Dora Borecki and her fiance

These are friends of my sister Rywa Yavnai, nee Weinryb. The woman's name was Dora Borecka, nee Luksemburg; I don't remember his first name. She was a member of the family of Szalom Luksemburg, Rywa's boy-friend. His surname was Borecki. They met in Zamosc. In 1928 they went to France. He studied engineering in Toulouse, where this picture was taken. They probably emigrated because in Poland it was very hard to study at university if you were a Jew. After World War I nationalist groupings in Poland lobbied for the introduction of the numerus clausus. The most radical groupings even demanded the introduction of the numerus nullus principle, i.e. a total ban on admittance to universities and certain professions. So in case you had relatively well off parents, you could afford studying abroad. And that's what Borecki did.

The Centropa Collection at USHMM

The Centropa archive has been acquired by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC. USHMM will soon offer a Special Collections page for Centropa.

Academics please note: USHMM can provide you with original language word-for-word transcripts and high resolution photographs. All publications should be credited: "From the Centropa Collection at the United States Memorial Museum in Washington, DC". 

Please contact collection [at] centropa.org (collection[at]centropa[dot]org).