Halina Jaworski-Klon collection

Karol Jaworski (1914-1999) was born Karol Gecman on January 22, 1914 in Lublin, Poland. His father, Don Gecman was a feldscher (unlicensed physician) and his mother, Roza Mandeltort Gecman, was a midwife. Karol’s younger sister, Basia was born in 1922. The family lived on 17 Grodzka Street in Lublin. Karol was active in the Communist Party and was arrested in January 1935. He was sent to the Tarnow prison. He remained there until September 1939 when he and other political prisoners escaped in the face of the German invasion. Karol fled to the east and reached Donbas (Ukraine) and later Baku, Azerbaijan. He worked as a Russian language teacher. In 1945 he returned to Lublin and learned that all of his immediate family had been murdered. He met Maria Mania Teicher in Lublin and they married. Their first daughter, Basia, was born in 1948, and named after Karol’s sister. Karol and Maria changed their last name to Jaworski and moved to Sopot, Poland, where Maria worked as chief of the ophthalmic ward in a local hospital. Karol became a journalist and was the editor of “Glos Wybrzerza” newspaper. Their second daughter, Halina, was born in 1952. In 1968 as a result of the anti-Jewish policy of the Polish government the Jaworski family left Poland and settled in Israel for a few years and then later moved to Germany.

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

The collection was donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2006 by Halina Jaworski-Klon.