us-005578-irn34242
has or had identifier: http://lod.ehri-project-test.eu/units/us-005578-irn34242/alternateIDs/1
record resource extent: folder 1
results or resulted from: http://lod.ehri-project-test.eu/units/us-005578-irn34242/acquisitions/1
identifier: irn34242
has or had subject: http://lod.ehri-project-test.eu/vocabularies/ehri-terms/701
scope and content: Eight original vintage photographs documenting Basia Garfinkel, Sala and Heniek Garfinkel, and Gitl Beitner before the war in Będzin and after the war in Sosnowiec and Piotrolesie, Poland.
has record set type: Item
has or had holder: us-005578
title: Basia Garfinkel Lemel photographs
biographical history: Basia Garfinkel was born in Będzin, Poland, on November 2, 1927 to Josef Garfinkel (b. 1889) and Jochewed Beitner (b. 1886). Josef owned a general store and a workshop where holiday frocks were sewn. He was a very observant man and follower of the Radomsk Rabbi. The family spoke Yiddish at home and lived at Modrzejewska 44, a building where most of the residents were Jewish, including the Weinstein, Golensztajn, Klajman, and Gutman families. Basia was one of ten children, all of whom except Hela, the married eldest sibling, were living at home at the time the family was forced into the ghetto established by the Germans after their occupation of Poland in September 1939. Her siblings were Hela Chaya (b. 1912), Esta Jentl (Jadzia, b. 1915), Natan Nachman (b. 1917, the eldest son, attended a yeshiva), Sala Szajndla (b. 1918), Fajgla Fela (b. 1922), Ruchla (b. 1922), Perla (b. 1923), Lejb Tojwe (Yehuda Arie Lejb, b. 1925), and Salek (Shaul Dawid, b. 1931). In March 1943, Basia was arrested and put in the Dulag transit camp in Sosnowiec and then transferred to Gellenau, a slave labor sub-camp of Gross Rosen. She received a few postcards from her family in Będzin, but heard nothing more after August 1943. In March 1944, Basia was transferred to the Langenbielau slave labor camp where she worked in the Christian Dierig textile factory. She befriended Regina Renia Gesundheit from Mysłowice. They became camp-sisters, and Renia helped Basia learn to ration her bread portions to make them last for 3 days. In January 1945, the Germans ordered the evacuation of Langenbielau. During the first night’s rest, Renia and Basia escaped from the death march. They found refuge in a stranger's house where the sight of a baby sleeping in a cradle made Basia feel that she was returning to life. It took six months for Renia and Basia to reach Będzin. Basia tried to return to her home, but the strangers who lived there would not let her enter. There did not seem to be any other Jews in Będzin…
type: RecordSet
archival history: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum