Bar of soap preserved by Czech Jewish concentration camp survivors
Extent and Medium
overall: Height: 0.625 inches (1.588 cm) | Width: 1.875 inches (4.763 cm) | Depth: 1.375 inches (3.493 cm)
Creator(s)
- Ivan Kalina (Subject)
- Reichsstelle für Industrielle Fettversorgung (RIF) (Manufacturer)
Biographical History
Ivan Kalina was born on May 22, 1932, in Kosice, Czechoslovakia. His father was a leading member of their synagogue. Ivan and his family fled from Kosice to Hungary, sometime after the 1938 dismemberment of Czechoslovakia by Nazi Germany and its allies. Germany occupied Hungary in March 1944. The family went into hiding in Budapest that May, using falsified Aryan identity documents. Budapest was liberated in February 1945. The family returned to Kosice after the war ended in May 1945.
Archival History
The soap was donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 1988 by Dr. and Mrs. Ivan Kalina.
Acquisition
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of Dr. and Mrs. Ivan Kalina
Funding Note: The cataloging of this artifact has been supported by a grant from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany.
Scope and Content
Bar of soap brought home by returning concentration camp survivors to the temple in Kosice, Czechoslovakia, for proper burial. The soap was used in the concentration camp and the inmates believed that it was made from human fat, although this was not true. The soap was preserved by Ivan Kalina's father, a leading members of the Kosice congregation, who took it home for safeguarding and as a memory of the Holocaust. Ivan, 13 at the war's end, and his family had fled from Kosice to Hungary, after the 1938-39 collapse of Czechoslovakia. The family survived in hiding in Budapest using falsified Aryan identity documents from May 1944 until the city was liberated in February 1945. They returned to Kosice after the war ended in May 1945.
Conditions Governing Access
No restrictions on access
Physical Characteristics and Technical Requirements
Rectangular, dense brown bar of soap with numbers and letters stamped between vertical lines in a recess on the top. The sides and bottom are smooth and straight, as if unused. There are many chips and notches.
Subjects
- Holocaust (Jewish) 1939-1945--Slovakia--Kosice--Personal narratives.
- Jews--Czechoslovakia--History--20th century.
- Holocaust survivors--Kosice--Slovakia.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)--Czechoslovakia.
- Ex-concentration camp inmates--Slovakia.
Genre
- Personal Equipment and Supplies
- Object