Grayzel Digital Platform

Miriam writes to her aunt Rebecca, worrying about the condition of her sister Sara and her sick child. She also updates her on the travels and health of family and friends.

A pink Valentine's Day greeting card featuring a large white heart in the center. The top of the card has the printed text "happy valentine's day". Inside the heart, a handwritten message in dark ink reads "Dearest Elie, You're always my Valentine!" and is signed "Oprah". The card expresses a personal message of enduring affection for Valentine's Day.

Abram Shnaper was born in Vilna, Poland May 15, 1918. His detailed testimony includes pre-ghetto life under the Russians (including antisemitic attacks by Lithuanian and Polish right wing armed gangs), restrictions placed once the Germans invaded, life within the ghettoes and his deportation to several labor camps.

Mr. Shnaper had a traditional Jewish upbringing. He was educated at a Tarbut school and was a very active member of Hashomer Hatzair youth group. Mr. Shnaper and his family were moved to the Vilna Ghetto in 1941 and he describes the move, conditions and labor assignments. Mr. Shnaper’s testimony regarding life in the ghetto includes explanations of the role of Ponary Forest, a place of execution by the Germans and of underground activities by the FareyngtePartizannesOrganizatsye/United Partisans Organization (FPO). He also describes Jacob Gens, the Judenrat and Salek Desler, chief of police. Mr. Shnaper provides a firsthand account of the confrontation between Gens and Yitzhak Wittenberg and the eventual surrender and execution of Wittenberg. He also recounts episodes from his work with the resistance and Abba Kovner’s efforts to save individuals.

Mr. Shnaper eventually landed in Vaivara, a camp in Estonia and was also deported to several other camps. In April 1944, Mr. Shnaper was forced on a death march to Klooga, also in Estonia. He describes four German soldiers who helped him at various times and to whom he attributes his survival. Anticipating the end of the war, Mr. Shnaper hid and observed the German guards as they destroyed the camp, including chasing inmates into fires where they burnt to death.

Upon liberation, Mr. Shnaper returned to Vilna and reunited with Abba Kovner. Money was being sent from the American Joint Committee to bring survivors to Vilna. During this time, Mr. Shnaper worked as a bookbinder who sewed money into book bindings to be passed onto others, and organized forged passports and other papers needed to assist people in leaving Europe. Moving to Warsaw, Mr. Shnaper spent three years assisting people to emigrate to Palestine. While there he met and married his wife who was from Warsaw. He comments that in 1946, the

Polish government permitted emigration to Palestine. From 1944-48, Mr. Shnaper worked with Brihah1, an underground movement.

Mr. Shnaper and his wife Luba eventually left Poland for the American Zone in Germany and lived in the Displaced Persons camp at Bergen-Belsen. He emigrated to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in the United States to get assistance for his daughter at Shriner's Hospital. In Philadelphia, he began organizing survivors into the Association of Jewish Holocaust Survivors and assisted in the erection of the first monument in the United States to the memory of the Holocaust, the Monument to the Six Million Jewish Martyrs sculpted by Nathan Rappaport, once a member of HaShomer Hatzair. Mr. Shnaper was also instrumental in establishing the Mordechai Anielewicz contest, open to students to express through the arts their commentary on the Holocaust.

See also his 1981 interview in Yiddish with Nora Levin and his wife, Luba Shnaper’s 1981 interview.