Brown cloth and leather trimmed suitcase used by a young Polish Jewish boy

Israel Znamirowski (later Ira Zames) was born on March 16, 1935, in Łódź, Poland, to Mendel and Chaja (Hela) Pik Znamirowski. Mendel was born on November 21, 1906, in Przedborz, to Izrael and Ruchla (Regina) Horowicz Znamirowski. Mendel was one of ten children from Izrael’s two marriages: Schlem, Issac, Eichel, Jala, Rifka, Lizer, Simca, Edel, and Paula. The family was Jewish and spoke Yiddish. Hela was born on December 11, 1910, in Łódź, to Chil and Sara Pik. From June 21, 1927, Mendel served as a private in the Polish Army. He was also a rabbinical student. Mendel and Hela married on March 11, 1930. The family lived in Łódź where Mendel was a merchant. On May 5, 1939, Mendel surrendered his military identification. In July, he and Hela sailed to New York on the SS Batory to see the World's Fair. Israel stayed with his paternal grandmother, Regina, at her home in Warsaw. On September 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland. Israel’s maternal grandparents, Sara and Chil, retrieved Israel, bribed their way out of Poland, and went to Italy. Hela met them there to get Israel, traveling from New York, while Mendel remained. Israel had no passport or immigration paperwork so they could not obtain a visa. Hela had their family book, which registered family births, marriages, and deaths. She sent it to Krakow to be certified by the Generalgouvernement, the German administrative unit that controlled Poland. The book was certified on January 12, 1940, and returned to Hela. She had managed to secure passage to the United States, with the help of a ship captain who disregarded Israel’s lack of paperwork. On March 5, 1940, Hela and Israel boarded the SS Rex in Genoa, Italy and sailed to New York. They were detained on Ellis Island because Israel did not have proper immigration paperwork and the family book did not suffice. After several months, they were allowed to leave Ellis Island and stay in the US. The family settled in New York. The family Americanized their names to Martin, Helen, and Ira Zames. Mendel became a naturalized American citizen on June 9, 1947; Hela on June 30. Hela's parents, Sara and Chil, had gone from Italy to Palestine where they had property. Mendel’s brother, Simca, his wife Lenka, and their son George fled to Shanghai and immigrated to Montreal after the war. His sister, Paula, survived. Mendel's mother Regina died in the Warsaw Ghetto. Most of the extended family in Poland perished during the Holocaust. Ira married and had four sons. Martin, age 68, died in September 1974. Helen, age 99, died on November 14, 2010.

The suitcase was donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2012 by Ira and Kayla Zames.

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of Ira and Kayla Zames

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