
Yad Vashem Artifacts Collection
Donated by Joseph Zumerkorn, Petah Tikva, Israel



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Yad Vashem Artifacts Collection
Donated by Joseph Zumerkorn, Petah Tikva, Israel
Joseph Zumerkorn was twenty-one when his city, Lodz, was occupied by the Germans. Even before the ghetto was established, Joseph was picked up randomly on the street by German soldiers and forced onto a bus along with other Jews while the soldiers beat them mercilessly. The group was taken to a lake in a holiday resort, instructed to undress and enter the freezing water. Some of the men drowned from the shock of the ice-cold water and others were shot to death. Those who survived were put back on the bus and continued to be beaten senseless. In the wake of this experience, Joseph decided to escape eastward.
"I understood that the chances of remaining alive in Lodz were infinitesmal and I decided to leave Poland. That was on 29 November 1939. While riding in a carriage, my sister-Chana Yocheved took off her coat and the red sweater she was wearing and she put the sweater into my bag. She said: 'I'm sure you will need this.'
I don't know how but I managed to keep the secret of this dear red sweater for 72 years without telling a soul, all the time keeping the sweater with me. The wanderings of the sweater were my wanderings."
Joseph never saw his parents or his two sisters again. He managed to escape from place to place until he was transferred to camps in Siberia with other refugees.
There Joseph met Necha Paskovitz and the two married and had a daughter. Encountering antisemitism and murderous threats on returning to Poland after the war, they decided to leave Poland. They immigrated to Israel in 1949.
In a letter to Yad Vashem Joseph Zumerkorn wrote:
"Bless this campaign of yours (Gathering the Fragments). I was so excited when I heard about it. At home I have a red sweater given to me by my dear sister who was born in Lodz….and was murdered in the Lodz ghetto… I kept this precious sweater for 72 years without telling anyone of its existence, not even my immediate family…"
Yad Vashem Artifacts Collection
Donated by Joseph Zumerkorn, Petah Tikva, Israel
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