us-005578-irn501254
type: RecordSet
archival history: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
biographical history: Edith Brandon was born September 24, 1921 to Heinrich and Meta Blau (née Samuel). She spent much of her childhood in the Free City of Danzig (now Gdansk, Poland), where her father ran an import/export business. Edith’s parents first met in her mother’s family home in Minden, a German garrison town where her father was stationed near the end of WWI. Edith and her mother made frequent visits to Minden during the interwar period, where they maintained close relationships with Meta Samuel’s family and friends. In 1938, after Edith’s father’s business in Gdansk was seized and the family’s attempts to emigrate failed, they moved to Bydgoszcz, Poland in hopes of recovering money owed to them there. It was in Bydgoszcz in the summer of 1939 that Edith befriended two remarkable young Jewish intellectuals: Lutek Orenbach and Ruth Goldbarth. The three developed close friendships during the summer of 1939, enlivened by their mutual love of literature and the arts and their incisive wit. Edith’s father was seized by the Germans in October 1939 and was never heard from again. Edith and Meta Blau fled to Minden and found refuge with Meta’s sister Frieda, her brother-in-law Hermann (Bubi) Bradtmüller, and their son Hans. In December 1941 Edith and her mother were transported to Riga as forced laborers and worked unloading war materials at the docks nearby. In the autumn of 1944 they were transferred to the Stutthof concentration camp, where they worked on farm and trenchdigging details. They escaped during a blinding snowstorm as their labor detail returned to camp from Stoboje. They disguised their identities as foreign laborers and then as German ones to work for German troops. They were transported with those troops to Bornholm, Denmark, where they were finally liberated when the Red Army captured the city. They sought refuge with a local Danish family who sheltered them as they resumed their identities as German Jews. Only after intense interrogation by the Soviets were they re…
has beginning date: 1939-01-01
has end date: 1994-12-31
has or had holder: us-005578
has or had identifier: 1
has or had identifier: 2
has or had some members with language: deu
has or had some members with language: eng
has or had some members with language: rus
has or had some members with language: pol
has or had some members with language: spa
has or had subject: 701
has or had subject: 1106
has record set type: Item
identifier: irn501254
record resource extent: box 1
record resource structure: The Edith Brandon papers are arranged as a five series: I. Biographical materials, 1939-1945, II. Correspondence, 1939-1944, III. Newspaper clippings, approximately 1940, IV. Photographs, approximately 1939-1945, V. Testimonial, 1945, 1994
results or resulted from: 1
scope and content: The Edith Brandon papers consist of biographical materials, correspondence, newspaper clippings, photographs, and a testimonial narrative documenting Edith Brandon’s deportation to Riga with her mother, Meta Blau; the lives of her boyfriend, Lutek Orenbach, in the Tomaszów-Mazowiecki ghetto and her friend, Ruth Goldbarth, in the Warsaw ghetto; and Edith’s Christian uncle, Hermann Bradtmüller, in Minden and the assistance he provided during the Nazi period. Biographical materials include emigration, deportation, and identification records documenting Edith and her mother’s failed attempt to emigrate to Colombia, their deportation to Riga, Edith’s work status following liberation, her return to Minden, and her status as a concentration camp survivor. Correspondence primarily consists of letters and postcards from Lutek Orenbach in the TomaszówMazowiecki ghetto and from Ruth Goldbarth in Warsaw and the Warsaw ghetto to Edith while she lived in Minden. Lutek’s correspondence describes conditions in the Tomaszów-Mazowiecki ghetto, his work for the Jewish Council, his participation in theatrical and musical performances in the ghetto, and his mental and emotional distress. Ruth’s correspondence reveals her sense of humor and critical eye while discussing mundane practical matters like the cost of various products and living conditions in the ghetto, her hopes and fears for the future, working for her father in his dental practice, and caring for her mother and sister as they grew ill. Ruth also used coded language to try to communicate about the actions of the Gestapo, German forces, and Polish and Russian threats. She gratefully acknowledges the packages of food and clothing Edith painstakingly gathered and sent, as well as Hermann Bradtmüller’s courageous visit to the Warsaw Ghetto. At the same time, she manages to smuggle letters out through Edith to relatives living overseas. Hans Bradtmüller saved Lutek’s and Ruth’s correspondence for Edith throughout the war. Corres…
title: Edith Brandon papers