us-005578-irn36114-irn37486
is or was included in: us-005578-irn36114
title: Child's yellow skirt with heart patches made for an abandoned hidden child by her rescuer
has or had identifier: http://lod.ehri-project-test.eu/units/us-005578-irn36114-irn37486/alternateIDs/1
scope and content: Yellow skirt with hearts and rickrack made for 6 year old Elzbieta Schwarzwald in 1944 in Lwow, Poland (L'viv, Ukraine), by Regina Mandel. In September 1939, Lwow was occupied by the Soviet Union; in June 1941, Nazi Germany attacked the Soviets and Lwow was occupied by the Germans. There were numerous pogrom and thousands of Jews were murdered. The Germans moved them into a ghetto where Ela's mother died of typhus. After March 1942, deportations to death camps were frequent and Ela's father escaped with Ela and his sister. He found a non-Jewish Polish couple who took Ela into their home in exchange for payment. The war ended in Lwow in 1944, but Ela's father never returned. Without payment, the couple did not want to keep her. Every day, they left her at the Jewish Committee office, in the hope that someone would recognize her. One day, Regina and Shmul Mandels saw her sitting there and took her in. They could not afford to keep her, and in December 1945, they placed Ela in a displaced youth center with other orphaned survivors. In July 1947, Youth Aliyah arranged the children's emigration to Palestine. The Mandels later emigrated to Israel and remained very close to Ela. Regina made many clothes for Ela, but this skirt was so unusual that she kept it all her life.
type: RecordSet
conditions of access: No restrictions on access
has beginning date: http://lod.ehri-project-test.eu/dates/1944-01-01
has or had holder: us-005578
identifier: irn37486
has record set type: Item
physical characteristics and technical requirements: Yellow cotton skirt with a thick decorated waistband embroidered with yellow flowers, blue flowers and leaves, and red heart appliqués. The waistband is reinforced with linen and there is a side slit with 3 eye holes on each side for lacing and 2 metal snaps below. The skirt is smocked below the waistband and flares toward the bottom. There are 2 rows of blue, white, and orange rickrack ribbon sewn near the bottom which is hemmed.
results or resulted from: http://lod.ehri-project-test.eu/units/us-005578-irn36114-irn37486/acquisitions/1
conditions of use: No restrictions on use
biographical history: Elzbieta (Ela) Elza Schwarzwald was born in Lvov (Lwow), Poland, on February 26, 1938. She is the only daughter of Randolf Rubin and Natalia Weissberg Schwarzwald. Rubin was born on August 28, 1904, to Malka Serke Reiser and Rafael Moses Schwarzwald. His father was very devout and had a small private synagogue. Natalia was born on September 8, 1910, in Zaleszcycki to Pinchas and Ethel Wang Weissberg; she had one sister. Rubin worked in the family lumber business. The couple married in 1937. Lvov was occupied by the Soviet Union in 1939 under the terms of the Soviet-Nazi Pact which gave control of the eastern region to the Russians. In June 1941, Germany invaded the Soviet Union and occupied Lvov. Ukrainian nationalists, with the support of the Germans, launched a killing spree and thousands of Jews were murdered; a second pogrom occurred in July. In November, the Germans established a Jewish ghetto in Lvov and the Schwarzwald family was forced to move there. By March 1942, there were frequent Aktions to round up Jews for deportation to the Belzec extermination center. Ela remembers being hidden by her father during these Aktions. Her mother soon died of typhus. Her father, her aunt Berta, and Aliza escaped the ghetto and paid a Polish family to hide them. At some point the money ran out and the Polish couple asked them to leave. Her father could find nowhere else for them to stay together, but her aunt managed to persuade the Polish couple to keep four year old Ela. She was blond and had blue eyes, and they could introduce her as their granddaughter. Her father found a place to hide nearby and continued to sneak out to visit her. He would always remind her of her real name, Elza Schwarzwlad, and that she was Jewish, but told her that she must never tell anyone. He also taught her the alphabet and sent her letters until almost the end of the war. Occasionally, she visited him and the Jewish woman he had known before the war who had given him refuge. She was a singer …
has end date: http://lod.ehri-project-test.eu/dates/1944-12-31
archival history: The skirt was donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2009 by Aliza Bar.
record resource extent: overall: Height: 18.500 inches (46.99 cm) | Width: 20.250 inches (51.435 cm)