Itzhak Nachmani papers

The Itzakh Nachmani papers include two diaries Nachmani composed in 1942 and 1943 describing his family’s escape from Poland, his internment in a Soviet labor camp, his release into the Polish Army, and his service in Palestine, Egypt, and Iraq; a misdated Palestine Identity Card issued to Nachmani; and photographs depicting Nachmani and his Rumpler and Krzepicki relatives in Poland before the war and in Israel after the war as well as with fellow soldiers in Egypt, Iraq, and Palestine during the war. Itzakh Nachmani began his diaries on August 4, 1942, during his military service in Palestine. He describes fleeing Kraków during the German invasion in September 1939, life in Lwów (L’viv), deportation to a Soviet labor camp in the Ural Mountains in June 1940, forestry work, the “amnesty” of deported Polish citizens, relocation to Tashkent, work at a forge on a kolkhoz, mobilization in the Polish Army in March 1942, separation from his wife and son, and travel by sea from Krasnovodsk to Iran and then by foot to Palestine. He then began regular diary updates in the summer of 1942 describing daily activities, two months in Egypt, missing his wife and son, his joy on learning they had arrived in Teheran, relocating to Iraq, finally receiving his first letter from his wife in January 1943, and his joy on learning his wife and child had arrived in Palestine. The diaries are in Polish, and the last entry is dated September 4, 1943. Itzhak Nachmani was born Ignacy Krzepicki in Krakow, Poland, in 1909. Following the German invasion of Poland in September 1939, Krzepicki and his brother Adolf escaped to Lwów, which was then occupied by the Soviets. His wife Pola and their son Aleksy (Alec) joined Ignacy in November 1939. In 1940 the family was deported to a forced labor camp in the Ural Mountains. After captured Poles were “amnestied” following the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, the family travelled to a kolkhoz near Tashkent. Ignacy joined the Polish Army of General Władysław Anders and was stationed in Egypt, Iraq, and Palestine. Pola and Alec made their way to Teheran and then Palestine where Ignacy rejoined them following his military service. He changed his name to Itzhak Nachmani, and remained in Israel.