us-005578-irn522550-irn677674
type: RecordSet
archival history: The set of tefillin was donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2006 by Otto Adler.
biographical history: Otto Adler (1929-2014) was born in Cluj (now Cluj-Napoca), Romania, to Isidor Mihail (1900-1959) and Serena (Szera, nee Fell, 1902-1944) Adler. Mihail was the son of Nuham and Ida Cohn Adler, and worked as a mechanical driver. Serena was the daughter of Matias and Sali Kraus Fell, and worked as a clerk. The family followed Orthodox religious practices. Otto began attending the Jewish primary school located in their synagogue in 1935. There, he learned several languages, including Hebrew, Romanian, Hungarian, French, and German. In the late 1930s, Hungary made an alliance with Nazi Germany that enabled it to regain territory lost after World War I. In August 1940, Axis powers Germany and Italy arbitrated a territory dispute between Romania and Hungary. The Second Vienna Award split the Transylvania region of Romania in half, and Hungary annexed the northern portion; Cluj became Kolozsvár. Almost immediately, the city’s approximately 17,000 Jews were subjected to Hungary’s existing antisemitic race laws, modeled after Germany’s Nuremburg Laws. These laws included forbidding intermarriage with non-Jews, exclusion from many professions, and restricted economic opportunities. Additionally, able-bodied males were conscripted into Hungarian forced labor battalions. Germany occupied Hungary on March 19, 1944, bringing additional subjugation to Kolozsvár’s Jews. In April, they were compelled to wear a yellow Star of David on their clothing and forced to surrender their property. In May, Otto was forced to leave his Jewish middle school. His family moved into a ghetto in the Iris Brickyard. At its peak, the ghetto housed almost 18,000 Jewish people from Kolozsvár and surrounding communities. Between May 25 and June 9, six transports emptied the ghetto, deporting the inhabitants to Auschwitz-Birkenau killing center in German-occupied Poland. Upon arrival, older prisoners advised the younger ones to falsify their ages to avoid being sent to the gas chambers. Otto stated that he…
physical characteristics and technical requirements: a. Hand tefillin with a square, black painted, leather box (batim) with smooth sides. The box is centered on a black painted, square, multi-layered leather platform, which is sewn together with gut from kosher animals (giddin). A short, black, leather strap (retzu’ot) with an unfinished underside is threaded through a triangular notch on the back of the platform. The box likely contains a parchment scroll (parshiyot) inscribed with four Hebrew prayers. The front and back sides are dented, and the exterior panels are starting to come apart at the seams. The paint on the top and platform is chipping, and the stitching on the platform is coming apart. b. Head tefillin with a square, black painted, leather box (batim) constructed of four leather panels with an embossed Hebrew letter Shin on the left and right sides; the right Shin has four strokes, the left has three. The box is centered on a black painted, square, multi-layered leather platform sewn together with gut from kosher animals (giddin). A dry and cracked black leather strap (retzu’ot) with an unfinished underside is threaded through a triangular notch on the back of the platform. The black paint on the sides of the box is chipped, and the stitching on the platform is coming apart, causing the layers to separate. c. Rectangular, yellow-brown fabric pouch with a floral and geometric jacquard design. The individual floral elements in the design are separated by a trellis with both straight and curved segments. A vine crosses under the trellis and loops around the floral elements. In the background are short, vertical dashes. The pouch is unlined and lacks a drawstring closure. One side has multiple holes near the bottom, while the other side has a large hole and two dark stains.
conditions of access: No restrictions on access
conditions of use: No restrictions on use
date: before 1944 May
has beginning date: 1946-01-01
has end date: 1946-12-31
has or had holder: us-005578
has or had identifier: 1
has or had some members with language: heb
has or had subject: 499
has or had subject: 177
has or had subject: 659
has or had subject: 0
has or had subject: 2
has or had subject: 819
has record set type: Item
identifier: irn677674
is or was included in: us-005578-irn522550
record resource extent: a: Height: 2.375 inches (6.033 cm) | Width: 2.625 inches (6.668 cm) | Depth: 2.750 inches (6.985 cm) b: Height: 2.125 inches (5.398 cm) | Width: 3.000 inches (7.62 cm) | Depth: 3.000 inches (7.62 cm) c: Height: 6.875 inches (17.463 cm) | Width: 6.625 inches (16.828 cm) | Depth: 1.000 inches (2.54 cm)
results or resulted from: 1
scope and content: A pair of tefillin and pouch inherited by Otto Adler from his grandfather, Nuham Adler, and found in a drawer of the Adler family’s confiscated furniture in Kolozsvár, Hungary (now Cluj-Napoca, Romania), in 1946. A policeman named Grigore Patrascoiu helped Otto and his father, Mihail, find the furniture, which had been stored in the storage shed of a high-ranking Hungarian official. Prior to World War II, Hungary’s alliance with Nazi Germany enabled it to regain previously lost territory. Hungary annexed the northern half of Transylvania, and Cluj, Romania, became Kolozsvár, Hungary. Following the German occupation of Hungary in March 1944, Otto and his parents, Serena and Mihail, were forced to surrender their property and move into a Jewish ghetto in Kolozsvár’s brickyard. At the end of May, the family was deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau killing center in German-occupied Poland. After Otto falsified his age, he and Mihail were selected for forced labor. Serena was killed in the gas chambers. In late June, Otto and Mihail were deported to Longwy-Thil in German-occupied France, and later Kochendorf in Germany, both subcamps of Natzweiler concentration camp. In March 1945, Otto and Mihail were sent to Dachau concentration camp in Germany, which was evacuated in late April. As they were forced southward, Otto and Mihail were liberated by the U.S. Army in the area of the Garmisch-Partenkirchen concentration camp on May 1, 1945. The camp was transformed into a displaced persons (DP) camp and hospital, where Otto served as an official interpreter. In October 1945, Otto and his father returned to their former home and settled there.
title: Pair of Tefillin and pouch owned by a Romanian Jewish concentration camp survivor