces in 1944. Following the war, she joined Jacob Litman in traveling to the displaced persons camp at Bayerisch Gmund, working with him at a home for orphaned Jewish children, and teaching at the Yehud-ha Macabi Children's Center. She married Jacob in Bad Reichenhall in August 1947, and they immigrated to the United States two years later, living in Utica, New York and Union, New Jersey. They had three children, Robert, Julius, and Anita.

Samuel Golfard was born around the year 1910 near Radom, Poland and had three sisters, Maria, Pola and Bronia. Following the German invasion in 1939, he fled with his sister Mania to Volhynia, in the Soviet occupied region of Poland. In 1941, after the German invasion of the Soviet Union, he fled to Przemysliany, and was sheltered by the family of Dr. Jacob Katz. At this time, he met Jacob Litman, who likewise was living with the Katz family. He lived in the Przemysliany ghetto from late 1942 until April 1943, shortly before its liquidation. At that time, he hid in a nearby labor camp, from which he planned to escape with Litman, until he was captured and separated from the other forced laborers. When attempting to shoot the German guards with a pistol he had hidden, they returned fire, killing him and several other prisoners. [Source: The Diary of Samuel Golfard and the Holocaust in Galicia, edited by Wendy Lower (Alta Mira Press, 2011)].

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of Jacob Litman

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

Dr. Robert Litman, Julius Litman, and Anita Litman Millman donated the Jacob and Rita Litman papers, including Samuel Golfard diary to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in honor of their father, Jacob Litman, in 2008. The accessions previously numbered 2008.269.1 and 2008.316.1 have been incorporated in this collection.