Gertrude Jorisch papers

Gertrude (Gussie) Jorisch (1923- ) was born Gusta Wechsler in Skałat, Poland (now Skalat, Ukraine) to Joseph and Pepa Wechsler. In October 1942, most of her family was rounded up, deported to Belzec and killed. Gertrude escaped deportation by hiding in a closet. She was forced into the Skałat ghetto and ended up in the Skałat labor camp with her boyfriend, Martin Jorisch, and her father. They escaped the labor camp and survived in the forest until liberation. Gertrude and Martin were married in Skałat and hitchhiked to the displaced persons camp at Deggendorf with Joseph, who later moved to Canada. The couple had their first child, Henry, at Deggendorf and immigrated to the United States in 1949. The Gertrude Jorisch papers consist of a partial list of victims from Skałat, Poland (now Скалат, Ukraine); Gertrude Jorisch’s 13 page memoir about her prewar life in Skałat, the deportation of her family to Belzec, her time in the Skałat ghetto and labor camp and hiding in the forest, and postwar antisemitism in Skalat; and photographs of herself, her father, her husband, and other Holocaust survivors at the displaced persons camp at Deggendorf.