Henry Eisenman collection

Henry (Chaim) Eisenman (1919-2005) was born July 29, 1919 in Wierzbnik, Poland, to Menachem (Mendel) Eisenman (Aizenman, Ajzenman, circa 1893-1944) and Ethel Binsztok (Bięsztok) Eisenman (circa 1897-1944). His family moved to Łódź when he was two years old, and he had a younger sister and two younger brothers: Deborah, Joseph, and Abraham. Henry’s father was a musician who played with the Łódź symphony orchestra, and Henry began studying music and performing professionally. Following the German occupation of Łódź, he was required to perform forced labor such as digging ditches and cleaning up sewers. His family was forced to give up their apartment and live in the Łódź ghetto from about 1940-1944, where his mother worked in a straw factory and his brother worked in a shoe factory. When the ghetto was liquidated in August 1944, he and his family were deported to Auschwitz II-Birkenau. The women were separated from the men upon arrival, and he never saw his mother or sister again. He later learned that his mother was murdered shortly after arrival at Auschwitz and his sister died at Bergen-Belsen shortly after liberation. His brother Abraham died at Auschwitz after and SS man hit him in the head. Two weeks after arriving at Auschwitz, Henry and his brother Joseph were transferred to the Lärche subcamp of Gross Rosen (some sources list Kaltwasser), where they worked breaking stones and dynamiting trees. In January 1945, they were transferred to the Flossenbürg work camp. They were sent on a death march to Dachau in April and were liberated en route by the American Army. He and some friends were given instruments after the war, formed a swing and jazz band called “The Happy Boys,” and began playing music for DP camps all around Germany and Austria and for the American, British, French, and Russian armies. Band members included Sam Spaismacher, Abraham Mutzman, Chaim (Henry) Baigelman, Elek Silberstein, Itchak Lewin, Abraham Lewin, and Josel Lewin, many of whom had previously been musicians in the Łódź ghetto. Henry Eisenman immigrated to Canada in July 1948 and married Anna Schaffel (1927-2005).

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of Mark and Debbie Eisenman

Mark and Debbie Eisenman, children of Henry Eisenman, donated the Henry Eisenman collection to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2018.