Raincoat

Selma (Sally) Wideroff (1913‐2011) was born Selma Bendremer in New York City. She obtained degrees in child growth and development and joined the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) in November 1945. She served first in the Bergen‐Belsen displaced persons (DP) camp as the liaison between representatives of the JDC, United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, and the DP camp's Central Jewish Committee. She also worked to establish educational, recreational and cultural programs. Later she supervised renovation of the Warburg Estate near Hamburg which became the Blankenese children’s center for children from Bergen‐Belsen without families. She served as the JDC's child welfare specialist at the center. In April 1946 she escorted a group of orphans to Marseilles on the first leg of their journey to Palestine as part of the first postwar Youth Aliyah transport. After she returned home in December 1946, she worked as a field representative for the JDC.

The raincoat was donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2001 by Selma Wideroff.

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of Selma Wideroff