A Final Love Letter - Vilma's Letter in Memory & Action
Post date: May 29, 2013 11:15:39 PM
Vilma's heartbreaking final letter, written while she awaited her trip to the gas chambers in Auschwitz-Birkenau, was once again featured in a key publication of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. The Spring 2013 edition of the Museum's feature publication, Memory & Action, includes a two-page spread on the letter. This publication goes out to over 120,000 supporters and friends of the USHMM each Spring and Fall. This edition is actually the second edition of the new magazine and the Misa's Fugue team is excited to be a part of it.
The article cites Photo Archivist Judy Cohen who notes that, "the letter is the only artifact that she knows of that shows someone's state of mind as she was about to be killed." Cohen goes on to say, "she had the presence of mind to write to her husband and to worry about her younger child. I think that is what is really incredible."
The letter was donated last July, in addition to several photographs that were scanned and digitized for the Museum's collection. An additional donation was also made in February by Loy Beardsmore, the daughter of liberator, Albert Craig Levinson. The latter donation consisted of a testimony taken by Levinson about Kurt Grunwald's wartime experiences. The testimony echoes his late wife's concern over the fate of their youngest son and hopes for a reunion. It is the hope of the USHMM to display both documents in their Permanent Exhibition in the near future.
To read the article, please click on each scanned page below:
