ca-005461-ra016
has record set type: Fonds
date: [1920?]–2019
sources: Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre
record resource extent: 11.7 cm of textual records4 postcards71 photographs : prints ; black and white, colour7 coins2 bank notes2 thimbles : silver, glass1 pane (20 postage stamps)
results or resulted from: http://lod.ehri-project-test.eu/units/ca-005461-ra016/acquisitions/1
accruals: Accruals were processed together. No further accruals are expected.
identifier: RA016
title: Alexander and Gina Dimant fonds
archivist note: Finding aid prepared by Lorenzo Camerini in November 2018. Revised in February 2019 by Shyla Seller and in April, 2019 by Lorenzo Camerini, and in August, 2019 with changes requested by Gina Dimant.
type: RecordSet
has or had holder: http://lod.ehri-project-test.eu/institutions/ca-005461
scope and content: Fonds is comprised of correspondence, photographs, identity and personal documents, society registration documents, minutes, clippings, memorabilia and ephemera created or collected by Alexander and Gina Dimant in Poland, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), Italy and Canada. Records pertain to their family history, work, school, and social and volunteer activities prior to and after the Second World War.Records have been arranged into the following series: Correspondence (1941–2019), Photographs ([1920?]–[2016], Personal records (1938–2013), Artefacts (1940–[before 1948], 1997), Clippings and ephemera ([after 1942]–2016) and Janusz Korczak Association of Canada records (2001–2008).
other finding aids: Finding aid is available.
history: The Dimants were a Jewish family from Warsaw, Poland. Alexander Dimant (birth name Szaja Dymant, b. September 17, 1922, in Warsaw, Poland, d. March 9, 1998 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada) was born to Izrael Dymant and Fajga Szrajbaum. Alexander, who was also known as Sasha and Aleksander, had three siblings: Nahama Goldman (birth name Chumcia Dymant), Jakub Dymant and Szlomo Dymant. The Dimants lived on Miła Street in Warsaw’s Jewish Quarter until 1937.Shortly after the Germans invaded Poland in September 1939, Alexander and his friend Leon walked from Warsaw to Brest-Litovsk (now Brest, Belarus), where the Red Army was accepting refugees into the Soviet Union. From there, they moved to Białystok, where Alexander pursued a factory school apprenticeship. In 1941, he went to Makhachkala, the present-day capital of the Republic of Dagestan, Russia. There, he was reunited with his brother, Jakub. In the spring of 1941, Jakub was accused of anti-Soviet agitation and imprisoned. Alexander did not see him again until 1946, when Jakub was released.Alexander was mobilized into the labour army in 1942, working on oil pipeline construction alongside many other refugees between Astrakhan and Stalingrad, now Volgograd, Russia. Labeled by Soviet authorities “unreliable” for fleeing Poland after the German invasion, he was sent to build a bypass channel from the Baydayevka River, in the region of Kabardino-Balkariya. After the Second World War, in 1946, he was allowed to leave the USSR and went to Szczecin, Poland. His entire immediate family except for his brother Jakub perished in the Holocaust.Gina Dimant, also known as Longina (birth name Hinda Wejgsman, b. January 11, 1926, in Warsaw, Poland) was born to Abram Wejgsman and Dora Grinblat. She had a younger sister, Lina Wejgsman (b. January 2, 1937 in Warsaw, Poland; d. June 10, 2016, in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada), who worked many years as a radio announcer in Szczecin before moving to Canada.In September 1939…