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May Elizabeth Margosches Collection
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After her deportation to the Theresienstadt ghetto in Czechoslovakia, Helene Reik yearned to record what was happening to her. So, she wrote in the margins of photos and letters she’d kept. Helene’s makeshift diary offers wistful memories of her husband and parents who died before the war…loving thoughts of her family who had left Europe in 1939…and a firsthand account of the illness and hospitalization that ultimately led to her death.
About the artifacts
After her deportation to the Theresienstadt ghetto in Czechoslovakia, Helene Reik yearned to record what was happening to her. So, she wrote in the margins of photos and letters she’d kept. Helene’s makeshift diary offers wistful memories of her husband and parents who died before the war…loving thoughts of her family who had left Europe in 1939…and a firsthand account of the illness and hospitalization that ultimately led to her death.

Credits: Because resources were scarce in the Theresienstadt ghetto, Helene Reik recorded her thoughts, recollections, and diary entries in the margins and on the backs of family pictures that she had brought with her, as well as postcards and letters she received while in the ghetto. USHMM, gift of Elizabeth Margosches.

Links
THERESIENSTADT GHETTO
(Holocaust Encyclopedia article)

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