Dating back to around 1948, the photograph shows Salomon Kupperman in front of the Birkenau gate, the former Nazi German concentration and extermination camp. Before WW2, Salomon Kupperman was part of the World Zionist Labour Party Hitahdut (Hebrew: unity). With the outbreak of the war, alongside his brother, he headed eastwards, reached the Soviet Union, and spent the wartime in Syberia and Uzbekistan. After the war, Salomon returned to his hometown of Oświęcim and married Regina Grünbaum, whom he met before the war, when she was an activist involved in Akiba, a Zionist youth organisation. During the war, she was relocated to Sosnowiec, and then sent to a number of Nazi German camps: Annaberg, Gross Rosen, Mauthausen, and eventually Bergen-Belsen, from which she was liberated. After their return to Oświęcim, Regina and Salomon were actively involved in the rebuilding of the local Jewish life, working with a number of organisations and supporting the recently developed structures of postwar life. Their Jewish wedding took place in 1948 in Wałbrzych, followed by a civil one in Oświęcim a year later. The Kuppermans resided at 1 Parkowa Street in Oświęcim. Salomon worked in the Chemical Plant in the town as an office clerk. Their daughter Elinka, courtesy of whom the present photograph is on display, was born in 1949. She attended a local primary school, named after Jadwiga of Poland, a late-fourteenth century Queen of Poland. In 1962, the Kupperman family decided to leave for Israel. First, they reached Italy, and then they travelled by sea to Haifa. Finally, they settled in Holon. Once in Israel, they did not forget about their hometown, working in an association made up of former residents of Oświęcim (Irgun Jocej Oświęcim). Salomon was its treasurer. They also cultivated close relationships with their Oświęcim-based friends, including Jadwiga Marciniak. Marciniak was also the teacher of their daughter Elinka and both exchanged letters for years. To this day, Elinka Shaked (married name) visits her hometown.
