Wedding photograph of Jack and Nita Meister
InventarnummerM2023/054
TitelWedding photograph of Jack and Nita Meister
BeschreibungBlack and white photograph of Icek (Jack) and Nita Kapelmeister's wedding at the Maccabean Hall, 3 January 1951.
Jack was born in Kielce, Poland in 1928. He was 11 years old when the Nazi's occupation began and his childhood and education ended. In 1941, his family was sent to the Kielce ghetto. As a strong, able bodied 13 year old, Jack was put to work helping on building sites, cleaning sewers and removing headstones from Jewish graves to reuse as footpaths. When the ghetto was liquidated in 1942, Jack was at work; he returned to find his family gone. To this day, he does not know what happened to them. Jack was transported to Radom labour camp and year later to Auschwitz where he was tattooed with number B488, he was then sent to Buna concentration camp. Surviving a march to Buchenwald in late 1944, Jack was liberated at the camp by American troops in April 1945. Following liberation, he recovered at an orthodox Jewish home for children in Basel, Switzerland where he learned his future trade of leatherwork. He immigrated to Australia in 1949.
Arriving without friends and families, Jack and many other survivors built their communities in the Maccabean Hall, Darlinghurst, which saw many dances, family events, and meet-cutes. 'We came dancing every Sunday night. It gave me a start to my life,' Jack reflects. Jack met Nita and they married in the very space they met in 1951. The couple were married 63 years and had one daughter.
Jack was born in Kielce, Poland in 1928. He was 11 years old when the Nazi's occupation began and his childhood and education ended. In 1941, his family was sent to the Kielce ghetto. As a strong, able bodied 13 year old, Jack was put to work helping on building sites, cleaning sewers and removing headstones from Jewish graves to reuse as footpaths. When the ghetto was liquidated in 1942, Jack was at work; he returned to find his family gone. To this day, he does not know what happened to them. Jack was transported to Radom labour camp and year later to Auschwitz where he was tattooed with number B488, he was then sent to Buna concentration camp. Surviving a march to Buchenwald in late 1944, Jack was liberated at the camp by American troops in April 1945. Following liberation, he recovered at an orthodox Jewish home for children in Basel, Switzerland where he learned his future trade of leatherwork. He immigrated to Australia in 1949.
Arriving without friends and families, Jack and many other survivors built their communities in the Maccabean Hall, Darlinghurst, which saw many dances, family events, and meet-cutes. 'We came dancing every Sunday night. It gave me a start to my life,' Jack reflects. Jack met Nita and they married in the very space they met in 1951. The couple were married 63 years and had one daughter.
EntstehungsortSydney, New South Wales, Australia
Datum 1951
Schlagwortwedding, wedding receptions, Maccabean Hall, survivors, establishing new life
Objektbezeichnungphotographs
Materialpaper
Format
- height: 89.00 mm
width: 139.00 mm
Credit lineSydney Jewish Museum Collection, donated by Jack Meister