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Peter Somogyi
ID CardPeter and his twin brother, Thomas, were the youngest of three children born to an observant Jewish family. They lived in Pecs, an industrial center where goods such as bricks and ceramics were produced. Peter's father owned a prosperous business selling accessories and parts for cars, motorcycles and bicycles. He was also a regional sales representative for Ford automobiles. 1933-39: A German nanny took care of Peter, Thomas, and their older sister. She taught them German and they became quite fluent.…
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Rena Gani
ID CardRena and her family were Romaniot Jews, a group that had lived in Greek cities and the Balkans for more than 1,100 years. The town of Preveza, located on the Ionian seashore, had 300 Jews. Rena's father had a small textile shop and her mother stayed at home to care for Rena, her sister and her three brothers. 1933-39: When Rena's family moved to the nearby town of Ioannina, she completed Jewish primary school there. The school was sponsored by the French organization Alliance Israelite Universelle, and…
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Esther Morgensztern
ID CardThe fourth of five children, Esther was born to Jewish parents living 35 miles east of Warsaw in the small predominantly Jewish town of Kaluszyn. Esther's mother and grandmother ran a newspaper kiosk in the town, and her father worked as a clerk at the town hall. 1933-39: Next year would have been Esther's last year at school, but she won't be able to graduate. War has broken out between Poland and Germany, so the schools have closed. A big battle took place here in Kaluszyn. The town was heavily shelled…
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Jozef Rapaport
ID CardJozef was raised in a religious Jewish family. When he was a baby, his father died and his mother was left to care for him and his three older sisters. The family was poor, but Jozef was determined to have a good education. He put himself through university in Prague, and then went on to earn a Ph.D. in economics in Vienna. In 1931 he married Leah Kohl, and the couple settled in Warsaw. 1933-39: The Rapaports lived in the suburbs, and Jozef worked as a banker. His daughter, Zofia, was born in 1933. Jozef…
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Mario Finzi
ID CardMario was the only child of a Jewish couple who were secondary school teachers in Bologna. Like many Italian Jews, his family was well-integrated into Italian society. Even though Fascist leader Benito Mussolini came to power in 1922, Jews in Italy continued to live in safety. Mario played piano as a hobby. When he finished high school in Bologna, Mario went on to study law. 1933-39: In 1938 Mario began practicing law in Milan. But later that year, Mussolini's government issued "racial" laws that…
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Reidar Dittmann
ID CardReidar was the third of four sons born to religious Lutheran parents in a small seafaring and whaling town along the Norwegian coast. Reidar's father was a civil servant. Reidar attended public school and dreamed of becoming a musician. 1933-39: Although Reidar was not interested in politics, he sympathized with his Jewish neighbors who had come as refugees from Germany. In fall 1939 he was saddened when Germany attacked Poland and the USSR attacked Finland. Several days later, his oldest brother passed…
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Martin Spett
ID CardKnown as Monek, Martin was the elder of two children raised by Jewish parents in the large town of Tarnow. His mother was an American citizen who had been raised in Poland. His father worked at the city's tax office. As a child, Martin liked to collect stamps and catch lizards. His parents wanted him to be a pharmacist, but he wanted to be an artist when he grew up. 1933-39: When the Germans occupied Tarnow in September 1939 after war began, Martin was 10 years old. The soldiers, in beautiful uniforms,…
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Edith Fuhrmann Brandmann
ID CardEdith's village of Kriesciatik was located on the border between Romania and Poland. Her Jewish parents owned a large ranch where they raised cattle and grew sugar beets. They also owned a grocery store. Edith had a brother, Jacob, and a sister, Martha. At home the family spoke Yiddish and German, and Edith learned Romanian after she began school. 1933-39: Edith's village was by a river, and she spent summer days by the water with her friends, swimming and playing. Her mother would pack her bread and…
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Pawel Zenon Wos
