United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Pauline Charatan (née Margulies, nicknamed Pepa) was born on 13 December 1925 in Busk, Poland (Bus’k, Ukraine) to Eizig (1900-1944) and Szyfra (née Rauvogel, 1904-1944) Margulies. She had three younger sisters: Fanny (1928-1944), Hadassah (1931-1944), and Dora (1931-1944). Pauline’s family were forced into the Busk ghetto in around July 1941. Around 1942, Pauline’s mother sent her to live with a woman on a farm in Gleisdorf, Austria. She went under the false identity of her friend Zofja Aldona Fedorska. She survived the Holocaust in Gleisdorf, but her parents and sisters were killed in Busk on 2 May 1944. Pauline met Joseph Charatan in Germany in 1946. They married in Munich on 23 November 1947. Their son Zygmund (later Edward Zygmund Charatan) was born on 5 March 1949. In September 1949 the family immigrated to the United States and settled in Brooklyn. They had two daughters born in Brooklyn, Shirley Clara Charatan (1954-2009) and Debrah Lee Charatan (b. 1957). Joseph Charatan (1921-1996) was born on 10 June 1921 in Lwów, Poland (Lviv, Ukraine) to Leopold and Helen (née Gold, b. 1899) Charatan. He had two siblings: Ludwig (1925-2018) and Clara (b. 1923?-1943). Joseph, Ludwig, and Clara all worked as forced-laborers after the Germans seized control of Lwów from the Russians in 1941. Clara was murdered on 30 March 1943 in a mass killing of Jewish workers from the Lwów ghetto. Shortly after her death, Leopold and Helen went into hiding in a bunker on a nearby farm owned by Stanislaw and Katarzyna Niedziolka. Joseph and Ludwig were deported to the Janowska concentration camp around April 1943 where they continued to work as forced-laborers. They escaped in spring 1943 and joined their parents in hiding. They remained hidden until liberation by the Russian Red Army on 27 July 1944. After liberation Joseph was conscripted into the Red Army. He lost his leg helping rescue someone from a minefield. In 1946 the Charatans left Poland and went to Munich, Germany. They immigrated to the United States in 1949. They had two daughters born in Brooklyn, Shirley Clara Charatan (1954-2009) and Debrah Lee Charatan (b. 1957). Stanislaw and Katarzyna Niedziolka were recognized as Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem in 2000.
folders oversize folder 8 1
The collection is arranged as a single series.
The collection documents the post-war experiences of Pauline Charatan (née Margulies), originally of Busk, Poland (Busk, Ukraine), who survived the Holocaust living in Gleisdorf, Austria under a false-identity, and Joseph Charatan, originally of Lwów, Poland (Lviv, Ukraine), who escaped the Janowska concentration camp and survived hidden in a bunker until his liberation in 1944. The collection includes birth certificates, naturalization certificates, Pauline and Joseph’s marriage certificate, Pauline’s vaccination certificate, restitution paperwork, a commemorative booklet from the USS General C.H. Muir, and a small amount of correspondence. Also included is a 1935 report card for Zofja Aldona Fedorska, the girl whose identity Pauline used in Gleisdorf, and clippings related to the 1963 visit of Katarzyna Niedziolka, the woman who hid the Charatan family, to New York to attend Joseph’s brother Ludwig’s son’s bar mitzvah.
Pauline and Joseph Charatan papers