Mezuzah and tombstone pendants on a necklace made by a former concentration camp inmate in a DP camp

Mezuzah and tombstone metal pendants on a chain necklace made and worn by Izy Freudenreich after the war in Landsberg displaced persons camp, Lager 7, in Germany, May-June 1945. Izy made the headstone in memory of his father Leib who died in Kaufering VII slave labor camp on February 2, 1945. It is engraved with his name and that date. In February 1940, several months after Germany occupied Poland, Izy, 20, and his parents, Leib and Tauba, were forced into Lodz ghetto. Izy developed a relationship with Irma Herzfeld, 23. Following mass deportations in summer 1944, Izy’s parents arranged a hiding place for them, but could not secure a place for Irma’s sister Ruth. Irma refused to go without her, so they all stayed and, in August, were sent to Auschwitz. On September 1, Izy and Leib were transferred to Dachau in Germany. Izy was assigned prisoner number 96118, and Izy 96117. They then were sent to Kaufering VII in Landsberg, where Leib died. Irma, Ruth, and Tauba were sent from Auschwitz to Hambuhren slave labor camp, and then to Bergen Belsen, where they were liberated on April 15, 1945. Tauba died of typhus four days later. Izy was liberated by US forces on May 2. He found Irma, with Ruth, in Bergen-Belsen in June 1945 and they married in July. Izy and Irma went to a displaced persons camp in Munich, and then Hamburg. Izy, Irma, and their 2 year old daughter emigrated to America in 1950.