Menachem Shapiro was born in the DP camp Santa Maria di Leuca, Italy on June 21, 1946 to Hannah Buz (b. 1912) and Moshe Shapiro (b.1906) both from Shavli, Lithuania (then part of the Russian Empire.) Hannah and Moshe and had one daughter, Rivka, born in 1938. Moshe worked at a wood processing plant. Hannah and Moshe were sent to the Shavli ghetto in July 1941; Riva was sent to Auschwitz in November 1943 during the children's roundup; she died there. Moshe was sent to Dachau or a subcamp of Dachau and oversaw the building of roads for the SS. After liberation, Moshe traveled via Greece to Italy in a jeep with a friend from the Beitar youth movement, Dov Similansky. In Italy they met other family members who survived. Moshe, Hannah, and Menachem legally emigrated to Palestine in February 1948. They spent the next two years living with their father’s sister who had immigrated to Palestine in the 1920s. Moshe Shapiro probably acquired his film and still picture camera on the black market in Italy.
Dark shots of Menachem, INTs. Street scene in Bari, Italy, horse and buggy, Hannah pushes Menachem in pram. Nice group shots of local children (Italian? DPs?) on a residential street. Moshe makes a face to the camera. Window displays of dolls, Hannah and Menachem walk on the city street towards a truck marked “Sica, Milano.” 01:35 Men carry rafts over their heads and lower them into the water at a beach near Santa Maria di Leuca DP camp in Italy. VAR shots of Menachem, Moshe and Hannah at DP camp in Italy (similar atmospheric shots as Film ID 4152). Barracks/huts. Hannah feeds baby with a spoon, rests on a cot, bathes the boy in a small tub, towel him off, play and feed him again. Menachem plays outside with small pots and learns to walk. New babies lined up in carriages at the DP camp in Italy. 11:04 Hannah washes clothes in a tub, hangs them on a clothes line. A friend holds up baby Menachem in a toy rocking horse, Hannah feeds him a cookie. Hannah smokes and pushes Menachem in his carriage on the beach (also in Italy?). A young woman walks away from camera toward the huts. Woman drinks from a bottle nearby a table of provisions. CUs of Menachem in carriage.
Jewish family after the war; DPs prepare for journey to Israel; new babies at DP camp