us-005578-irn521889-irn86664
type: RecordSet
archival history: The mica was donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2004 by Helga Carden, the daughter of Emma Jonas.
biographical history: Emma Pariser was born on December 14, 1889, in Inowraclaw, Germany (now Poland) to Albert and Rosalie David Pariser. Albert was born on March 10, 1862, in Tremessen, Germany, and died in 1904 in Hohensalza. Rosalie was born January 5, 1864, in Strelno, Germany, and died in 1902. Emma had three sisters: Clara, Gertrude, and Helcha. Albert and Rosalie owned a clothing store and, after their deaths, the sisters took it over. On May 7, 1919, Germany had to return Posen to Poland, in accordance with the Treaty of Versailles. Emma moved to Berlin where she opened a ladies undergarment franchise called Etna. She remet Martin Jonas, formerly a watchmaker, now a businessman. They had known each other as children and married in 1924. Martin was born on June 5, 1885, in Lobzenica, to Beta Ehrlich and Jakob Jonas. He had two brothers, Oscar and Siegfried, and a sister, Clara. He had a serious heart ailment contracted during his service in the German Army in World War I (1914-1918). The couple had a daughter, Helga, on June 4, 1925. The family did not keep a kosher home, although Emma and Helga went to temple and observed Shabbat. In 1933, Hitler was appointed Chancellor and Jews were subject to persecution and multiple legal restrictions. In 1937, Helga was forced to leave public school and attend a Jewish school. During the November 9-10, 1938, Kristallnacht pogrom, the family watched from their apartment window as the pharmacy across the street was vandalized. Living solely on Martin’s army pension, money was scarce and they rented out rooms to Jewish tenants. Emma and Martin could not obtain visas to leave Germany due to Martin’s illness and because his assets had been frozen by the government. They arranged for Helga to leave on a Kindertransport to England on March 2, 1939. She lived with the Posnansky family, a wealthy Orthodox Jewish family with three children. Helga wrote her parents each week and they called on her birthday. After Germany invaded Poland on September 1,…
physical characteristics and technical requirements: Several irregularly shaped, ultrathin, clear flakes of mica with some striations. There are fewer then 10 shards ranging in size from approximately 2.125 x 2.125 to trace.
conditions of access: No restrictions on access
conditions of use: No restrictions on use
date: after 1944 November-1945 May
has or had holder: us-005578
has or had identifier: 1
has or had some members with language: eng
has or had some members with language: deu
has record set type: Item
identifier: irn86664
is or was included in: us-005578-irn521889
record resource extent: overall: Height: 2.125 inches (5.398 cm) | Width: 2.125 inches (5.398 cm)
results or resulted from: 1
scope and content: Mica flakes from the glimmer [mica] factory near Theresienstadt ghetto-labor camp where Emma Jonas was a slave laborer. The work of splitting the mineral mica into flakes was hazardous and created a dust that caused lung diseases among the workers. Emma was deported from Berlin and imprisoned in Theresienstadt in German occupied Czechoslovakia from November 1944 to May 1945. After Kristallnacht, November 9-10, 1938, Emma, her husband Martin, and daughter Helga, 13, tried but failed to get visas for the family to leave Berlin. They then got Helga passage on a Kindertransport to England on March 2, 1939. Emma and Martin were arrested February 13, 1943, and taken to a series of detention centers. Martin died of heart failure on October 2, 1944. On November 24, Emma was deported to Theresienstadt assigned as forced labor in the glimmer [mica] factory. Soviet troops liberated the camp on May 9, 1945. In July, she was moved to Deggendorf displaced persons camp in Germany. All of her family, as well as Martin's, perished in the camps. Emma was reunited with Helga in England in 1947.
title: Mica flakes cut by a German Jewish female slave laborer