by the Jews of the Lodz Ghetto.
Like Mr. Shafir, Arnold Shay
of Farmington Hills and Flori-
;= da is a member of the local Is-
rael Numismatic Society, where
the two men met. A survivor of
Auschwitz and Dachau, he
Poland, died in the Holocaust.
"My father had three broth-
ers and four sisters," he says.
"None survived. All my moth-
er's family was killed.
"There are some rumors that
a nephew escaped — his chil-
/—"
Huge Discounts on our Entire Stock of
Fine Gifts • Accessories • Collectibles
The Shafirs
•
•
•
•
owned the collection of Lodz
Ghetto drawings that Mr.
Shafir coveted, and ultimately
purchased.
In the 1960s, Mr. Shay wrote
an article about how mail func-
tioned in and out of the ghettos
of World War II. It was pub-
lished in a numismatic maga-
zine. To his surprise, he
received letters from around the
world after the article appeared.
One of these mentioned the dis-
covery of a number of drawings
made by Jews in the ghettos.
Mr. Shay has been collecting
the art ever since.
Mr. Shay, who has secured a
Polish authorities
built makeshift
homes over the
ghetto.
number of drawings for the Si-
mon Wiesenthal Center, says
he sells little of the artwork.
Those pieces he does offer to
buyers, he says, are sold only
for what his sources in Poland
require; "I'm not about to make
money on it."
He has no doubts that the
drawings are authentic, he
added. "I can spot a fake."
Mr. Shay labeled remarkable
the collection Mr. Shafir pur-
chased. "Any museum would
give its right arm to get it," he
says. Someday, a museum will.
Mr. Shafir plans one day to
donate the collection to a
museum. He knows first-
hand how valuable it is: Much
of his own family, natives of
dren may be in South America
— but I have no names, no way
to find out."
Mr. Shafir's parents, Yisrael
Yitzhak and Michla Lipshitz,
immigrated to Palestine before
the war. An ardent Zionist, Yis-
rael worked as an iron bender.
Soon before World War II,
Yisrael returned to Poland in
an effort to straighten out some
family business. The Nazis
caught him and sent him to a
concentration camp.
His father survived, Mr.
Shafir believes, only because he
held a British passport. (Before
Israel was declared a state,
Palestine was under the British
mandate and its residents car-
ried British passports.)
Yisrael Yitzhak lived, but he
returned to Israel "a broken-up
man," his son says. "He didn't
live much longer after the war."
Mr. Shafir for years has been
collecting relics of the catastro-
phe that nearly annihilated his
family and the entire Jewish
community of Europe.
In addition to the drawings,
he owns yellow stars the Nazis
forced the Jews to wear, and
postcards sent out of Buchen-
wald. One card bears a large
dash of blue across the message.
Censors, Mr. Shafir explained,
used a special dye to see if the
postcard contained any mes-
sage in invisible ink.
Until they find their way to
a museum, the Lodz Ghetto
drawings are Mr. Shafir's alone
— and he considers himself a
lucky man.
"This is one of the few things
you just don't come across very
often," he says. "I'm fortunate
to be able to own it."
❑
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