Rychwalski family: copy correspondence

This collection contains copy correspondence and transcripts of letters from Moses and Lina Rychwalski and their son Max Rychwalski to his future wife Amalie ('Malli'). Also included is a copy letter from Ernst Rychwalski addressed to his cousin Kurt and his wife Selma, dated November 1945. He reports about the loss of family members during the Holocaust, his and his wife's escape from Stettin, Western Pommerania (now Szczecin, Poland) to Berlin in 1940, their lives in hiding ("U-boot") and in fear of bombings, their deportation to Theresienstadt concentration camp in February 1945, and the rationing and hardship they were facing in the post-war months.

Moses and Lina Rychwalski lived in Tirschtiegel (now Trzciel, Poland). Their son Max (1864-1943) and wife Amalie ('Malli') (née Meseritz, 1878-1942) were deported from Berlin to Theresienstadt concentration camp in 1942 and later murdered. Their son Ernst and his wife Lene lived in Stettin, Western Pommerania (now Szczecin, Poland) before fleeing to Berlin in 1940 where they lived in hiding for most of the war. Just before the end of the Second World War they were arrested and sent to Theresienstadt but survived until the liberation of the camp in May 1945. They returned to Berlin.

Chronological

See Wiener Library access conditions at: http://www.wienerlibrary.co.uk/usinglibrary/usingthelibrary.aspx

Donated by Jackie Kohnstamm.

2006/17

Includes a translation from Hebrew into English and a transcript of a handwritten German letter in Kurrentschrift (Old German script).