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Clear and white plastic eyeglasses worn by a Jewish emigrant

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Washington, United States

White plastic eyeglasses worn by Gusta Goldman in Israel after she and her family immigrated from Krakow, Poland, in December 1949. Soon after Nazi Germany invaded Poland in September 1939, Gusta and Salomon, with two year old, Ilona, fled Krakow for Russian controlled Lvov (Lviv, Ukraine). When Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, the family was forced into the ghetto. Salomon worked as an accountant at a factory owned by the Wehrmacht. In the spring of 1942, fearing the liquidation of the ghetto, Salomon arranged a hiding place for them outside the ghetto with a former employee, Jozef Jozak. However, he would not hide Ilona because it would be too hard to conceal a lively 2 year-old child. Ilona was smuggled out to the countryside and placed in hiding as a Christian child, with a Polish woman, Hania Seremet, who was paid to hide her. After 6 months, they could no longer pay for her care, and Hania dumped Ilona back with her parents, without the knowledge of the Jozak family. The three had to stay hidden nearly all the time in one small room. The family lived in hiding until the Soviet Army liberated the city in July 1944. When the was ended in May 1945, they returned to Krakow.

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  • Title: Clear and white plastic eyeglasses worn by a Jewish emigrant
  • Provenance: The eyeglasses were donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2009 by Alona Frankel, the daughter of Gusta and Salomon Goldman.
  • Subject Keywords: Hidden children (Holocaust)--Poland--Biography. Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)--Poland--Personal narratives. Jewish children in the Holocaust--Poland--Biography. Jewish families--Poland--Biography. Jews--Persecutions--Poland--Biography. World War, 1939-1945--Jews--Rescue--Personal narratives.
  • Type: Personal Equipment and Supplies
  • Rights: Permanent Collection
  • External Link: See the full record at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
  • Medium: Clear, plastic rimmed eyeglasses with round lenses. Above and below the lenses are protruding linear pieces of white plastic. Temples are attached with metal hinges and screws. The right temple is clear plastic, with metal inside; the outside is white. The left temple is entirely white.
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

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