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Before the War: Lewins, Levins, and Others

 
This gallery features images of Bert and his family in Europe before the destruction of the Holocaust reduced the Jewish population of Europe by over 65%. Given the enormity of what was lost, every preserved photograph and memory is precious.


Selected examples of stationary used by Dovid Levin (Bert's paternal grandfather) in his suitcase and leather business in Kovno (Kaunas) Lithuania. Selections in Russian, Yiddish, Lithuanian, and German advertise for the business, founded 1891. Portrait card of one of Bert's uncles — possibly Gerson. Kovno, 1923 Postcard portrait of Bert's Aunt Chasia (Kovno, 1928) Portrait of Bert's Uncle Moses with his wife and son. Kovno, 1932 A portrait of Bert's Uncle Chapse, taken at a studio in Kovno, 1934. Chapse was one of the only other survivors in the Lewin family, he left Lithuania for Palestine not long after this photo was taken. One of Bert's uncles, possibly Chapse. Kovno. Family portrait of the Levins in Kovno, Lithuania. Not pictured are Bert’s parents Leopold and Johanna Lewin, who were living in Berlin, and his uncle Boris Levin, who was living in Moscow. FRONT ROW: Basva, Chana, Sarah, Mordecai, Dov-Berl. MIDDLE: Chave, Hirsh, Minne, Emanuel, Dovid, Benjamin, Riva. BACK: Chaim Tevye, Bluma, Gerson, Golda, Chapse, Chasia, Moses, Meier Gutman. This photograph was originally sent by Dovid Levin (Bert’s paternal grandfather, pictured center with beard) to Rabbi Tobias Geffen in Atlanta. This photo along with others was obtained from Rabbi Geffen’s archvies at the American-Jewish Historical Society in Waltham, Massachusetts. Of those pictured, the only survivors of the Holocaust were Benjamin, Riva, Dov-Berl, and Chapse. Bert at age 6 in Berlin, holding a "zuckerhut," a paper cone full of candies and chocolates, traditionally given to a child on their first day of school, to associate learning with sweetness and joy. Leslie Baruch Brent, Fred Gerstl, and Bert in soccer outfits, in the courtard of the Jüdisches Waisenhaus (Jewish Orphanage) in Pankow, Berlin. Approximately 1935, the boys would have been 13 here. After Jews were largely excluded from German public schools, the few private Jewish schools, like the one at this orphans' home, were the only options for Jewish children. Bert lived at the Waisenhaus from age eleven to fourteen, where he studied, made friends, and, on one occasion, hid from crowds of Hitler Youth, no older than the children in the orphanage, harrassing the Jews inside and attempting to break in. Bert had his Bar Mitzvah at age thirteen at the Waisenhaus. Leslie Brent (on the left) left Berlin on the first kindertransport to England and grew up to be part of the team that won the 1960 Nobel Prize for Medicine for the discovery of acquired immunological tolerance.