Wedding gown with silver embroidery worn by a Lithuanian Jewish woman in Barletta DP camp

Wedding dress with silver thread embroidery worn by Raya Kirschner, 19, for her May 27, 1948, wedding to Micky Feig, 22, in Barletta displaced persons camp in Italy. In August 1941, after Germany invaded Lithuania, Raya was interned with her father Meyer, a rabbi, her mother, who ran an orphanage, and her brother Beno in the Kovno ghetto. In October 1942, her father was selected for deportation to Riga, Latvia,and Raya's mother insisted the family go also. They were placed in Spilve camp and Raya, Meyer, and Beno were assigned to hard physical labor. In 1943, Beno was caught smuggling and sent to Kaiserwald; the family never saw him again. In July 1944, Raya and her parents were sent to Stutthof. A month later, her father was sent to Dachau where he perished. Raya and Sonia were sent to Elbing, and then were liberated on a death march in January 1945. After the war ended in May 1945, they went to Bad Gastein dp camp in Germany where Raya met Miklos (Micky). He had been interned in Auschwitz and Dachau-Allach concentration camps, and was the only surviving member of his family. All three left for America in September 1949.