Postcard

Held by

Montreal Holocaust Museum via Canadian Jewish Heritage Network (incl. Alex Dworkin Canadian Jewish Archives)

Dates

1990 (indexed as 1990)

Level

item

Extent

Postcard : Paper : Printed : Ink : Burgundy, beige, brown, amber, black ; Ht: 10 cm x W: 15 cm

Scope & content

Postcard format card with image on front and back divided between description, space for brief message, and address. Unused postcard contains images from a local glass artisan shop in Piotrkow Trybunalski, Poland. Narrative: Charles Kotkowsky was born in Piotrkow, Poland, in 1920. He was the son of a butcher, and had three siblings. He tried to immigrate to the USA as the Nazi persecution of Jews began, but he was unable to get the necessary documents in time. Meanwhile, he worked as a tailor in Lodz. The Germans entered Lodz on 1939/9/5 and had set up a ghetto by October. Charles worked in a glass factory, but eventually enlisted to avoid being used for forced labour. The Germans began rounding up Jews around Jewish holidays for labour or small transports for Auschwitz and Treblinka. At this time, he began receiving packages of letters and money from Ignac Samsonowicz, his old Yiddish teacher. The glass factory became a labour camp where Charles and his brother worked until they were sent to Czestochowa labour camp in November 1944. They made bullets in the factory there. The women in the glass factory were sent to Ravensbrück. Later Charles was sent to Buchenwald, where he and his friends were assigned easy jobs because their supervisor was a resistance sympathizer. Charles met Leon Blum before he was moved to Flossenburg. On their last transport train Charles and his brother jumped from the train along with many other Jews (some of which were shot in the attempt) and were sheltered in a Czechoslovakian town until the American army arrived. He moved to Italy where he worked as a translator, mostly in doctor's offices. He moved to Canada in 1951.He married Sally Blum, and they had two children, Pearl Levine and Rickie Cohen. Charles died from cancer on 2003/2/8 in Toronto, Canada.

Location

No place found in this description yet.

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Genre / form

textual record

In the picture

BookshelfBottleCoat of ArmsLampManOrnamentPostcardShopShop InteriorTableTagged automatically by a vision model; may contain mistakes.

Text in the image

HortensjaHuta Szkła GospodarczegoPiotrkowie TrybunalskimRead automatically; may contain mistakes.

Language

Polish

Harvested

2026-10-19T03:21:16Z · source datestamp n/a · andornot

Digital objects at the source

• imageOpen original at source ↗1998_7_29a.jpg
• imageOpen original at source ↗1998_7_29b.jpg