Lenka Koen and family

This is my grandmother's sister, Lenka Koen and her family. She is seated next to her husband Josip Koen. Their four children are also pictured. In the front is Rahela, Aunt Elica. Next to Josip is Maci, in the back on the left is Isak and on the right is Marko. They are pictured in their apartment at Gospodar Jovanova 27 in Belgrade.

I think that "Red Isak" - we called him that because he had red hair - was a medical student. Rahela was younger. She married right before the beginning of the war. Maybe she was ten or twenty years older than my sister and I.

They were all killed during the war. Her husband was taken away with my granduncle Jakov Kalef and killed among the first of the adult Jews killed in Belgrade. Elica was transported from Belgrade with her new born baby. Since she knew she was going to die she threw her baby, Avram, out the train window, with the hope that someone would rescue the baby. I learned this story from my mother and she heard it from a survivor whose name my mother never told me.

Photos from this interviewee