ID CardPawel was the oldest of four children born to Roman Catholic parents in Poland's capital of Warsaw. Pawel's father had worked for the Polish merchant marine before starting his own textile business in 1930. The family moved to a comfortable apartment near the Royal Castle and the Vistula River. Pawel excelled in sports, including basketball and tennis. His favorite sport was rowing. 1933-39: In May 1939 Pawel became an army reserve officer and went to training camp near Augustow. On the morning of…
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Sabina Szwarc
ID CardSabina grew up in a Jewish family in Piotrkow Trybunalski, a small industrial city southeast of Warsaw. Her family lived in a non-Jewish neighborhood. Her father was a businessman and her mother was a teacher. Both Yiddish and Polish were spoken in their home. In 1929 Sabina began public school, and later went on to study at a Jewish secondary school. 1933-39: On September 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland. Four days later, German troops streamed into Sabina's city. After one month of occupation, her father…
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Miso Vogel
ID CardMiso came from a religious family in a small village in Slovakia, where his father was a cattle dealer. He was the eldest of five children. When Miso was 6 his family moved to Topol'cany, where the children could attend a Jewish school. Antisemitism was prevalent in Topol'cany. When Miso played soccer, it was always the Catholics versus the Jews. 1933-39: In 1936 Miso had his bar mitzvah and was considered a man. His grandparents traveled 50 miles for it; he was so happy they were all together. In March…
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Paula Garfinkel
ID CardPaula was one of four children born to a religious Jewish family in Lodz, an industrial city with a large Jewish population. As a child, Paula attended public schools and was tutored at home in Jewish studies three times a week. Her father owned a furniture store. 1933-39: Paula, her brothers, and sisters spent a lot of time at the clubhouse of their Zionist group, Gordonia. Their group believed in humanistic values, Jewish self-labor, and in building a Jewish homeland in Palestine. Paula liked to work…
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Benjamin Bornstein
ID CardBenjamin and his younger brother Zigmush were born to Jewish parents in the industrial city of Lodz. Lodz was Poland's second biggest city before the war, and one-third of its inhabitants were Jewish. Benjamin's father, Moshe, owned a candle factory, and his mother, Brona, was a nurse. 1933-39: In 1939, as Benjamin began the third grade, the Germans occupied Lodz. Jews were forbidden to ride buses, and were ordered to wear yellow stars. Because the Germans sometimes grabbed Jews off the streets for forced…
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Berta Rivkina
ID CardBerta was the youngest of three girls born to a Jewish family in Minsk, the capital of Belorussia. Before World War II, more than a third of the city was Jewish. Berta's father worked in a state-owned factory building furniture, an occupation in which several of his relatives also made a living. 1933-39: Berta and her family lived on Novomesnitskaya Street in central Minsk, only a few blocks from the Svisloch River. Her older sister, Dora, loved to swim there in the summer. By the time Berta was in the…
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Arthur Menke
ID CardArthur was born to a Jewish family in Germany's largest port city, Hamburg. His father owned a small factory that manufactured rubber stamps. In the early 1930s, Hamburg was home to the fourth largest Jewish community in Germany, which had numerous social and cultural institutions. 1933-39: By 1935 conditions for Hamburg's Jews were bad. Arthur's family was moved to another part of town and in 1938, the Nazis seized his father's business. On national holidays many German citizens unfurled red, white and…
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Blimcia Lische
ID CardBlimcia's parents were religious Jews. Her father, Shaya David, and her mother, Malcia Saleschtz, had settled in Kolbuszowa, where Blimcia's mother had been raised. There, Malcia's father bought the newlyweds a home and started his new son-in-law in the wholesale flour business. 1933-39: Blimcia was born in 1938, and was raised among many aunts, uncles and cousins. Around Blimcia's first birthday, Germany invaded Poland and soon reached Kolbuszowa. Polish soldiers on horses tried to fight against the…
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Frederik Polak
ID CardFrederik was raised in a religious Jewish home. His father was a scribe of Jewish holy texts. Frederik studied accounting and became a certified public accountant. After his father died, he helped support his three sisters, his blind brother and his mother. When he was in his mid-20's, Frederik married and started his own family. 1933-39: Creating an atmosphere of Jewish observance in the home was important to Frederik and his wife. They loved to celebrate the Sabbath and the Jewish holidays with their…
