us-005578-irn518239
type: RecordSet
archival history: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
biographical history: Levi Itzhak (Lewek) Szabason (now Lewis Shabasson, 1914-2006) was born on 10 March 1914 in Kozienice, Poland to Ezra Zelig Szabason (b. 1881) and Faigal Laja Gruman Szabason. Lewek had four older siblings -- Chaja (b. 1901), Jakub (b. 1903), Motl Mordechai (b. 1908) and Etel (b. 1912), and one younger sister Ruchl (Rosa, b. 1919). His father owned a saw mill and a small construction business. He was also the president of a local Zionist organization. Lewek worked for his father and belonged to the 'Meshek Grochow' group of the General Zionist youth organization. One week after the German invasion of Poland, they occupied Kozienice. Bargaining that only the men would suffer under the Nazis, Ezra Zelig fled to the Soviet Union with Etel and Motl and their respective spouses. Lewek, Chaja and Ruchl remained in Kozienice with their mother. Jakub also remained behind with his wife and son. The Germans established a ghetto in Kozienice, and Jews were required to wear white armbands and perform slave labor. Lewek worked for a brewery until June 1942, and he smuggled wood into the ghetto in order to have extra money for food. Lewek's older sister, Chaja, convinced him and Ruchl to escape from the ghetto sensing that they were the only two who stood any chance of surviving. Their escape was unsuccessful, and Lewek was taken to the Wolanów labor camp where he worked on an airfield. After one year, he was transferred to the Radom labor camp, where he was forced to work in an ammunition factory. In July 1944 as the Soviet Army approached the vicinity of Radom, he was sent to Auschwitz. From Auschwitz, he was deported to the Wittenberg labor camp near Stuttgart. In March 1945 he was forced on a death march and on 30 April 1945 he was liberated by the US Army. Chaja, her husband Mordechai Rubinsztajn, and their daughter, Gila (Genusha) perished in Treblinka in 1942. Motl Mordechai, his wife Rozalia, and Etel and her husband Aron Erlichman all had fled Poland in 1939 to the Soviet…
date: circa 1910-approximately 1948
has or had holder: us-005578
has or had identifier: 1
has or had some members with language: heb
has or had some members with language: pol
has or had some members with language: yid
has or had some members with language: eng
has or had some members with language: deu
has or had subject: 878
has or had subject: 701
has or had subject: 556
has record set type: Item
identifier: irn518239
record resource extent: box 1
results or resulted from: 1
scope and content: The photograph collection documents the prewar lives of Lewis Shabasson (born Levi Szabason) and his family in Kozienice, Poland; wartime life in the Kozienice ghetto; and postwar life in the Föhrenwald displaced persons camp and Munich, Germany. The collection also documents the prewar and postwar lives of Lewis’s wife, Lifcia Najman, and her family, originally from Radom, Poland, and her relatives in the Birenbaum family.
title: Lewis Shabasson collection