Mira's Canteen

Mira Ryczke was born on September 17, 1923 in Zoppot, a seaside resort and suburb of the Free City of Danzig (now Gdansk, Poland). Danzig was semi-autonomous state created in 1919 by the Treaty of Versailles. It had a busy port on the Baltic Sea and was bordered by both Poland and German East Prussia. Mira’s parents moved the family to Danzig after the birth of her brother Benno in 1928. This picture, saved in her canteen, shows Mira at age 15, five months before the start of the war.

Danzig’s residents were mostly German, and with each passing year, the government imposed more restrictions on Jews. Mira and her brother were expelled from their school when she was 12 because they were Jewish. The day after the Nazis invaded Poland in September 1939, Danzig became part of the German empire. Soon after, Mira and her family were deported to Warsaw.

Over the next nearly six years, Mira endured unthinkable abuse and loss. Nazis murdered most of her family. She was finally liberated from Bergen Belsen by the British army on April 15, 1945.

After the war, Mira met and married Max Kimmelman, also a concentration camp survivor, who had lost most of his family, including his wife and daughter. They came to the United States on the SS Marine Flasher in 1948 and initially settled in Cincinnati, Ohio where a cousin, Max Jacobs, had agreed to sponsor them. (Max Jacobs was the brother of Mira’s paternal grandmother, Esther.) Max and Mira ultimately made their home in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Max died in February 1990 and Mira died in April 2019.

There is no photograph of Mira’s canteen — she disposed of it once she was liberated — but this one is very similar to the one Mira used. She never left her menażka out of her sight. She tied it to her waist when she needed both hands to work.

In it she saved 90 pictures of her family and friends, important documents for her father, and four pictures for her closest friend Eva Kolska. (Eva also survived the camps, and Mira was able to return those pictures to her.) Several of the photos Mira saved are likely the only pictures remaining of family members who perished during the war.

[NOTE: Mira reviewed online pictures of canteens that looked similar to hers - most were used by various European armies during World War I. The picture above is the one she said looked most like the canteen she used. The bottom is an elongated oval, making its shape more like a small metal satchel than a pot.]

Moritz Ryczke, Mira’s father, was born on February 1, 1897 in Słupca, Poland. He married Genia Hammer in 1921 and was a successful businessman, selling grains and seeds for export.

After war broke out, the Ryczke family was forced from Danzig to Warsaw and then into the ghetto in Tomaszow. In October 1942, the ghetto was liquidated and Genia, along with most who lived there, was sent to her death in Treblinka. Having been among the few who were spared, Moritz, Mira and Benno remained in the ghetto until May 1943, when they were sent to the Blizyn-Majdanek concentration camp and later to Auschwitz. That is where Mira was separated from her father and brother. She would never see Benno again.

Moritz moved from Auschwitz to several more concentration camps including Dachau, Flossenburg and Kaufering. On a death march shortly before the end of the war, he was able to escape into the woods in lower Bavaria. He met up with American troops on April 28, 1945. After searching for her in many camps, he and Mira were finally reunited in July. He was shocked that she had saved the canteen.

Among the documents Mira saved were records of her father's business. These proved to be very important for getting restitution from the German government after the war. Moritz immigrated to the United States and remarried, and for a time had a chicken farm in Estell Manor, New Jersey. He died in Tel-Aviv in 1979.

Mira's mother was born Genia Hammer in Kalisz on May 26, 1897. As a child, Mira would visit her relatives in Kalisz often. Genia told her stories about the Germans invading in 1914, at the start of World War I, and burning down the city, including her father's lace and embroidery factory. She had been engaged to marry a soldier who died in battle shortly before the end of the war.

When Genia was introduced to Moritz in 1919, it was love at first sight. They married in Zoppot in 1921. Mira was born two years later, and Benno four years after that. They lived well. Moritz was successful in business, they had many friends and they travelled often. Summers were spent at the beach in Zoppot or Orlowo with family and friends.

In 1937, the Nazis prohibited non-Jews from working for Jews, so the family's beloved housekeeper of eight years was forced to quit. By 1938, the Nazis were arresting Jewish businessmen, and Genia pleaded with Moritz for the family to leave. She had lived through one war and feared another was coming. But Moritz was an optimist. He was certain there would be no war, and so they stayed.