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Erna Schumer Unger
ID CardErna was the second of four daughters. Her religious Jewish parents moved the family to Essen, Germany, in 1905 when Erna was 21. Erna married when she was in her twenties, but the couple had no children and her husband passed away. After living as a widow for some years, Erna remarried to Jacob Unger, a salesman, and together they had two children, Max and Dora. 1933-39: When Hitler became chancellor of Germany in 1933, Jacob went to Amsterdam to explore the possibility of the family settling there.…
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Szlamach Radoszynski
ID CardSzlamach was one of six children born to Yiddish-speaking, religious Jewish parents. Szlamach's father was a peddler, and the Radoszynski family lived in a modest apartment in Warsaw's Praga section on the east bank of the Vistula River. After completing his schooling at the age of 16, Szlamach apprenticed to become a furrier. 1933-39: During the 1930s Szlamach owned a fur business. Despite the Depression, he was hoping the economy would turn around so that he could make enough money to move into his own…
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Gabrielle Weidner
ID CardGabrielle was the second of four children born to Dutch parents. Her father was a minister in the Seventh-Day Adventist Church. She grew up in Collonges, France, near the Swiss border, where her father served as a pastor. Gabrielle was baptized in the Seventh-Day Adventist faith at the age of 16. She attended secondary school in London, England. 1933-39: Gabrielle became increasingly active in the Seventh-Day Adventist Church, eventually becoming the secretary at the French-Belgian Union of Seventh-Day…
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Agnes Mandl
ID CardWhen Agnes was a teenager, she attended Budapest's prestigious Baar Madas private school, run by the Hungarian Reformed Church. Although she was the only Jewish student there, Agnes' parents believed that the superior education at the school was important for their daughter. Agnes' father, a textile importer, encouraged his daughter to think for herself. 1933-39: In 1936 Agnes studied educational techniques with Signora Maria Montessori in Italy and earned a diploma so she could teach. Hoping to improve…
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Schloma Wolf (Willy) Szapiro
ID CardBorn to a Jewish family, Willy left Poland at age 20 and emigrated to Palestine. He became active in the workers' organization to end the British mandate there. His activities led to his arrest on May 1, 1931. After serving a two-year prison sentence, Willy was expelled from Palestine. 1933-39: In 1933 Willy left Palestine for Austria, where he joined the ranks of the workers' movement. The economic depression in Austria gave momentum to the movement's cause, and Willy and his friends were closely watched…
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Michael von Hoppen Waldhorn
ID CardMichael was born in a village in the southeastern part of Galicia, an Austrian province before it became a part of Poland in 1918. Raised by Jewish parents, Michael served as an officer in the Austro-Hungarian army until the end of World War I. After the war, Michael and his Hungarian-Jewish wife settled in Paris, where he became known as Michel. They raised three children there. 1933-39: Michael's family was better off in Paris than they had been in eastern Europe. In Paris, Michael was a successful…
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Leo Hanin
ID CardLeo's Jewish family lived in Vilna, which in 1913 was part of the Russian Empire. In 1916, fearing revolution, his family left for Harbin in northern China, a city with a well-organized Jewish community. There Leo joined a Zionist group and studied Jewish history, and for two years attended a Jewish primary school and learned Hebrew. He then studied at a Russian secondary school in Harbin. 1933-39: When Japan occupied Manchuria in 1931 and conditions in Harbin deteriorated, Leo's parents sent him to…
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Michel Margosis
ID CardMichel's parents were Russian-born Jews. His father had been a police official in Russia who had been deported to Siberia for being an outspoken Zionist. After escaping, he and his wife had made their way to Belgium, and two of their four children, including Michel, were born in Brussels. 1933-39: In Brussels Michel's father owned and edited two newspapers, one French and one Yiddish. As a kid, Michel enjoyed reading comics like "Yordi," who in the United States is known as Superman. A day after his…
