Pawlowicz family papers

The Pawlowicz family papers, circa 1920s-1950s, focus on the postwar experiences of Max and Rose Pohl. The papers include their displaced persons identification documents from Zeilsheim, Germany, two marriage certificates, and family photographs which include images of survivors and family members that did not survive the Holocaust. The collection includes identification documents for both Max and Rose Pohl. These documents include a temporary identification for Ruchla Tosk from Bergen-Belsen, 1945 and a A.E.F. D.P. Registration Record issued to Jewish displaced persons Ruchla Pawlowiec, August 25, 1945. Identification cards for Mordka Pawlowicz include a card issued at the Displaced Persons Assembly Center at Zeilsheim, Germany, August 29, 1946; an identification card issued at the Zeilsheim Assembly Center by UNRRA Team 503, circa 1945-1949; an A.E.F. D.P. Registration Record issued on November 12, 1945; and a driver’s license with photograph issued in Pegnitz, Germany, June 24, 1946. Biographical materials also includes a marriage certificate for Mordka Pawlowicz and Ruchla Tosk in Frankfurt, Germany, dated July 2, 1947, and a ketubah handwritten in Aramaic and Hebrew certifying the marriage of Yaakov Mordechai ben Aaron and Rachel bat Efraim, May 19, 1946. The collection also includes thirteen black and white photographs of Max and Rose Pohl, as well as identified and unidentified friends and family, some of whom did not survive the war. Identified photographs include: • Family of Max Pohl, group photograph taken in Wieluń including (left to right) an unidentified girl, Rivka Bukla (Pohl’s mother’s younger sister), Ishak Shulkowicz (Pohl’s uncle), Isaac (Pohl’s maternal cousin), Yiscah Gilbert (Pohl’s grandmother) holding Dvora’s baby, unnamed cousin (Pohl’s mother’s brother’s son), Dvora Gilbert, and Bronia Shani, prewar, undated. Pictured are both victims and survivors of the Holocaust. • Dvora Gilbert, Max Pohl’s maternal aunt and her husband Ishak Shulkowicz holding posing with an unidentified baby in Wieluń, post 1937. Both Dvora and Ishak perished in the Holocaust. • Max Pohl (third from left) and a group of unidentified survivors wearing stripped prisoner uniforms reenacting forced physical labor, Paris, France, 1945. • Jack Jacobs and his wife Rose, Bronia Shani, Max Pohl, Rose Pohl, Monia (Mary) and her husband Morris Shani standing in front of a memorial in Zeilsheim, Germany, circa 1945-1949. • Yaakov Mordechai ben Aaron and Rachel bat Efraim, the bride and groom, toasting each other at a dinner in the Zeilsheim displaced persons camp, 1946. Various spellings of the Max Pohl’s original Polish last name are used throughout the collection, including Pawlowicz, Pawlowiec, and Pawtowiez. Max Pohl (born Mordka Pawlowicz) was born on October 5, 1922 in Wieluń, Poland to Aron and Ruchla (neé Gelbert) Pawlowicz. A Polish Jew, Max moved to Pabianice, Poland in 1937. He met his future wife, Rose Pohl (born Ruchla Tosk) in 1940. Max worked on the railroads under forced labor conditions until 1943 when he was sent to Auschwitz concentration camp. After three weeks, he was sent to the Warsaw concentration camp, then on to Dachau concentration camp. On May 31, 1945, he was liberated by the United States armed forces from the Ampfing-Waldlager V and VI concentration camp in Germany. Max’s brother Herschl was deported from the Lódź ghetto and perished, and his mother perished at the Chełmno concentration camp in Poland. Max’s sisters Mania Pawlowicz and Bronia Shani (née Pawlowicz) survived imprisonment in concentration camps. After liberation, Max spent a year in Paris, France with assistance from the Jewish Federation. While in Paris he was informed that Rose and her family survived and were located at the displaced persons camp in Zeilsheim, Germany. While traveling to find the Tosk family, Max met Isaac Tosk, Rose’s brother, on the French border and together they traveled to Zeilsheim. Rose Pohl (born Ruchla Tosk) was born on July 26, 1925 in Pabianice, Poland to Fiszel and Hinda (neé Sieradzka) Tosk. Rose was imprisoned in the Lódź ghetto, then at the concentration camps of Salzwedel and Bergen-Belsen in Germany and Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland. In April 1945, Rose was liberated by the United States armed forces at Salzwedel concentration camp. While her father perished during the war, Rose, her mother, her sisters Fajga, Nacha, and Golda, and her brother Isaac all survived the war. By 1946, Max and Rose were both at the displaced persons camp in Zeilsheim, Germany. According to a marriage certificate, Max and Rose Pohl married in Frankfurt, Germany, on July 2, 1947. However, Rose’s American Expeditionary Forces (A.E.F.) Displaced Persons Registration Record shows her using Max’s Polish name as early as 1945. Max’s aunt who lived in Buffalo, New York agreed to serve as their sponsor, and on February 17, 1949 Max and Rose Pohl immigrated to the United States.