Concentration camp striped uniform jacket and pants worn by Romanian Jewish female inmate

Malka Adler was born on May 2, 1913, in Ruscova, Romania, to Leib Chaim (Arie) and Gitza Laya Polak Adler. She had one brother, Bentzi, who was born in 1915. Leib worked as a furrier. Hungary annexed the region in August 1940, and supported the targeted persecution of Jews. Bentzi was deported to Auschwitz concentration camp and, in 1943, was killed in an aerial attack during a forced march. After German forces occupied Hungary on March 19, 1944, Malka and her parents were forced into the Viseu de Sus (Felkovice) ghetto. In May 1944, they were deported by Hungarian authorities to Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp in Germany, where Leib and Gitza were killed. In August, Malka was transferred to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. On April 15, 1945, the camp was liberated by the British Army. After the war ended in May, Malka was admitted to the Bergen-Belsen hospital and then lived in the displaced persons camp there until returning to Ruscova in 1946. She then moved to Stramtura and later to Timisoara. She married Mendel Stern, who was born on July 18, 1914, in Stramtura. He was a Holocaust survivor who had been deported from Stramtura to the Kosice ghetto, and then to a forced labor camp in Austria. In 1965, they immigrated to the United States, had children and adopted the names Marge and Max. Max passed away, age 85, in January 2000. Marge passed away, age 96, on September 29, 2009.

The concentration camp uniform was donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2010 by Larry Stern, the son of Marge Stern. It was previously on loan to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum from 2005 by Marge Stern and the Stern Family.

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of Marge Stern and the Stern Family

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