Abraham and Mina Winiger papers

Abraham (Abram) Winiger (1905-1993) was born December 21, 1905 in Nadwórna, Poland (now Nadvirna, Ukraine) to Israel and Sarah Winiger. Mina Winiger (1913-1979) was born May 5, 1913 in Majdan Górny, Poland to Markus and Sobel Händel and moved to Nadwórna. The couple were married in 1938, and their son Jakob (Jankl) was born March 1, 1941. Following the German invasion of the Soviet Union, a ghetto was established in Nadwórna in April 1942, and the family was forced to move into the ghetto. Jakob was forcibly taken from his parents and is believed to have been killed at Bełżec. Abraham and Mina escaped before the end of the year and found a Catholic woman and her teenage son who were willing to hide them in their cellar without the knowledge of their husband and father. When he discovered them, his son convinced him to let them stay. Following liberation in 1945, Abraham and Mina were refused the return of their home and spent time in Chernivtsi, Kolomyia, and Katowice. They slowly found their way to the Föhrenwald displaced persons camp in 1946, where their daughter Sara (Sharon Maybach, 1946-1989) was born. The family immigrated to the United States aboard the USAT General Holbrook via Bremerhaven in September 1949. Their daughter Lela (Lily) was born in Elmira, NY in 1950, and the family moved to Buffalo in 1953. Abraham’s and Mina’s extended families were killed in the Holocaust. The Abraham and Mina Winiger papers consist of identification papers, correspondence, and photographs documenting Abraham and Mina Winiger’s families before the Holocaust in Nadwórna, Poland, their survival, their postwar life in the Föhrenwald displaced persons camp, and their efforts to receive restitution for their wartime suffering. The papers include two registration certificates for Abraham and Mina Winiger from the Jewish Agency for Palestine dated 1948; postwar letters from Ajzik Feder, Sara Rosenheck, the United Restitution Organization, and other friends made at Föhrenwald; and photographs of Abraham and Mina Winiger and their families before and during the war in Poland and after the war in Föhrenwald.