Gerson Family collection

Accession Number AWM2018.961.2.40
Collection type Photograph
Object type Print
Location Main Bld: World War 2 Gallery: Holocaust gallery
Maker Unknown
Place made Germany: Berlin
Date made c 1938
Conflict Period 1930-1939
Copyright

Item copyright: Copyright unknown - orphaned work

Description

Portrait of Herta Lewinsky (née Gerson). During the Second World War, Herta Lewinsky (along with her sister Selma Gerson) was employed in Berlin by the Reichsvereinigung der Juden in Deutschland (the Reich Association of Jews in Germany), an organisation established to support Jewish schools, hospitals and welfare within Germany and which promoted the emigration of Jews from Germany. Herta’s brother-in-law, Theodor Kabaker, later wrote, “Herta refused to flee because ten other Jews from her workplace would have been shot.” Herta removed her Star of David in order to venture out of Berlin to visit her family. She had plans for such a visit on 17 May 1943, but never arrived. Theodor wrote, “You can imagine what terrors we had on that Saturday when she didn’t arrive.” Having seen two of her sisters deported, “she was well dressed [and] had sewn her wedding ring into her coat, as well as other valuables, so as to have things to barter with”. On 6 August 1943, Herta smuggled a postcard out of Auschwitz–Birkenau to inform her family of her location; “My Dears, I’m healthy and work outside. Greetings to everyone, and many thanks, Herta. P.S. I would be happy to hear from you.” Theodor wrote to Herta for months, but received no reply: “I said to myself, maybe she receives the cards but is not allowed to answer.” Herta was never heard from again. Her sisters Selma and Berta also died in the Holocaust. Another sister, Adele, escaped Germany for employment at the Royal Cancer Hospital in London in 1939 before emigrating to Melbourne, Australia in March 1947. There, she was reunited with her brother Siegfried and his family, who had emigrated to Australia in 1939.

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