Silver pin with floral engraving found by a German Jewish survivor while imprisoned by the Soviet Army

Engraved silver brooch found by Herta Goldstein in a drawer at a displaced persons prison camp in February 1945 in Nemmersdorf, East Prussia. She and her 7 year old daughter Evy were held in the camp by the Soviet Army after the defeat of Germany at the Battle of Koenigsberg. Herta and Evy were German Jews living in hiding under assumed identities. Because they spoke German the Soviets assumed they were spies; they did not believe the women were Jews because they thought all the Jews had been killed. Herta later had her Evy's initials, EG, engraved on the brooch. Herta, her husband Ernst, and 4 year old Evy went into hiding in Berlin, Germany, in February 1943. Evy was hidden separately from her parents and, in June 1943, was sent to East Prussia with the help of Hilda Kniess and Dr. Elisabeth Abegg. Ernst was arrested and sent to Auschwitz concentration camp where he was killed in August 1943. In October, Herta went to stay with Evy. In January 1945, the area was in Soviet territory behind the front lines. They were confined in multiple displaced persons camps until, escaping and living under false identities, they managed to get back to Berlin in 1948.