Abram Pukacz papers

The Abram Pukacz papers consist of correspondence and photographs documenting Abram and his family from Łask, Poland. The letters were written by Abram to his cousin in Tel Aviv shortly after World War II, and describe the loss of his family in the Holocaust, his loneliness, and his impatience to immigrate to Palestine. Photographs depict Pukacz family members and family home in Łask before the Holocaust, Abram and other young people in the Bergen Belsen displaced persons camp, and the Ayanot agricultural school in Israel. Ayanot photographs include a picture of David Ben-Gurion and other officials at the opening of the Ayanot school and a picture of Vera Weizmann and Eleanor Roosevelt visiting in 1955. Abram Pukacz was born in 1926 in Łask, Poland, to baker Eliezer Luzer (Lajzer) Pukacz (b. 1901) and Ruda Janasewicz Pukacz (b. 1897). Following the German invasion, Abram’s family was forced to work in the Łask ghetto. In 1940 his father was sent to perform forced labor and is believed to have been murdered at Auschwitz. When the Łask ghetto was liquidated in 1942, Abram and his sister, Ester, were sent to the Łódź ghetto while the rest of their family was sent to Chełmno and murdered. Abram and Ester were deported to Auschwitz in 1944, and Ester was shortly transferred to Stutthof and perished. In October 1944, Abram was transferred to the Fürstengrube coal mine. He survived a death march to Nordhausen in January 1945 and was evacuated to Bergen Belsen in April. He remained in the Bergen-Belsen displaced persons camp for two years, moved to Palestine in April 1947, and was placed in the Ayanot agricultural school, where he remained until 2000.