When the Nazis liquidated the Tomaszow ghetto in October of 1942, Moritz and Benno were gone for the day doing work outside the ghetto. Genia and Mira walked next to each other as all of the Jews were marched to the railroad station and an unknown future. Suddenly, an SS officer pulled Mira out of the line. It happened so quickly, she wasn't able to say goodbye. Mira never saw her mother again. They later learned Genia was taken by train to Treblinka and murdered shortly thereafter.

Mira’s brother Benno was born on January 24, 1928 in Zoppot. This picture was taken in the Tomaszow ghetto when Benno was 13 years old, on the occasion of his bar mitzvah. By then, clothes were hard to come by, and Benno had outgrown much of what he owned, so he borrowed his uncle Heinrich’s jacket. This photo was taken by a friend in the ghetto who was a photographer. Mira did work for him in his studio to make money for food.

Mira and Benno were very close despite being four years apart. She called him "bright and idealistic" and "rebellious and independent", words that very much described her as well. They both had dreams of going to Palestine.

In the ghetto food was scarce. Benno could pass for a German, so he would remove his Jewish armband and leave the ghetto to get food for the family. In January 1942, he decided to escape to join the Polish army in Russia to fight the Nazis. After finding his note, his parents feared for his life. He had no money and no identity papers and would likely be shot if he were caught. They got a Jewish police officer to track him down at the train station and bring him back to the ghetto. They thought they were keeping him safe by keeping the family together.

Mira, Benno and their father were ultimately sent to the Blizyn-Majdanek camp and then to Auschwitz. As they exited the cattle cars at Auschwitz, men were ordered to go in one direction and women in the other. Mira never saw her brother again.

Benno and his father stayed together until October 1944, when Benno was taken to Sachsenhausen concentration camp and then, according to camp records, to Mauthausen.

When the war ended, after much searching, Moritz found a fellow prisoner who was with Benno there. He told him that Benno was shot during the death march from Mauthausen in April, 1945, just days before the arrival of American troops. Benno was 17.

This photo of Mira is on the back of a small pocket mirror. Her mother and father each had one. Her father gave Mira his mirror in the cattle car with his work documents to save in the canteen.

Benno, wearing lederhosen that his grandfather Ephraim brought him from Bavaria, Germany.

Mira is walking across the street from the railway station in Danzig. The cone, filled with sweets, was a tradition on the first day of school.

Mira is in the middle row, third from the left. She recalled that two other girls and one boy in the class were Jewish.

Szlomo and Sarah Hammer (née Szmant) were Genia’s parents and Mira’s maternal grandparents. Their children were Genia Ryczke, Gucia Lachman, Hela Krzewin and Henry Hammer. (An older brother, Stasiek, died in Vienna in 1919.) They lived in Kalisz. This picture was taken at a vacation house not far from Kalisz with other guests.

The Hammers had little money. Their factory for embroidered undergarments burned down during the first world war. Szlomo tried starting other businesses, but they never succeeded. Their children helped support them. Most women didn’t work, but aunt Hela Krzewin had business with friends to chauffeur people to resorts in the summer and to give manicures.

When war broke out, Szlomo and Sarah went to Warsaw to be with their oldest daughter Gucia. Sarah died of a stroke in the winter of 1941. In May 1942, an SS officer shot Szlomo in the Warsaw ghetto. His son Henry took him to the hospital, but he did not survive. Gucia and Henry took his body in a droshka (a low, four-wheeled open carriage) to the Jewish cemetery and paid to have him buried in his own grave.

Ephraim Ryczke was Mira’s paternal grandfather, and like her father, he was a grain merchant. He was married to Esther Ryczke (née Jakuboski/Cyruliczak) and was father of Mortiz, Heinrich, and Rozia (Przedecka). The photo on the left was taken at Heinrich and Anni’s wedding. Esther and Ephraim lived in Kalisz until 1937 when they moved to Lodz. Ephraim had a friend who persuaded him to move to Thomaszow, and later Ephraim persuaded Mira’s father to join them. When the ghetto there was liquidated on October 31, 1942, Esther and Ephraim were sent to Treblinka and killed.

