Beth Jacob School. Memory Book

(HOLOCAUST).

Vilna-Shanghai

1941-1946

Hebrew, Yiddish, Polish and English manuscript on paper. Stamp of Beth Jacob school of Shanghai on front free endpaper

A poignant Memory Book, belonging to Chana-Dina Fraidin (née Rudnitzki), inscribed by her classmates at the Beth Jacob Schools in Vilna and later, Shanghai. The students who hailed from Lithuanian towns including Vilna, Brisk, Kolna, Pinsk Mir and Warsaw inscribe their farewell wishes to their classmate who was leaving Vilna, having found passage for Shanghai (and later, Israel). Inevitably, most of these students would disappear into the fog of the Shoah Fraidin added a personal post-script in Yiddish stating that this Memory Book brings back memories of days that are gone, ”...my girlfriends and classmates who shared my pain and joy, who knows if I will ever see you again...My shtetl, my warm home...everything is gone as if in a dream...oh, how I yearn for you...this Memory Book reminds me.” Fraidin married in Shanghai and founded the Beth Jacob school there. She emigrated to Israel and became a leading educator in B’nei Braq. WITH: i. Photograph Album containing 39 pictures of family and friends from before the war, dated Kamemitz 1937, Korbin 1939 and Shanghai 1943. ii. Lealiyath Ner Tamid. A Testemonial, issued in the memory of Chana-Dina Freidin by her students, following her death in 1991. Together, three items