Eight porcelain dinner bowls and 3 porcelain dinner plates with a black floral pattern received by Käthe Steiner upon her marriage to Fritz Stecklmacher on March 25, 1928, in Prostejov, Czechoslovakia. Käthe gave the tableware to non-Jewish neighbors for safekeeping before her July 1942 deportation to Theresienstadt ghetto/labor camp. She recovered it when she returned to Prostejov in May 1945. Käthe, Fritz, their two daughters, Maud, age 13, and Karmela, age 8, and her parents Max and Steffi Steiner, were sent to Theresienstadt on July 2, 1942. Max died on September 17. Fritz committed suicide in Terezin on May 30, 1943. Käthe was assigned to the glimmer factory, separating pieces of the mineral mica into flakes used for electrical insulation. Mica was essential to the German war effort, so she and her immediate family were protected temporarily from deportation to camps further east. Steffi was deported to Auschwitz concentration camp and murdered in October 1944. Theresienstadt was liberated by Soviet troops on May 8, 1945. Käthe, Maud, and Karmela returned to Prostejov. They immigrated to Israel in March 1949.
Eight porcelain dinner bowls and 3 porcelain dinner plates with a black floral pattern received by Käthe Steiner upon her marriage to Fritz Stecklmacher on March 25, 1928, in Prostejov, Czechoslovakia. Käthe gave the tableware to non-Jewish neighbors for safekeeping before her July 1942 deportation to Theresienstadt ghetto/labor camp. She recovered it when she returned to Prostejov in May 1945. Käthe, Fritz, their two daughters, Maud, age 13, and Karmela, age 8, and her parents Max and Steffi Steiner, were sent to Theresienstadt on July 2, 1942. Max died on September 17. Fritz committed suicide in Terezin on May 30, 1943. Käthe was assigned to the glimmer factory, separating pieces of the mineral mica into flakes used for electrical insulation. Mica was essential to the German war effort, so she and her immediate family were protected temporarily from deportation to camps further east. Steffi was deported to Auschwitz concentration camp and murdered in October 1944. Theresienstadt was liberated by Soviet troops on May 8, 1945. Käthe, Maud, and Karmela returned to Prostejov. They immigrated to Israel in March 1949.