ca-005461-ra014
has or had holder: http://lod.ehri-project-test.eu/institutions/ca-005461
history: Records maintained by Sender Mines until his death in 1982. Records maintained by his daughter, Rachel Mines, until their donation to the VHEC in 2011.
date: 1922–[195-], predominant 1946–1952
record resource structure: Collection has been arranged into five series which reflect the major activities of Sender Mines, as well as thematic divisions as it came to the VHEC. All photographs kept in the order they were in at the time of their donation and placed in enclosures for preservation purposes.
type: RecordSet
results or resulted from: http://lod.ehri-project-test.eu/units/ca-005461-ra014/acquisitions/1
accruals: No further accruals are expected.
identifier: RA014
history: Sender Mines (b. March 18, 1909, in Skuodas, Lithuania), a Lithuanian Jew and Holocaust survivor, was born to Mayer Mines and Rachel Aizen. He was the youngest of nine children. The family was poor and Sender left school at age eight to work on the family farm. He eventually learned to be a shoemaker, or bootleg maker. In 1936, Sender moved to Kaunas (Kovno), which was, at the time, the capital city of Lithuania. In 1937, he married his Uncle Yossel’s daughter, Chaja Mines (b. 1904), who had a daughter, Miriam (b. 1932; d. 1944). Sender and Chaja had a son, Emanuel Mines (b. 1938; d. 1944).On June 22, 1941, the Germans invaded the Soviet Union. When they entered Kaunas on June 24, the city’s Jews were forced into the Kaunas ghetto. Sender was separated from his family when, in the winter of 1941, he was deported to the Riga ghetto in Latvia. Chaja, Miriam, and Emanuel remained in the Kaunas ghetto. On March 27 and 28, 1944, the “Children’s Action” took place. German troops and Ukrainian auxiliaries rounded up the ghetto’s children under the age of twelve, as well as the elderly and disabled. Around 1,200 victims were either taken to the Ninth Fort in Kaunas and executed or sent to Auschwitz and gassed. Miriam and Emanuel were among those taken and murdered.In November 1943, the Riga ghetto was liquidated and Sender was transferred to Kaiserwald concentration camp. In August 1944, Kaiserwald was evacuated because of the approaching Soviet Army and prisoners were transported to Stutthof concentration camp, near Danzig, now Gdańsk, Poland. On April 25, 1945, the Soviets were again approaching and Sender and his fellow prisoners were evacuated by barge to Neustadt in Holstein, Schlesweig, Germany. In May 1945, they were liberated by the British Army. Sender remained at the displaced persons camp in Neustadt in Holstein until 1949.Sender arrived in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, in January 1952. He found work at a shoe factory. While he was engaged to be married to Jennie Lif…
has record set type: Fonds
sources: Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre
title: Sender Mines fonds
scope and content: Fonds consists of photographs, International Refugee Organization (IRO) documents, court document, correspondence, and German driver’s license relating to the life of Sender Mines. Fonds has been arranged in the following series: SM photographs series (1922–[195-]), SM IRO documents series (1949–1951), Court document series (1951), and Bund der Verfolgten des Naziregimes e.V. (BVN) correspondence series (1951).
record resource extent: 1 cm of textual records16 photographs : black and white
archivist note: Prepared by Sarika Kelm in January 2017. Updated March 2017.