Rysia Edelman papers

Rysia Edelman (1026-2003) was born in Tomaszów Mazowiecki, Poland, to Abram and Mindla Frenkel. In September 1939, the Germans occupied the city and herded the Jewish residents in a ghetto in 1940. During the war, she was imprisoned in several camps including Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen. Near the end of the war, they were evacuated in cattle cars. At one of the stations, the trains were under fire from the Americans who did not realize there were Jewish prisoners on the train. Several of the surviving women escaped and found a hospital that was liberated by the Soviets several days later. After the war, Rysia and her mother traveled back to Poland to find surviving family. They settled in Łódź, Poland, which is where she met Salomon Edelman. She married Salomon on May 28, 1946 and had two children, Abram and Irv Edelman. The family immigrated to the United States in 1949, settled first in Buffalo, New York, and later moved to the Los Angeles area. Rysia received her Bachelors in Psychology from Californian State University at the age of 67. The Rysia Edelman papers consist of identification papers issued to Mindla Frenkel and Salomon Edelman; photographs of Edelman family members and friends in a displaced persons camp in Fürth, Germany; and a 4 page testimony recounting Rysia’s experiences under the German occupation of Tomaszów Mazowiecki and as a forced laborer in Pionki, Auschwitz, Bergen-Belsen, and other camps.