Giving Them a Face and a Name

Moise Krymholc

In 1937, Moise Krimholc celebrated his Bar Mitzvah and sent this photo to his aunt, my grandmother, in Kansas City. Moise was the eldest son of Chaim and Rachel, Pola's brother and sister-in-law, who immigrated to Antwerp from Lublin in the 1920s.

Then, in 1941, my grandmother received this letter from Chaim.

Dear Sister, Brother-in-Law and Children; 

It was already a year since I wrote you … For a year and a half I was in Frankfurt (hiding place) and I can’t go back home. My son does housework. I want to tell you what kind of life and what we have lost already. I put on a costume and worked as a waitress. I’m in a very bad situation and you are the only one I can write to. Acquaintances help us! They send out letters.

February 8, 1941, St. Affrique, France

… I hope you can help us in some way. I'm writing you the address. I hope it doesn’t cost much. Thank you very much. My life depends on you. I don’t hear anything from parents. How is everyone? Please send me an answer at this address: Chaim Krymholc, Av. Dr. Blancard, Restaurant St. Victor, St. Affrique Aveyron, France

Dear Pola. My wife and children are sending regards. 


Last year, researchers with the Lublin-Antwerp project at Grodzka Gate Theater found evidence of the capture and deportation of the Krymholc family soon after this letter was written. Moise, his brother, sister and parents were sent to Rivesaltes Transit Camp and to Drancy Transit Camp. In September 1942, they were transported to Auschwitz where they were murdered.




Moise's Bar Mitzvah photo was added to the Krymholz Family Archive at Grodzka Gate Theater NN. In addition, Antwerp-based researcher, Jackie Schwarz, discovered another photo of an older Moise among the immigrant information at the Kazerne Dossin archives in Brussels.

Researchers from Grodzka Gate Theater and memorial centers around the world including Kazerne Dossin, Yad Vashem, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial and Museum, Memorial de la Shoah in Paris continue to identify the names and faces of the murdered so we can remember their lives and deny the Nazis their goal to exterminate all Jews, destroy all records and be erased from memory. Although these images are frozen in time, we remember the people in them who celebrated Bar Mitzvahs and the special moments in their lives.

 “I list names of the murdered, because maybe it is the only gravestone they will get, because there is no one left of their families who would mourn their premature deaths.”

~Ida Glickstein, a Holocaust survivor, "Lublin. 43 thousand" project, Grodzka Gate Theater NN