Max Brenner photographs

Max Brenner (1936-2017) was born Mordechai Eichenbrenner on January 23, 1936 in Dęblin, Poland to Meir Eichenbrenner and Kraindl Dickstein. He had two sisters, Sally (later Sommerfeld) and Helen (later Weiss). His father was an independent tailor. Following the German invasion of Poland in September 1939, the Nazis forced his father to perform slave labor. The Eichenbrenner family was forced into the ghetto in mid-1940. As the Soviet Army approached, the family was transferred to the Hasag labor camp in Częstochowa. They were liberated by Soviet troops in 1945. After the Holocaust, the family lived in displaced persons camps in Austria and Italy including at Barletta, Torino, and Naples. They immigrated to the United States in December 1949 and lived in Brooklyn and then Detroit. Other members of their extended family were killed during the Holocaust. Brenner’s father and uncle, Meir and Tzvi Eichenbrenner, both contributed articles to the Dęblin yizkor book. The Max Brenner photographs include five Eichenbrenner family photographs, including one affixed to part of an identification card. The images depict members of the Eichenbrenner family in prewar Dęblin, Poland and as displaced persons in Italy after the Holocaust. Depicted family members include Max, Sarah, Helen, Meir, and Kraindl Eichenbrenner; Meir’s parents Aron and Rochma; his brother Idle (Haiman); his sisters Leitema and Zlata; his sister-in-law Rivka; his nephews Hank and Pinkus; and Kraindl’s sister Golda Dickstein.