Silver basket with floral emblem presented to a Jewish woman for charitable work

Elaborate, silver repousse basket preserved by Rosian Zerner. It is inscribed to her maternal grandmother Anna Blumenthal Chason by the Ostjudischen Vereins [Eastern Jewish Association] of Free State Danzig (now Gdansk, Poland) in February 1930. Anna, her husband Julius, and three of their four children immigrated to Palestine on October 24, 1935. This was the day after the birth of her first granddaughter Rosian, to Anna's daughter Gerta Bagriansky in Kovno (Kaunas), Lithuania. After Germany's defeat in World War I (1914-1918), Danzig, previously part of West Prussia, was designated a Free City. It was the major transit port for East European Jews seeking to immigrate and organizations formed to assist the large influx of newcomers. By spring 1939, when Hitler demanded the annexation of Danzig, nearly all of Danzig's Jewish population had departed. In June 1941, Germany invaded Kovno, and Rosian and her parents, Gerta and Paulius, were interned in the Jewish ghetto. There were periodic massacres of Jews in the ghetto, and within six months, half the Jewish population had been murdered by the Germans and their Lithuanian collaborators. On January 16, 1942, her parents pushed Rosian under the fence where she was met by Bronia Budrekaite. She took Rosian to the home of Natalija Fugaleviciute and Natalija Jegorova. Gerta and Paulius escaped soon after Rosian to the Vilnius ghetto. Her father joined the partisans. Gerta was taken to Natalija's by Rifka Shmukler, another ghetto escapee. After a brief reunion, Gerta and Rosian went into hiding separately. Rosian later was taken to Natalija's sister, Lidija Goluboviene, in Kulautuva, where she stayed until the end of the war, along with over a dozen other children rescued by Lidija. The region was liberated by the Soviet Army in August 1944. Rosian and Gerta rejoined Paulius in Kovno.