Mezuzah pendant

Joshua (Szyja) Feldman (1912-1969) was born in Czestechowa, Poland. His parents were Aron-Szymon Feldman (1869-1942) and Golda Feldman nee Blady (1874-1936). He had six siblings: Leon (Leo) Feldman (circa 1897-1982 ), Estera Grynsztaja nee Feldman (1901-1942), Mendel Feldman (b. 1904), Carka Sztajafeld nee Feldman (1907-1942), Adela Opoczynski nee Feldman (1910-1942), and Gittla Rywka Feldman (1914-1942). All except Leo Feldman were murdered with their spouses and children at the Treblinka extermination camp. While Joshua lost all his siblings, nieces, and nephews in Europe, his brother Leon Feldman had left Poland for the United States in 1920 and attempted to bring Joshua to the United States after World War II. A survivor of the Buchenwald, Dora-Mittelbau, and Bergen-Belsen concentration camps, he spent the five years after the war recovering from a myriad of illnesses contracted as a concentration camp prisoner, including tuberculosis, in the Davos-Plata hospital in Switzerland. When the aid organizations (including the Yudische Fluchtlingshilfe) paying for his care were unable to continue to support him, he and another patient, Fela Winter (circa 1912-1989), moved to Sweden and were married. Szyja, also known as Salek, changed his name to Joshua soon after their marriage. In 1946, Roll urged her father to search for surviving relatives, leading to the discovery that her uncle had survived. Roll began corresponding with her uncle in 1947. Between 1947 and 1955 Renée’s father and mother (Joshua’s brother and sister-in-law) Leo and Helen Feldman (circa 1903-1982) submitted multiple affidavits in the hopes of bringing Joshua and his wife Fela to the United States, but they were unsuccessful largely due to Joshua’s past illnesses. Joshua and Fela lived in Sweden for the rest of their lives. Joshua Feldman passed away in Stockholm in 1969.

The mezuzah was donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2004 by Renee Roll, the niece of Joshua Feldman.

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of Renee Roll