Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

Noemi Engel Ebenstein - July 22, 1996

Father's Cigarette Case

While we're on your father, could you tell me what the cigarette case is about? Why don't we, hold it up and we'll show it.

Oh yes. This is a very interesting, um, item. I don't know how to call it. It's a cigarette case. And it was made by a German artist who was a POW in the same camp as my father. Um, should I show it like this? You can see here, um, it's, it's very good work, but it's the Soviet Union, the symbol of the Soviet Union. And in the back there is a star of David, Magen David, uh, and in Cyrillic letters is the date of when, the date when my father was captured by the Russians. And the date, I don't know what the significance of May 1 is because he was not released May 1. Uh, but anyway, this is, and it was done by a German for a Jew in the Soviet POW camp. So I think it's very interesting.

Can you read the writing on the back?

I don't know to read Cyrillic. See I was in the Serbian school only for two months. And in Serbia they teach the Latin alphabet as well as the Cyrillic alphabet. But we left for Israel before we got to the Cyrillic alphabet, so.

This split between talking about it and not talking about it in Israel, or how it was discussed in Israel.

Yes.


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