The Gutmans

From USHMM’s Instagram:

(Bela Milstein and Jacob Gutman wearing armbands in the Radom ghetto.)

 "She was my first and only love," reflected Jacob Gutman.

While confined in the Radom ghetto, Jacob spent every free moment he could with his then-girlfriend Bela Milstein.

Jacob, Bela, and their families were forced into the ghetto shortly after it was established in April 1941. “Poverty, hunger, and cold [were] widespread,” Jacob remembered. At one point, a typhus outbreak hospitalized Jacob’s entire household.

In spring 1943, Bela was transferred to the Blizyn labor camp. Despite the distance and the risk, Bela snuck letters and photos to Jacob via another inmate. The two photographs of Jacob and Bela in the ghetto are two of three Jacob carried with him through several forced labor and concentration camps.

(Bela Milstein and Jacob Gutman stand under a chuppa (wedding canopy) during their marriage ceremony in the Mittenwald displaced persons' camp.)

After Jacob was liberated in spring 1945, he began actively searching for Bela. He showed her photograph to fellow survivors with the plea, “If you ever see this girl, … tell her that I am alive in Germany.”

Bela eventually received Jacob’s message, and the couple reunited in the months that followed. Their wedding was held in the Mittenwald displaced persons camp in January 1946, and they immigrated to Canada in 1948.

“I consider myself to be a fortunate person for many reasons,” wrote Jacob. “The most important one was finding Bela after the liberation from the concentration camps. … Just thinking about her gave me the will and courage to survive the most difficult periods in the camps.”