us-005578-irn36938-irn650889
type: RecordSet
archival history: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
biographical history: Wolf Gitman Cytrynblum was born on October 17, 1925, in Plock, Poland. His parents, Abraham, born in March 19, 1891, in Warsaw, and Chana (Anna) Cypel, born in 1893 to Gela in Plock, ran a clothing store. He had an older sister, Lucia, born on April 23, 1923. Wolf was often ill as a child, but the family was wealthy and it was a comfortable childhood. His maternal grandmother lived with them. The family had a nanny and a sleep-in maid. However, the family was aware of the increasing antisemitism in Poland. Wolf felt that Poles were jealous of the Jews and blamed them for all Poland’s problems. In September 1939, Germany invaded Poland. For the first month or two, life was not greatly changed. The Polish zloty was replaced with occupation currency and stores were encouraged to operate. In March-April 1940, the family store was confiscated and they were forced into the ghetto. The ghetto was sealed and one could leave only with a pass. In late 1940, the town was declared Juden frei (Jew free). The Cytrynblum’s, and the other Jews, were transported to the Chmielnik ghetto near Kielce. Only Wolf had to work breaking big stones into gravel to make roads. His maternal grandmother, who was in her 70s, was beaten on the way to the rail station for moving too slow. She became ill and died a few weeks after the move. In the fall of 1941, there was a selection of the young and healthy for forced labor. Wolf and Lucy were taken to the Skarzysko-Kamienya slave labor camp in Czestochowa where they worked in a factory making ammunition parts for HASAG (Hugo Schneider Aktiengesellschaft), a munitions manufacturers that was the third largest consumer of forced labor during the war. He saw Lucy occasionally; she worked processing dried food and once in a while slipped him some. In 1944, Wolf and Lucy were transferred to another camp near the German border. In summer 1944, Wolf was moved to another camp because of the advancing Soviet Army. The camp was liberated on January 16, 1945, …
conditions of use: Copyright Holder: Miriam Burhans
has beginning date: 1945-01-01
has beginning date: 1930-01-01
has end date: 2016-12-31
has end date: 1983-12-31
has or had holder: us-005578
has or had identifier: 2
has or had identifier: 1
has or had identifier: 3
has or had some members with language: deu
has or had some members with language: eng
has or had subject: 278
has or had subject: 701
has record set type: Item
identifier: irn650889
is or was included in: us-005578-irn36938
record resource extent: box 1
record resource structure: The collection is arranged as two series. Series 1. Biographical material, 1949-2016 and undated Series 2. Photographs, 1930, 1945-1949 and undated
results or resulted from: 1
scope and content: The collection documents the post-war experiences of William and Bela Citron (Wolf Cytrynblum and Bela Kasztan) and their daughter Miriam Citron (Gela Machla, later Miriam Citron Burhans) in displaced persons camps in Germany prior to their immigration to the United States in 1949. Included are identification documents, photographs, a small amount of immigration documents, material related to the search for the fates of their families, and restitution paperwork. Photographs primarily document William and Bela’s time in the Foehrenwald and Stuttgart DP camps, including the birth of their daughter Miriam in 1948, and their immigration to the United States via ship in 1949. Also depicted are William’s parents Abraham Cytrynblum and Chana Cypel and Bela’s mother Machle Lehrman Kasztan.
title: William and Bela Citron and Miriam Citron Burhans papers