Tablecloth with a handpainted maple leaf design created by a Jewish Polish refugee in Bergen-Belsen DP camp

White tablecloth made from parachute silk with a maple leaf border painted by Poldek (Leopold) Schein around 1948 when he was living in Bergen-Belsen displaced persons camp. The paints were sent to him by his uncle in the United States. Poland was invaded by Nazi Germany on September 1, 1939. Nineteen year old Poldek lived in Krakow with his parents Abraham and Mania, three brothers, Joseph, Herman, and Jacob, and two sisters Esther and Helena. Poldek, his father and his two older brothers left to enlist in the Polish Army. They travelled to Lwow, but soon after they arrived, the city surrendered to the Soviet Army. In 1940, Polish refugees were told they must become Soviet citizens. The Scheins refused and were sent to Kalchug, a forestry labor camp in Siberia. Abraham became ill and died that summer. In 1941, the three brothers, and other Polish refugees, were released from the camp and permitted to settle elsewhere in the Soviet Union. They went to Uzbekistan where they lived until the end of the war. Germany surrendered in May and that summer they left for Poland. They found almost no family members in Krakow. They decided to leave for Germany, and settled in the DP camp in Bergen-Belsen because they were told that it had a large Jewish community. Poldek worked painting houses, and eventually became head of graphics for the Jewish community. He married Pepi Levi, a survivor from Lodz, in December 1947. Joseph and Herman emigrated to Canada. A paternal uncle, Jacob Schein, in New York helped Poldek and Pepi get US immigration visas and they arrived in 1949. It was presumed that Leopold's mother, sisters, and youngest brother had been deported to Auschwitz and killed. In 1990, Leopold travelled to Poland and discovered that they had been shot by a guard on the train platform while waiting to be deported.