The collection documents the pre-war, wartime, and post-war experiences of Tatiana Tauba Brustin-Berenstein, originally of Szczebrzeszyn, Poland. Included are diplomas, certificates, a marriage certificate, a repatriation certificate, and photographs. Also included is script issued in the Łódź ghetto.
Tatiana Tauba Brustin-Berenstein was born in Szczebrzeszyn, Poland on November 29, 1906. She had a younger brother, Marek Brustin, who survived the war with his sister in Soviet Union, and an older sister, Bluma Sara, who together with her two sons, Daniel and Jakub, were deported from the Warsaw ghetto to Treblinka where they all perished. Tatiana graduated from high school in 1924 and four years later received certification to teach in elementary schools. Her family lived in Warsaw at that time. In 1932 Tatiana graduated from the Warsaw University with a degree in history and a year later she finished High School Teachers Seminary in Warsaw, Poland. From 1933 until 1939 Tatiana taught history on high school level. In November 1939 Tatiana fled Warsaw to Krzemieniec (now: Kremenec, Ukraine) which was under the Soviet administration and in April 1940 she married Jonathan Berenstein. In June 1941, after the German invasion of the Soviet Union, Tatiana, who was pregnant at that time, was separated from her husband and evacuated to Fergana, Kyrgyzstan. Jonathan Berenstein volunteered to the Soviet Army and was killed in action in 1941. On January 1, 1942 Tatiana gave birth to her son, Vitali. During the next four years she taught school to Polish and Jewish children in Uzbekistan. Tatiana and her son repatriated to Poland in 1946 and settled in Łódź, where she started to work for the Jewish Historical Commission. After its transfer to Warsaw, Tatiana worked as a director of archives of the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw. She published many academic papers relating to the Holocaust. In 1969 Tatiana Brustin-Berenstein and her son, Vitalyi Witek, left Poland for Denmark. In Copenhagen Tatiana Brustin-Berenstein continued to research issues relating to the Holocaust and published her articles in “Yad Vashem Studies” and other publications.
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Tatiana Tauba Brustin-Berenstein collection
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum