Photographic postcard

Consists of a photographic postcard depicting Jewish men and boys, with armbands, seated with hands on their heads. Armed guards are visible in the background. The postcard was acquired by survivor Chaim Fuchs. Chaim, born 1923 in Krosniewice, Poland, was a survivor of Auschwitz and other camps. An inscription on the reverse of the postcard reads, "Bürkenau," though its relationship to the scene captured is unclear. Chaim Fuchs was born in 1923 in Krosniewice, Poland, to Jacob and Rebecca-Rachel (née Zakrewska) Fuchs. Chaim had three sisters, one of whom immigrated to Palestine. In 1941 Chaim was was arrested in the Krosniewice ghetto and taken for forced labor. By 1943 he was among 1000 Jewish men deported to Auschwitz. Chaim, an apprentice blacksmith, was among those who were selected for work upon arrival. In early 1945 Chaim was transferred from Auschwitz to Bergen-Belsen where he was liberated in April 1945. Neither Chaim's parents nor his sisters, Sara and Bela, survived the Holocaust. After the war Chaim wrote to his surviving sister in the hope to join her in Palestine. Before he was able to depart Europe, however, he lived for a time on a Kibbutz in Italy. Chaim was killed not long after his arrival in Palestine during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war.