#StolenMemory
The exhibition also features two personal items on loan from the International Tracing Service in Bad Arolsen; earrings and a pocket watch belonging to Ilona Lencse and Emil Glass respectively, which were confiscated on their arrival at Neuengamme concentration camp.
Emil Glass (1896 – death unknown) was a Hungarian Jew who was given Neuengamme prisoner number 65210. While Glass has not been assigned a Tracing and Documentation number, indicating that the ITS has received no enquiries about him, Ilona Lencse (1923 - 2012) was liberated from Salzwedel (a subcamp of Neuengamme) in April 1945. She wrote to the ITS in 1999 to request documents about her persecution; however, the return of personal items was not prioritised under the ITS’ administration at this time and her earrings were not returned.
Personal items like these are often the last tangible evidence of an individual’s life, and while have no significant material value, possess great emotional significance for the relatives of the original owners. The Wiener Library hopes that the exhibition will expose the ongoing search for descendants to even wider audiences, and raise awareness of the ITS’ active mission to reunited families and objects via its #StolenMemory campaign.
'Fate Unknown: The Search for the Missing after the Holocaust' runs until 30 May 2018 and has been created with the support of the Royal Holloway Research Strategy Fund, the Leverhulme Trust, the International Tracing Service and the German History Society.
For more information about the exhibition and the accompanying programme of evening events please visit this link.