Book

Cookbook given by Salomon Goldman to his bride, Gusta Gruber, as a wedding gift in 1936. They kept this book with them while in hiding in Lvov, Poland, from 1942-1944. They were always hungry and, as a diversion, every day Gusta dictated an elaborate menu which Salomon recorded n a notebook. She never repeated a menu and they sometimes used this cookbook for ideas. After Germany invaded Poland in September 1939, Gusta and Salomon, with 2 year old Ilona, fled Krakow for Russian controlled Lvov (Lviv, Ukraine). When Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, the family was forced into the ghetto where Salomon worked as an accountant at a factory owned by the Wehrmacht. In spring 1942, fearing liquidation of the ghetto, Salomon arranged a hiding place for them with a former employee, Jozef Jozak. He would not hide Ilona because it would be too hard to conceal a lively 2 year-old child. Ilona was smuggled out to the countryside and placed in hiding as a Christian child, with a Polish woman, Hania Seremet, paid to hide her. After 6 months, they could no longer pay for her care, and Hania dumped Ilona with them at their hiding place, without the knowledge of the Jozaks. They lived all this time in one room until the Soviet Army liberated the city in July 1944. When the was ended in May 1945, they returned to Krakow.