Green striped wool knit cardigan made from a US Army blanket by a Jewish refugee in a DP camp

Green wool cardigan made by Olga Waldman while she was living in the Neu Friemann displaced persons camp near Munich, Germany, from 1945-1949. She knitted the sweater from the wool yarn of an unraveled US Army blanket. Olga and her eleven year old son, Mark, were visiting her parents in Srerszeniowce, Poland, when it was occupied by Soviet forces in September 1939. In March 1941, Germany broke the Nazi-Soviet Pact and invaded the town, deporting many Jewish inhabitants to the Tluste ghetto (Tovste, Ukraine). Olga procured false identities and she and her son escaped from the ghetto to Podhajce where they met Olga's brother, Israel. Afraid that they had been recognized, they went into hiding and left for Lvov. Olga and Mark separated from Israel and lived as Polish Catholics. The town was liberated by Soviet troops in 1944. After the war ended in 1945, they were repatriated to Poland. Mark's father, Pinkum, was killed in Majdanek concentration camp. Olga and Mark left Poland for Germany where they stayed in Dorth-Winau and Neu Friemann displaced persons camp for four years until emigrating to the US in 1949.