Vera Nussenbaum papers

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum 

Vera Nussenbaum was born Vera Ribetzki in 1925 in Leipzig to Leo Ribetzki and Yetta Schmulewitz Ribetzki. She left Germany for England on a Kindertransport in November 1938 and lived with the Staff family in Norwich until immigrating to the United States in 1947. Her cousins came to England in 1939. Her uncle Adolf Koppold died in Sachsenhausen in 1940. In 1942 her mother, grandmother Rose Schmulewitz, and aunt Clara Koppold were transported to Riga and are believed to have died in Theresienstadt. 

Vera Nussenbaum papers 

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The Vera Nussenbaum papers include biographical materials and correspondence documenting Vera Nussenbaum’s travel to England on a Kindertransport, her family’s efforts to emigrate, her uncle’s death in Sachsenhausen, and her mother, aunt, and grandmother’s deportation to Riga. The materials in this collection refer to Vera Lichawski, using the last name of Nusenbaum’s mother’s second husband. Biographical materials include a vaccination certificate, birth certificate, and questionnaire for the accommodation of foreign children for Vera Lichawski. The letters dating from 1938‐1940 are from Vera’s mother, aunt and uncle Gertrude and Abraham Grünbaum and cousin Paula, aunt and uncle Clara and Adolf Koppold, and grandmother Rose Schmulewitz. They relate the family’s experiences in Leipzig, efforts to emigrate, and time Yetta spent in Lodz trying to obtain a divorce in late summer 1939. The letters from family friend Marjane Mitdank describe her own experiences in Leipzig during the war; relate the experiences of Vera Nussenbaum’s mother and her Schmulewitz, Grünbaum, and Koppold relatives; and the 1942 deportation of Nussenbaum’s mother, aunt, and grandmother to Riga. The letters are accompanies by a 1961 affidavit signed by Nussenbaum describing Mitdank’s letters. 

The Vera Nussenbaum papers are arranged as two series: I. Biographical materials, 1926-1938, II: Correspondence, 1938-1961