Esther Ryczke (née Jakuboski/Cyruliczak) is Mira’s paternal grandmother. She was married to Ephraim Ryczke and is the mother of Rozia (Przedecka), Moritz and Heinrich Ryczke. Esther was born in Konin in 1872. Esther and Ephraim lived in the Tomaszow-Mazowiecki ghetto until October 31, 1942 when they were sent to Treblinka and killed.

Heinrich Ryczke was Moritz’s younger brother and Mira’s uncle. He was born on February 23, 1907. Anni and Heinrich married on May 5, 1932 in Danzig at the Borissialoge/Olivaer Tor. They were divorced in 1937, and Anni moved to Palestine. Heinrich moved to Lodz to live with his parents Ephraim and Esther Ryczke. During the war they moved to Tomaszow. When the ghetto was liquidated in October of 1942, Esther and Ephraim were sent to Treblinka and perished. Heinrich moved in with Moritz, Mira and Benno until they too were forced to leave Tomaszow.

Together they were sent to the concentration camp in Blizyn (Majdanek). In the spring of 1944, Heinrich was sent to the camp in Plaszow, where he was killed in 1945. Heinrich was deaf, so it was remarkable he lived that long. The Nazis killed those with disabilities right away, but they were fooled by Heinrich’s ability to speak and read lips.

Every Passover when she was a child, Mira’s family went to Kalisz. The first seder was always with grandparents Ryczke, and second seder was always with grandparents Hammer. Mira and Benno went before their parents to spent the whole Easter vacation there. They took the train by themselves, and their grandfather Ephraim met them at station in a carriage. Her grandmother Sarah Hammer taught Mira how to make matzo balls.

Bronka was Genia’s distant cousin, and they enjoyed each other's company. Bronka would join the family at the beach in Orlowo. Bronka’s first husband, Kuba, drowned. They had a daughter Krysia. Bronka remarried in 1938 and had another child. None of the family survived the war.

Rozia Przedecka (née Ryczke) was was Ephraim and Esther’s oldest child, Mortiz’s only sister, and Mira’s aunt. Markus, her husband, worked for Widzewska Manufaktura in Lodz. Their daughters are Gina (born in 1921) and Halina (born in 1918).

At the start of the war, Halina’s husband, Jurek Tempelhof, a doctor and officer in the Polish army left to fight in Romania and survived. The rest of the family moved to Tomaszow and lived in the ghetto. On October 24, 1942, a week before the ghetto was liquidated, Rozia, Halina and Ginka left for Warsaw, using false Aryan papers they had purchased. Marcus stayed behind and was sent to Treblinka.

Halina and Ginka found work in an office in Warsaw, but in 1944 they were recognized as being Jewish. Ginka tried to run away, and Halina followed, but both were shot. When their mother Rozia learned of their fate, she took her own life.

In this picture, Mira's aunt Gucia is walking with her daughter Marysia (born in 1921) and her son Mietek (born in 1916). Gucia, Genia's older sister, was married to David Lachman, a salesman and distributor of fine cultery. They lived in Warsaw.

David, Marysia, Marysia's husband and their baby son were taken from the Warsaw ghetto to Treblinka in July 1942. Gucia was able to go into hiding with her husband’s relatives, the Perlmutter family, but she was discovered and sent to Treblinka in September 1942.

Mietek fought for the Polish army in defense of Warsaw. When Warsaw fell, he escaped with the help of the Polish underground and went to Bialystol in the Soviet-occupied area of Poland. There he joined the newly formed Polish army, which took him first to Iran and then to Italy where he fought the Nazis. After the war, he went to Canada and then to Israel.

The family spent many happy summers at the beach in Orlowo. “Villa Czoske” was the name Mira and her family used to describe the small cottage on the property of the Czoske family where they stayed during the summers of 1934 and 1935.

Mira and Benno at the Villa Czoske, wearing the outfits their father brought them from Czechoslovakia. Mira is ten and Benno is six years old.

Genia with her sister-in-law Rozka Hammer (née Kaplan), Henry’s wife. Rozka and Henry had a son Jasio Hammer. Rozka and Jasio were taken from Warsaw to Treblinka in August, 1942.

Henry survived the war using the name Ludwik Turkiewicz, hiding for a year behind an oven in a friend’s apartment (and losing an eye as a result) and then in other Polish homes. Henry (also known as Heniek) was born in Kalisz on March 25, 1906 and died in New Jersey in 1989.

