Gurwicz family photograph collection

Irma Gurwicz was born Jeremiahu Irma Gurwicz on December 28, 1911 in Dvinsk (Daugavpils), Latvia. His father, Jehuda Gurwicz, was a religious teacher and bookseller. His mother, Szifra Tajtelbaum Gurwicz, was a housewife. The Gurwicz family with their six children moved to Vilna, Poland in 1918, after Poland regained its independence. Irma had five siblings: Berl Bernard, who left Poland for Argentina in 1934; Rachel – she, her husband and two children were killed in the Vilna ghetto in September 1941; Chaim, who was shot in the Vilna ghetto; Benjamin, b. 1909, who died in 1933; and Tewie Tobiasz, b. 1915, who perished in the Vilna ghetto. Irma’s mother was killed in the Vilna ghetto on Yom Kippur 1941. Irma Gurwicz married Matla Goldberg in 1938. The couple had a daughter, Bogdana Batdanale, who was born in 1939. Matla Goldberg Gurwicz and Bogdana Gurwicz were killed in the Vilna ghetto. Irma Gurwicz was mobilized into the Soviet Army in 1941 and fought in major battles in Polotsk, Vitebsk, Nizhniy Novgorod and in Tartu, Estonia, where he was wounded on July 21, 1941. He was treated in a hospital in Tallinn, Estonia, later evacuated to Kronshtadt and Leningrad, Soviet Union. After his recovery he served in the Red Army in Port Arthur (Lushan) in China until October 1945. Irma Gurwicz returned to Vilna in 1946 and a year later he married Bracha Grenadier. Irma and Bracha Gurwicz with their two daughters, Dwora and Miriam, lived in Vilna until 1959, when they moved to Warsaw, Poland. In 1969 the Gurwicz family left Poland for Copenhagen, Denmark.

Bracha Grenadier Gurwicz was born in 1911 in Vilna. Her mother died in childbirth, her father, Avrum Grenadier, a rabbi, was killed in the Vilna ghetto. Bracha Grenadier joined FPO (Fareynegte Partizaner Organizatsye), an underground resistance group. During the liquidation of the Vilna ghetto in September 1943 a few hundred members of FPO succeeded in escaping the ghetto. They established partisan fighting units in the Rudninkai and Naroch forests. Bracha and her group returned to Vilna upon its liberation on July 13, 1944. She married Irma Gurwicz in 1947. Irma and Bracha Gurwicz with their two daughters, Dwora and Miriam, lived in Vilna until 1959, when they moved to Warsaw, Poland. In 1969 the Gurwicz family left Poland for Copenhagen, Denmark, where they currently reside.

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of Irme Gurwicz

The collection was donated by Irma Gurwicz to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 1998.