Postcard from Deborah Lifchitz

Authors

Object ID

2014.1.104

Object Name

Postcard

Date

11-22-1939

Files

Content Warning

The Bulmash Family Holocaust Collection consists of images, documents, and artifacts related to the Holocaust. The collection contains materials that depict a number of topics that may be difficult for viewers to engage with, including: antisemitic descriptions, caricatures, and representation of Jewish people; Nazi imagery and ideology; descriptions and images of German ghettos; graphic images of the violence of the Holocaust; and the creation of the State of Israel. For more information, see our policy page.

Description

Front: Tan postcard with printed blue postcard lines, including a message and address written in purple ink. Above the message are five postage stamps of varying colors, as well as several hand stamps.Back: Message continues in purple ink.

Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash:

Deborah (Deba) Lifchitz was a French Jewish linguist, a student of Oriental languages, and expert on the Semitic languages of Ethiopia. She worked at the Musée de l’Homme in Paris in the Africa Department. She authored important works on the Ethiopian language. Born in Russia, Deba obtained French citizenship in 1937. With the Nazi occupation of France, she lost her position at the museum. Though taken in by writer and ethnologist Michel Leiris, Deborah was eventually arrested by the French police, sent to a French internment camp, and deported to Auschwitz where she was murdered in 1943.

Deborah (Deba) Lifchitz. 1939 French 70C. post card airmailed from Paris 23.11.1939 by Deba to her mother Henrietta Lifchitz, Hadera, Palestine. Message in French handwritten to her, addressed in Hebrew and written two-and-a-half months after the outbreak of WWII: "My dear ones, Your postcard received, I am pleased to learn that you also got my postcards even though it was delayed. The Tubman's are also here, you may write to them at the address. How is mother? How are you? How do you feel? And your work? Lately we are very busy at the museum in preparation of several exhibition halls, especially the Salle de L'Afrique. Very fortunately the opening is tomorrow and I will be able to return to my work... I embrace you and send my love, yours Deba." Her return address is given as "Musée de L'Homme." Hexagonal Palestine censor mark.

[Related item: 2014.1.105]

Dimensions

4 x 6"

Keywords

Lifschitz

Subcollection

Concentration, Personal

Recommended Citation

"Postcard from Deborah Lifchitz" (1939). Bulmash Family Holocaust Collection. 2014.1.104.
https://digital.kenyon.edu/bulmash/396