
Yad Vashem Artifacts Collection
Courtesy of Ilona Avinezer, Jerusalem


Yad Vashem Artifacts Collection
Courtesy of Ilona Avinezer, Jerusalem



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Yad Vashem Artifacts Collection
Courtesy of Ilona Avinezer, Jerusalem
Yad Vashem Artifacts Collection
Courtesy of Ilona Avinezer, Jerusalem
In the winter of 1942, 22-year-old Berta (Basha) Lebovits and her 15-year-old sister Sherri left their home in Lipcse, in the Carpathians and moved to Budapest. Their parents, sister and brother remained behind at home. At the end of 1944, Berta and Sherri received their last letter from home. It said, "We are waiting for the Germans to arrive at any moment. I have baked some challa rolls and made rice pudding and put it in milk cans so it will be easier to take with us." Their parents and their siblings were deported to various camps and murdered.
Shortly after receiving this letter, Berta and Sherri were sent with a group of Jews from Budapest to labor camps where they were forced to build bunkers and work in agriculture. Two months later they were transferred to Bergen-Belsen, where both girls came down with typhus. The sisters were very ill when they were liberated there on 15 April 1945.
The bag, made from a wool blanket and decorated with a heart, flowers and leaves was something Berta found after liberation. The bag was embroidered with the name of the Neue Bremm camp, which was where the bag was presumably made.
Berta recalls:
"I found this bag among all the 'schmattes' (rags) at Bergen-Belsen and it really helped me… the person who made this bag must be very happy since at Bergen-Belsen it would have been thrown away. I took it and put things inside it that a woman usually has – a mirror, a comb and lipstick. I thought those were things that a woman needed to look good. We already thought like that then and we became human again. I arrived in Sweden with this bag and started my new life."
Yad Vashem Artifacts Collection
Courtesy of Ilona Avinezer, Jerusalem
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