Nina Kaleska collection

Identifier: irn37658
Language of Description: English
Level of Description: Collection
Source: EHRI Partner

Web Source

https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn37658

Acquisition

The collection was donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2009 by Nina Kaleska.

Scope and Content

The collection consists of a handmade pin and two religious medallions relating to the experiences of Nelly Kalecka (later Nina Kaleska) in Rechlin concentration camp in Germany, one of several camps where she was imprisoned during the Holocaust, and to her postwar experiences in Prague, Czechoslovakia.

Genre

Collection

This description is derived directly from structured data provided to EHRI by a partner institution. This collection holding institution considers this description as an accurate reflection of the archival holdings to which it refers at the moment of data transfer.

Child Items

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Language of Description
1. English (3)
Country
1. United States (3)
Holding Institution
1. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (3)

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Displaying items 1 to 3 of 3

Handmade pin embroidered with her prisoner number made for a concentration camp inmate on her 16th birthday
- United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
- irn39862
- English
- overall: Height: 1.625 inches (4.128 cm) | Width: 0.750 inches (1.905 cm) | Depth: 0.125 inches (0.318 cm)
- Updated 7 months ago
Embroidered cloth pin made for Nelly Kalecka's 16th birthday at the Rechlin slave labor camp in 1945. It was made for her by a friend in the camp who was a seamstress for the German officers. It is embroidered with the prisoner number assigned to Nelly in 1944 when she arrived in Rechlin. In 1941, Nelly, 12, with her parents and sister Sala, 17, was forced into the Jewish ghetto in Grodno in German occupied Poland. The girls evaded several evacuation transports, but on January 20, 1943, Nelly and Sala were deported to Auschwitz concentration camp where Nelly was tattooed with the number 313...
L'Enfant Jesus Miraculeux de Prague [Miraculous Infant Jesus of Prague] medallion given to an young Austrian Jewish woman
- United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
- irn39863
- English
- 1946
- overall: Height: 16.375 inches (41.593 cm) | Width: 0.750 inches (1.905 cm)
- Updated 7 months ago
Religious medallion that was a parting gift to 17 year old Nina Kaleska when she left Prague for London in 1946. It was given to her by Vaclav Ruziczka, whom she met on a park bench soon after she arrived in the city where she had no contacts. He helped her find a place to live and to work. Nina had decided to go to Prague in June 1945, following her May 1945 liberation during the Retzow death march by the Russian Army. She had no surviving relatives in Europe and went to Prague to try to find a friend that she had made in the concentration camps. In 1941, when she was 12, Nina was forced i...
Medallion with Moses and the S'hma prayer found by a young Jewish woman on a camp transport
- United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
- irn39864
- English
- 1943-1945
- overall: Height: 1.375 inches (3.493 cm) | Width: 0.750 inches (1.905 cm)
- Updated 7 months ago
Religious medallion with an image of Moses with the Ten Commandments found by Nina Kaleska on a concentration camp transport around 1944. It also has the beginning lines in Hebrew of the S’hma prayer, a foundational prayer of Judaism, recorded in Deuteronomy 6:4. In 1941, when she was 12, Nina was forced into the Jewish ghetto in Grodno, Poland, with her parents and older sister, Sala, who was 17. The girls evaded several evacuation transports from the ghetto, but on January 20, 1943, Nina and Sala were deported to Auschwitz. Her sister fell ill and died within a few months. Nina was in the...

Nina Kaleska collection

Child Items

Handmade pin embroidered with her prisoner number made for a concentration camp inmate on her 16th birthday

L'Enfant Jesus Miraculeux de Prague [Miraculous Infant Jesus of Prague] medallion given to an young Austrian Jewish woman

Medallion with Moses and the S'hma prayer found by a young Jewish woman on a camp transport