Lewinski and Rubin families photographs

Stella Yollin was born Salutka (Sheindl) Lewinski on March 15, 1931 in Łódź, Poland to Samuel (b. 1906) and Tola Rubin Lewinski (b. 1908). Samuel was an accountant and also owned a small department store in Tzcef, Poland. The family was observant and kept kosher. They also had a live-in nanny. Stella had two brothers, Maks (b. 1929 or 1930) and Roman (b. 1932). Her brothers attended a modern Hebrew school and Stella attend public schools. In 1936 the family left Tzcef because Germany wanted to annex the area. Stella’s father gave up his business and returned to Łódź, becoming a partner in his brother-in-law’s textile factory in Pabianice, Poland. In 1939 Samuel served in the Polish Air Force, and after German invasion of Poland in September 1939 he was captured. After his release he managed to find his family who were by then living in the Łódź ghetto. In the ghetto the family, along with Stella’s maternal uncle Abraham, lived in one room. Samuel, found a job working as a gardener outside of the ghetto. In 1944 the family was deported to Auschwitz. Upon arrival men and women were separated, and Stella never saw her brothers and father again. She and her mother were also separated and Tola was sent to Auschwitz II-Birkenau. Stella was later transferred to Birkenau where she was able to find her mother. In the late fall of 1944, Stella and her mother were sent to Bergen-Belsen. They were transferred to the Hambühren sub-camp where Tola worked in the salt mines and Stella worked in the garden. In January 1945 they were transferred back to Bergen-Belsen. Stella and her mother both contracted typhus, but recovered from it. They were liberated in April 1945. Stella and Tola remained in the Bergen-Belsen displaced persons camp until 1947 when they immigrated to Palestine. While in Israel Stella married and got divorced. She met an American man while in Israel and remarried. They immigrated to the United States and her mother Tola joined them in 1982.

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

The collection was donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2003 by Stella Yollin.