Holocaust diary prompts quest
A RESEARCH team at Yad Vashem is requesting help from the public in tracking down information about people named in a journal written during the Holocaust.
The diary belonged to Melbourne Shoah survivor Regina Honigman (pictured) who worked in a slave labour factory at Gabersdorf Camp in Czechoslovakia where she made linen thread from morning to night for years on end.
In addition to accounts of her daily life, Honigman, who passed away in 1992, listed the names of fellow prisoners (listed at the end of this article) along with some of their autographs and poems.
At Pesach time, she wrote an improvised haggadah within the diary “We were once slaves in Egypt and now again in Gabersdorf. In history we were subject to your grace/mercy to prevent us from being swallowed up [in the parting of the Red Sea],” Honigman wrote. “The day of salvation will come to Gabersdorf.”
Honigman was originally from Zawierce, Poland but was sent to work at Gabersdorf following a decree by the Nazis that every Jewish family in the town send one family member for forced labour.
Honigman’s parents and sisters were eventually murdered in Auschwitz, but she and one brother survived the war.
She continued writing in the journal even after being transferred to a displaced persons camp and eventually moved to Australia with her husband whom she met at the DP camp. Honigman’s daughters donated the diary to Yad Vashem in 2005, after their father passed away.
The names mentioned in the diary: Hela Cymbler; Behirah Hocherman; Regina Perlgricht; Mania Pariser; R. Kleinfeldowna; Helga Blumenfeld; Mania Goldszmidt; Cyla Friedman; Hanny Goldfaden; Guta S ‘Mici’ Spilman; Pola Szapiro; Fela Niciarz; Estera Holand; Gienia Wajnglik; Irka Wolnerm; Bronislawa Zagorska; Rozia Sztirlberg; Hania Tombak; Marie Blusztajn; Rozia Reich; Ruth Frichler; Rozia Berliner; Adela Birenstok; Lola Schon; Sala Grossman; Jacka Butnik; Rozia Reich; Lotti Finger; Bela Kuchman; Gusta Feiler; Maryla Lollman; Zosia Joachimowicz; Jochke Wasserberger; Genia Lewkowicz; Regina Manesbaum; Edzia Wislicka; Pola Golenzer; Hela Golenzer; Henia Haliciewicz; Ruzia Merik; Karola Garnicowna; Jadzia Sztainfeld; Hanka Apelbaum; and Rusia Ajnveder.
Anyone with any information is encouraged to contact Yad Vashem’s artifact collection at museum.artifacts@yadvashem.org.il.
AJN STAFF
The late Regina Honigman.
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