United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Anita Kuenstler (later Anita Epstein) is the daughter of Salek and Eda Kuenstler. Her parents married in Kraków on August 30, 1939. Anita was born on November 18, 1942 in the Kraków ghetto. When she was three months old, her parents smuggled her out of the ghetto, persuading a Catholic family named Zendler to hide her. The Zendlers, who had three children of their own, baptized Anita and raised her as a Catholic. Salek was killed in Mauthausen, but Eda survived two labor camps and incarceration in Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen from which she was liberated in April 1945. After hospital treatment for typhus she returned to Kraków and found Anita. Eda and Anita went with other Jews to a displaced persons' camp in Selb, Germany near the Czechoslovakian border. They lived in Selb until 1949 and then came to the United States on a troop ship, the USS Taylor.
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The Anita Epstein papers are arranged as two series: • Series 1: Papers, 1943-1985 • Series 2: Photographs, 1940-1985
The Anita Epstein papers contain photographs and documents concerning Salek and Eda Kuenstler's efforts to place Anita, their infant daughter, in hiding during the Holocaust. Documents include letters from Eda and Salek begging the Zendler family to hide Anita as their own child for the duration of the war and notes promising payment for her safety. Also included is a tag worn by Anita while aboard the USS Taylor and a note to Anita from a member of the Zendler family after a reunion visit in 1985. Many of the photographs in this collection depict Anita while she was in hiding with the Zendler family as a baby and toddler. One image shows Anita with Sophia Zendler on the day of her baptism as a Catholic in a baptismal gown and with a cross around her neck. Images of Anita reunited with her mother and at the displaced persons camp in Selb are also included in this collection, as is a photograph of Anita, Eda, and Sophia in 1985.
Anita Epstein papers