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The Kurt Gutfreund papers include biographical materials, Theresienstadt postcards and receipts, photographs, and a clipping. The Theresienstadt material documents Kurt Gutfreund’s imprisonment in the Theresienstadt concentration camp from 1943-1945 with his mother Hildegard. Postcards and receipts primarily document packages Hildegard’s sister sent them in Theresienstadt. Some of the postcards include coded messages from Hildegard in the addressee field requesting specific foods in the next package (for example “Dear Onion” to indicate she wanted onions). Additional postcards from the Gutfreunds and others in Theresienstadt provide general information about their lives in the camp. The collection also includes a Czech registration and repatriation certificate issued to Kurt following the Holocaust and a certificate documenting Hildegard’s classification as Jewish by the Nazi regime based on her maternal grandparent’s religion. Photographs depict Kurt and his parents before the war. One of the photographs and a clipping depict Kurt’s mother when she was featured among “the most beautiful saleswomen in Vienna” in the Austrian cultural magazine Die Bühne.
Kurt Gutfreund was born January 6, 1938 in Vienna, Austria to Heinrich (1899-1942) and Hildegard Grasel Gutfreund (1905-1988). Heinrich was Jewish and was deported to Maly Trostinets, near Minsk, on June 9, 1942 and killed six days later. Kurt and Hildegard went into hiding but were deported to Theresienstadt in January 1943. Hildegard worked cutting mica in the “glimmer factory,” and the two remained at Theresienstadt until it was liberated in 1945. Kurt’s unmarried aunt Renee Grasel, who was eight years younger than Hildegard and had become a Catholic, was able to send packages of food and clothing to her sister and nephew in Theresienstadt. After liberation, Kurt and his mother hitchhiked to Prague and then returned to Vienna in August. He immigrated to the United States in 1958 and settled in Chicago.
Kurt Gutfreund papers
The Kurt Gutfreund papers are arranged as a single series.
Copyright Holder: Mr. Kurt Gutfreund
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum