Clara Lefkowitz Kempler papers

Identifier
irn37759
Language of Description
English
Alt. Identifiers
  • 2010.171.1
Level of Description
Item
Languages
  • Hungarian
  • Yiddish
  • German
  • Hebrew
  • English
Source
EHRI Partner

Extent and Medium

folders

5

Creator(s)

Biographical History

Clara Lefkowitz Kempler was born in 1920 in Užhorod, Czechoslovakia (later Ungvar Hungary, now Uzhhorod, Ukraine) to Chaim and Leah Lefkowitz. Clara was deported in spring 1944 to Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp then to subsequent concentration and slave labor camps Gelsenkirchen (Gelsenberg-Benzin AG) and Sömmerda. She survived a seven week death march in spring 1945 and was liberated by Soviet forces. Her husband, Jacob Koppler Kempler, was born in 1918 in Baranów, Poland, to Asher and Malka Kempler. He was imprisoned at Dachau from June to October 1944, in Flossenbürg from October to November 1944, and in Natzweiler-Struthof from November 1944 to April 1945, and was liberated by Soviet forces. Clara and Jacob spent several years in the Landsberg am Lech and Leipheim displaced persons camps after the war and immigrated to the United States in 1949 or 1950.

Archival History

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Acquisition

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of Clara Kempler

Funding Note: The cataloging of this collection has been supported by a grant from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany.

Funding Note: The accessibility of this collection was made possible by the generous donors to our crowdfunded Save Their Stories campaign.

Clara Kempler donated the Clara Lefkowitz Kempler papers to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2010.

Scope and Content

The Clara Lefkowitz Kempler papers include a handmade diary created at the Sömmerda slave labor that describes a death march near the end of the war and photographs depicting Clara and Jacob Kempler with family and friends at the Landsberg am Lech and Leipheim displaced persons camps after the war. The collection also includes two post-war identification cards for Jacob Kempler, three photographs reproduced and published by Zvi-Hirsh Kadushin (George Kadish), and four postcards depicting Landsberg am Lech, Bremen, Marseille, and Holocaust victims. The handmade diary was created at the Sömmerda slave labor camp and details a death march beginning April 4, 1945 from Sömmerda through Altenburg, Lichtenstein, Stollberg, and Schwarzenberg, and other towns in Germany until liberation followed by a return trip home to Užhorod after the war. The diary also includes an allegory titled Inventory and dated January 30, 1945 about a Jewish family being forced from their home and into a ghetto, laments about someone who is missed and about unbearable living conditions, inscriptions addressed to “Hermin,” and notes. Photographs depict Clara and Jacob Kempler with family and friends at the Landsberg am Lech and Leipheim displaced persons camps after the war, relatives in Užhorod before the war, and the Auschwitz and Birkenau concentration camps at liberation. The three photographs reproduced and published by Zvi-Hirsh Kadushin (George Kadish) include an image of a man being forcibly shaven in either Siedradz or Radom and an image used in the Stroop report showing the suppression of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.

System of Arrangement

The Clara Lefkowitz Kempler papers are arranged as a single series.

Conditions Governing Reproduction

Copyright Holder: Mrs. Clara Kempler

People

Corporate Bodies

Subjects

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.