Urbach family papers
Extent and Medium
folders
oversize box
6
1
Creator(s)
- Urbach family
Biographical History
Dr. Isidor Urbach (b. 1898) was a Jewish dentist from Poznań, Poland married to Catholic Irena Urbanska Urbach. The couple had five children. In the early years of World War II, the family was confined to the Ostrów Lubelski and Stare Zalucze ghettos, and then Isidor lived in hiding in Zalucze while the children lived under forged papers with Irena’s mother. They were joined by eight year old Masza Zunszajn (later Miriam Raz), whose family had been killed during the Aktion in Wereszczyn. The Urbach family and Masza moved to a small house in Zalasocze, where Irena and the children lived openly while Isidor and Masza hid in a bunker dug under the oven. Irena earned a living by providing dental service to the local population using skills Isidor had taught her. Teenager Roza Zaltz (Zalc) later joined Isidor and Masza in the bunker. In early 1944, Rosa left the bunker and joined a group of Jews hiding in the nearby village of Garbatowka. Masza and the Urbach family were liberated in July 1944 and moved to Wlodawa, where Irena organized a soup kitchen. Masza eventually moved to Israel and started a family at kibbutz Gan Shmuel, and Rosa Zalc-Gerstein immigrated to the United States. Irena Urbach was honored by Yad Vashem as Righteous Among Nations.
Archival History
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Acquisition
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of Daniel Urbach
Funding Note: The cataloging of this collection has been supported by a grant from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany.
Donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2014 by Daniel Urbach.
Scope and Content
The Urbach family papers include biographical materials, correspondence, photographs, and a scrapbook documenting the family of Jewish dentist Isidor Urbach from Poznań, the family’s survival in ghettos and in hiding during World War II, and the two girls named Masza Zunszajn and Roza Zaltz the family hid during the war. Biographical materials include a birth certificate, vaccination record, identification documents, permits and passes, work documents, and a list of products the Urbachs offered at their soup kitchen in Włodawa following liberation. Correspondence includes prewar family postcards and postwar documenting an invitation to Dr. Urbach to open a soup kitchen in Włodawa, his donations of library and research materials to universities and institutions, and his efforts to receive restitution for the murder of his parents and relatives during the Holocaust. Photographs, photographic postcards, and album pages depict the Urbach family, Masza Zunszajn, and Roza Zaltz. This material also include photographic postcards dating from 1918 and images appearing to show partisans and burials. The scrapbook dates from approximately 1939-1959 and contains a photograph of Poland in 1939, surrender leaflets dropped by the Red Army, and clippings about the Nazi rise to power, World War II, the Holocaust, and the Nuremberg trials in Polish and German. These materials were collected by Dr. Urbach after the war.
System of Arrangement
The Urbach family papers are arranged as six folders.
People
- Urbach, Isidor.
- Urbach family
Subjects
- Hidden children (Holocaust)--Poland.
- Poznań (Poland)
- Włodawa (Poland)
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)--Poland.
- Jewish dentists--Poland.
- Holocaust survivors--Poland.
- Jews--Poland--Poznań.
Genre
- Photographs.
- Correspondence.
- Document