Luba Krugman Gurdus photograph collection

Identifier
irn522681
Language of Description
English
Alt. Identifiers
  • 1993.17
Dates
1 Jan 1938 - 31 Dec 1978, 1 Jan 1938 - 31 Dec 1942
Level of Description
Item
Languages
  • English
Source
EHRI Partner

Extent and Medium

oversize box

1

Creator(s)

Biographical History

Luba Krugman was born on August 1, 1914, in Bialystok, Poland, to Jewish parents, Tewja and Anna Krugman. The family settled in Warsaw. In 1930, she attended art school in Lausanne, Switzerland. The next year, she went to Berlin, Germany, to study at the Academy of Fine Arts and Reimannschule for Applied Art. Hitler came to power in Germany in 1933, and that year Luba returned to Warsaw. Luba was an editor and illustrator at Bluszek Publishing. She married Jacob Gurdus in 1935. She began working Stybel Publishing, owned by her brother-in-law Abraham Joseph Stybel. Luba and Jacob had a son, Robert Michael, born on August 24, 1938, in Warsaw. On September 1, 1939, Nazi Germany invaded Poland. Warsaw was occupied on the 29th. On November 23, Jews were required to wear white armbands with blue Stars of David to separate them from the general population. Schools were closed, property confiscated, and Jewish males were conscripted for forced labor. Luba and her family and all the city’s Jews were confined to a walled in ghetto in fall 1939. Food was scarce and disease was widespread. By December 1941, Luba and Bobos had gone to Brody Male near Lublin, and then to Zwierzyniec. Bobos died of diphtheria on September 12, 1942. Luba’s parents also died. Luba was interned at Majdanek concentration camp. The war ended in May 1945. Luba and her younger sister Mira emigrated to Palestine in 1946. Luba worked for Yedioth Publications and established a woman’s magazine, L’Ischa. She resumed her art career and created a series of drawings about her Holocaust experiences which were exhibited in Israel and, later, the United States. In 1948, she left for New York on the Marine Carp, arriving on January 7. She rejoined Stybel Publishing. She had been separated during the war from her husband Jacob, who had served in a Jewish Unit of the British Eighth Army. Luba received a doctorate in art history from New York University in 1962 and later joined the Research department of the Frick Art Library. In 1978, she published “The Death Train” an illustrated account of her experiences. Luba, 97, died on December 6, 2011.

Archival History

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Acquisition

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

Photographed by unknown photographers in Poland and Israel. Luba Krugman Gurdus compiled the album in the United States and donated the album to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 1993.

Scope and Content

The collection consists of a photograph album with approximately 46 images documenting the early life of Robert Michael Gurdus (1938-1942; donor's son) who died in the Holocaust, as well as the kindergarten in Netanyah, Israel, dedicated to his memory by his parents (1978).

System of Arrangement

The Luba Krugman Gurdus photograph collection is arranged in a single series.

People

Subjects

Genre

This description is derived directly from structured data provided to EHRI by a partner institution. This collection holding institution considers this description as an accurate reflection of the archival holdings to which it refers at the moment of data transfer.