Nazi Holocaust victims’ heartbreaking letters to loved ones they’d never see again emerge

We Shall Meet Again – Last Letters from the Holocaust is an online exhibition staged by the Yad Vashem World Holocaust Memorial memorial in Jerusalem.

The centre holds thousands of missives from the doomed and will regularly publish more and more of them over the coming months.

“This is the first in a series of online exhibitions about last letters whose writers were all murdered in the Holocaust,” said a Yad Vashem spokesman.

“The letters presented in this exhibition were sent from Poland, Latvia, France, Austria, Ukraine, Yugoslavia and Romania. Some letters were sent to destinations outside Europe, and thus survived. Each letter, missive and postcard reveals to us the inner world and fate of Jews in the Holocaust.

“For many recipients, these were the last greetings from the home and family that they had left behind. Parting with these letters was wrenching; these were the last messages from their loved ones, which they ultimately chose to give to Yad Vashem for posterity.”

Yaacov Schwartz, a member of a Jewish youth movement in Sosnowiec, Poland, wrote these words in his last letter to his sister, Rachel: “It is a pity that I cannot be with you now, and I am even more upset that once again you are going off into the wide world without me.”

Yaacov was sent by the youth movement to Lvov, and vanished without a trace.

In 1941, Rachel obtained an immigration certificate. She emigrated to Palestine but most of her family were murdered in the Nazi death camp gulag.

Her brother went on to say: “The Japanese say ‘Keep the sweetest for last’, meaning you are my sweetest now. I gaze at your photograph and I don’t recognise you. I read your letters, and feel as though someone else is writing them, someone mature and serious, not the little girl I left at home.

“I don’t want to even consider the idea that your plans will go awry. I know that that would be a great blow. But remember that even if they do, you should accept the situation gracefully. You know, after all, that this stormy war raging in the world has overturned many people’s plans. “

Another is the last letter from a wife to her partisan husband: “You too must be strong and patient. One day this too will come to an end… I am writing this just in case I don’t survive, but I have a feeling that we will see each other again.

“Today or tomorrow, I shall be taken to the camp. May God help me to overcome this too. I have suffered greatly, but survived because I believed in the good Lord, and because my great love for you, Mutzek, gave me strength.”

Regina Kandt wrote these words to her husband Maximilian and her son Rudy, before she was deported from Belgrade to her death together with her grandson Sasha and her daughter-in-law Eva.

Letters from children about to become Holocaust victims are among the most poignant on display.

Edik sent to his parents, Klara Mittelman and Lazer Tonkonogi, from Satanov, Ukraine. in 1941, this letter:

“Dear Mummy and Daddy,

Today it has been raining all day.

I am playing with Vitya and Grisha.

I kiss and hug both of you very tight,

Yours, Edik”

His father was in the Red Army, his mother evacuated with a Russian theatre troupe to Tashkent. When the Nazis arrived in Satanov, nearly all the Jews, including Edik, were murdered. Only six survived the war.

The last letter that Perla Tytelman, her son Samuel and her daughter Rega sent from the Warsaw ghetto to their parents in Siberia reads: “I am drawing on all my strength in order to survive for you. But you, my beloved ones, have to prove your bravery, you have to prove that you are capable of overcoming this undeserved punishment and the wanderings with strength and dignity.

“You should be consoled by the thought that this has to end sometime, and that then we will once again be happy together. Our yearning for each other knows no bounds.”

All three died in the ghetto.

• World Holocaust Day on January 27 – the day day 73 years ago that Red Army soldiers liberated the death camp of Auschwitz in occupied Poland – will see thousands of events across the globe to honour the six million who died in the Final Solution and other victims of genocide since then.