Mira with her class at Polish Gimnazium Jozefa Pilsudzkiego. Mira is standing sixth from the left. [Several of Mira’s classmates signed the back of this picture.]

Some of her classmates were scouts and could wear their scout uniform to school. You could be a scout only if you were Catholic. Mira's best friend Tula was a Polish Catholic. They shared a bench at school until 1937, when the priest called Tula and told her she was not allowed to sit with a Jewess.

Another of Mira's classmates was Lusia. She was Jewish, and her father was also in grain business. Lusia’s parents moved to England shortly before the war because Jewish businessmen were being arrested on false charges. Mira’s father helped them get their visa from the consulate. They left Lusia and her older sister Janka in Danzig to finish school. When the war started, the girls were sent to the Warsaw ghetto. Their parents sent them money and they were able to escape, first to Vienna by train and then to England.

Many of Mira's Jewish friends in and near Danzig left before the war started. Mira also wanted to leave, but her father was against it. He believed there would be no war. Genia persuaded him to allow Mira to go to Warsaw to interview for a school in Palestine, and she was accepted. She had to leave her passport in Warsaw and return to Danzig while waiting for the necessary visa. That was in August 1939. War broke out one week later.

Mira’s family moved from Danzig up the coast to Gdynia in 1938 to escape the local authorities who were using tax audits as a pretext for arresting Jews. Gdynia was in Poland, but it was close enough to Danzig that Mira and Benno took the train there each day for school.

During this time, they housed refugees fleeing from Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia. Many refugees came through Gdynia on their way to safe havens overseas. Despite hearing their stories, Moritz remained optimistic that there would be no war. The family moved back to Danzig in the early summer of 1939.

[Mira remembered that before this picture was taken she had been laughing and goofing off with the photographer. Papa got angry and told her to stop, so she has serious face.]

This picture of Mira's friends was taken just a few months before war broke out. Kvutzah Nesher was Jewish youth group. They learned skills in agriculture and how to repair things in preparation for moving to a kibbutz in Palestine. Various organizations would pay to send young people to Palestine, but they wanted them to be trained first. Sitno was just outside of Danzig.

Bronek is in the back left, and Salek is in the back center. Mira and Bronek were in love, though Salek competed for Mira's affection. When the war began, she was 15 and Bronek was 19. He was soon arrested and sent to Stutthof concentration camp where he perished in 1940. Mira learned at Yad Vashem that Salek had been killed in Russia in 1943.

Mira had very few pictures from her time in the ghetto. Linka was the sister of Mira’s boyfriend Bronek from Gdynia. Their father was very active in the Zionist movement. After Bronek was killed in Stutthof, Linka began a correspondence with Mira. She mailed her this picture in the ghetto. The Nazi’s created a Jewish ghetto in Rzeszów in 1941, and most inhabitants were later murdered in the Belżec extermination camp. The Chaim family perished.

This is the last picture of Mira until after the war. She is in the ghetto with her best friend Eva. Their families stayed in the same house. Eva’s parents hosted the luncheon for Benno’s bar mitzvah even though food was very scarce. This picture was taken shortly before the ghetto was liquidated. Mira was able to get this photo because she did some work for a photographer, who had a business taking identity photos for official documents.

Eva and Mira were together throughout the war. She helped Mira survive the death march from Auschwitz when Mira was weak from typhus, and they were ultimately liberated together in Bergen Belsen. Mira hid four of Eva’s family photos in the canteen with her own. Eva’s parents and four siblings perished.

Saved in Mira's canteen, this was Moritz Ryczke’s membership card for the Danzig association of seed and grain wholesalers, issued on March 5, 1937.

This and the tax form below helped establish Moritz's claim for restitution from the German government after the war. Many Jewish business owners who survived had greater difficulty substantiating their claims.

Mira also saved a tax form that reported Moritz Ryczke’s income in 1938 to Danzig tax authorities. Shown here are the last page of the form, written in German, and a page stamped April 27, 1939 that shows the name “Moszek Ryczke”. When asked why it would have been addressed to him this way when his business was registered to Moritz Ryczke, Mira explained that Moszek is the Polish name for Moses. This was used by the authorities to identify Moritz as being Jewish.

Amounts on the tax form were listed in gulden, the currency of the Free City of Danzig, which existed only between 1923 and 1939.