Blogier, Wekselman, and Wides families collection

Blogier, Wekselman, and Wides families collection 

The collection consists of photographs, documents, correspondence, newspaper clippings, scrapbooks, and a pair of youth soccer cleats pertaining to the experiences of the Blogier, Wides, and Wechselman families. Abraham Blogier and his sister Edith Blogier Wechselman were the only survivors of their immediate families. Abraham survived the Bedzin ghetto and subsequent transfer through multiple concentration camps, including Auschwitz, before his liberation at Dachau. In summer 1945, Abraham was reunited in Germany with his sister Edith and her son Max who had escaped the Bedzin ghetto and had survived in hiding through the aid of Polish women Edith had befriended. Edith's husband, Ben Wechselman, also survived the Holocaust and was liberated at Dachau with Abraham. Until 1949, the family lived in Munich where Max went to school and became active in the local Maccabi youth soccer team. In 1949, Abraham, Edith, Max, and Ben immigrated to the United States. They settled in Cleveland where Abraham met and married Betty Wides, a fellow Holocaust survivor from Lithuania. The collection also includes a harmonica with matching case. The harmonica had belonged to Max Wekselman while living as a displaced person in Munich.