Silk scarf with a handpainted clown and an inscription created by a Jewish Polish refugee in Bergen-Belsen DP camp
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Washington, United States
Silk scarf with a design painted by Poldek (Leopold) Schein for his future wife Pepi on November 14, 1946, when he was living in Bergen-Belsen displaced persons camp. The scarf features a jack-in-the-box jester with a book and best wishes from Poldek and his best friend Romek. On December 25, 1947, Pepi and Poldek had a double wedding with Romek and Pepi's adopted sister Madelaine. Romek died of a hernia in the DP camp in 1949. Poland was invaded by Nazi Germany on September 1, 1939. Nineteen year old Poldek lived in Krakow with his parents Abraham and Mania, three brothers, Joseph, Herman, and Jacob, and two sisters Esther and Helena. Poldek, his father and his two older brothers left to enlist in the Polish Army. They travelled to Lwow, but soon after they arrived, the city surrendered to the Soviet Army. In 1940, Polish refugees were told they must become Soviet citizens. The Scheins refused and were sent to Kalchug, a forestry labor camp in Siberia. Abraham became ill and died that summer. In 1941, the three brothers, and other Polish refugees, were released from the camp and permitted to settle elsewhere in the Soviet Union. They went to Uzbekistan where they lived until the end of the war. Germany surrendered in May and that summer they left for Poland. They found almost no family members in Krakow. They decided to leave for Germany, and settled in the DP camp in Bergen-Belsen because they were told that it had a large Jewish community. Poldek worked painting houses, and eventually became head of graphics for the Jewish community. He married Pepi Levi, a survivor from Lodz, in December 1947. Joseph and Herman emigrated to Canada. A paternal uncle, Jacob Schein, in New York helped Poldek and Pepi get US immigration visas and they arrived in 1949. It was presumed that Leopold's mother, sisters, and youngest brother had been deported to Auschwitz and killed. In 1990, Leopold travelled to Poland and discovered that they had been shot by a guard on the train platform while waiting to be deported.
- Title: Silk scarf with a handpainted clown and an inscription created by a Jewish Polish refugee in Bergen-Belsen DP camp
- Provenance: The handpainted scarf was donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2012 by Leopold Schein.
- Subject Keywords: Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)--Poland--Krakow--Personal narratives. Jewish artists--Poland--Biography. Jewish refugees--Germany--Belsen (Bergen, Celle)--Biography. Jewish refugees--Soviet Union--Biography. Jewish refugees--United States--Biography. World War, 1939-1945--Refugees--Germany--Personal narratives. World War, 1939-1945--Prisoners and prisons, Soviet.
- Type: Dress Accessories
- Rights: Permanent Collection
- External Link: See the full record at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
- Medium: Square, white silk, handpainted scarf with a central image of a light pink skinned clown with a long, red tipped nose, seated with his legs stretched forward and holding an open brown book in his lap. He wears a green, red, and white striped jester's hat and shirt and blue, green, red, white, and yellow patchwork pants with brown pointed slippers. On the right near his shoulder float 4 circular blue, green, pink, and red balloons and there is a blue ball of yarn with a knitted square near his leg. He sits within a light green circle centered on a light purple, diamond shaped field with 6 black lines radiating outward from the circle; the corners and edges of the scarf around the diamond are shaded light brown. There is an inscription in Polish written diagonally in the lower right corner. The scarf is unhemmed and has some discoloration.
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