Handmade, moveable, wooden chicken toy purchased for a German Jewish girl after her liberation from Theresienstadt 1996.76.3 front

Moveable wooden toy given to 9 year old Jutta Grybski after her liberation from Theresienstadt ghetto in May 1945. Soon after Soviet forces liberated the camp on May 9, a friend, Siegbert Einstein, who had also been a prisoner, went to the nearby town of Litomerice and brought the toy back for Jutta. Jutta had a Jewish mother, Kaethe, and a Catholic father, Hans, who divorced in late 1938 in Berlin, Germany. Hans enlisted in the German Army. His Aryan status and military service would protect Jutta and Kaethe from deportation, although their lives were restricted by anti-Jewish legislation. Jutta could not attend school or use public parks. Kaethe was forced to work in a commercial laundry. Jutta’s maternal grandparents Jakob and Bianka were deported to concentration camps in 1942 and 1943. After Hans was killed in battle on October 9, 1944, Kaethe and Jutta were arrested, and, on October 27, deported to Theresienstadt in the German protectorate of Czechoslovakia. Kaethe worked night shifts in a mica factory. They were given insufficient rations so Jutta stole extra food when she could. The camp was liberated on May 9, and they returned to Berlin in mid-June. Jutta’s maternal grandparents and uncle perished in the Holocaust. Jutta and Kaethe left for the United States in 1946.

Moveable wooden toy given to 9 year old Jutta Grybski after her liberation from Theresienstadt ghetto in May 1945. Soon after Soviet forces liberated the camp on May 9, a friend, Siegbert Einstein, who had also been a prisoner, went to the nearby town of Litomerice and brought the toy back for Jutta. Jutta had a Jewish mother, Kaethe, and a Catholic father, Hans, who divorced in late 1938 in Berlin, Germany. Hans enlisted in the German Army. His Aryan status and military service would protect Jutta and Kaethe from deportation, although their lives were restricted by anti-Jewish legislation. Jutta could not attend school or use public parks. Kaethe was forced to work in a commercial laundry. Jutta’s maternal grandparents Jakob and Bianka were deported to concentration camps in 1942 and 1943. After Hans was killed in battle on October 9, 1944, Kaethe and Jutta were arrested, and, on October 27, deported to Theresienstadt in the German protectorate of Czechoslovakia. Kaethe worked night shifts in a mica factory. They were given insufficient rations so Jutta stole extra food when she could. The camp was liberated on May 9, and they returned to Berlin in mid-June. Jutta’s maternal grandparents and uncle perished in the Holocaust. Jutta and Kaethe left for the United States in 1946.