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| Inmate of Piotrków Trybunalski Ghetto, Gershon Henoch, made this sofisticated pendant and gave it to his wife Frania as a gift. The pendant was crafted as a book with a photograph of Frania inside, and with her initials on outside. Frania Kessel had it with her in the Ravensbrück concentration camp and thereafter in Bergen-Belsen. |
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In December 1944, the family was separated, and its members deported from Piotrków Trybunalski to different concentration camps. Gershon Henoch was deported to Buchenwald, while Frania and five years old Sara were deported as prisoners number 162 and 163, to Ravensbrück where they were housed in a block for women and children.
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| Piotrków Trybunalski - Germans and the ghetto sign.. |
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| Piotrków Trybunalski ghetto map. |
In 1942 Gershon Henoch and Frania Kessel, together with their three-year-old daughter, Sara, and other members of the family were deported to the Piotrków Trybunalski ghetto where "Aktions"- brutal Nazi round-ups of Jews, starvation and disease were part of daily life. Despite the harsh conditions and the struggle to survive during this worse period, 1942-1943. Gershon Henoch managed to make a pendant to give to his wife as a present. The pendant was crafted as a book with a photograph of Frania inside, and was decorated with her initials.
In December 1944, the family was separated, and its members deported from Piotrków Trybunalski to different concentration camps. Gershon Henoch was deported to Buchenwald, while Frania and five years old Sara were deported as prisoners number 162 and 163, to Ravensbrück where they were housed in a block for women and children. Later, in 1945, Sara and Frania were transferred to the Bergen-Belsen camp. In the general chaos that reigned in the disease-ridden camp, mother and daughter waited to die together with thousands of other prisoners. Tragically, Frania Kessel died in May 1945, just three weeks after Bergen-Belsen was liberated, and six-year-old Sara was left alone armed with her mother's two possessions: a shirt painted with a large X and the little pendant.
Sara Kessel was eventually reunited with her grandmother and later discovered that her father had also survived, and all three immigrated to Israel.
