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Summary for Alexander and Gina Dimant Fonds

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Summary for Alexander and Gina Dimant Fonds VHEC ARCHIVES FINDING AID Generated: 09/26/2021 at 13:34:14 FONDS/COLLECTION TITLE Alexander and Gina Dimant fonds IDENTIFIER RA016 EXTENT & MEDIUM 11.7 cm of textual records 4 postcards 72 photographs : prints ; black and white, colour 7 coins 2 bank notes 2 thimbles : silver, glass 1 pane (20 postage stamps) DATE [1920?]–2019 CREATOR Dimant family ADMINISTRATIVE/BIOGRAPHICAL HISTORY The Dimants were a Jewish family from Warsaw, Poland. Alexander Dimant (birth name Szaja Dymant, b. September 17, 1922, in Warsaw, Poland, d. March 9, 1998 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada) was born to Izrael Dymant and Fajga Szrajbaum. Alexander, who was also known as Sasha and Aleksander, had three siblings: Nahama Goldman (birth name Chumcia Dymant), Jakub Dymant and Szlomo Dymant. The Dimants lived on Mi?a Street in Warsaw’s Jewish Quarter. Shortly after the Germans invaded Poland in September 1939, Alexander and his friend Leon walked from Warsaw to Brest-Litovsk (now Brest, Belarus), where the Red Army was accepting refugees into the Soviet Union. From there, they moved to Bia?ystok, where Alexander pursued a factory school apprenticeship. In 1941, he went to Makhachkala, the present-day capital of the Republic of Dagestan, Russia. There, he was reunited with his brother, Jakub. In the spring of 1941, Jakub was accused of anti-Soviet agitation and imprisoned. Alexander did not see him again until 1946, when Jakub was released. Alexander was mobilized into the labour army in 1942, working on oil pipeline construction alongside many other refugees between Astrakhan and Stalingrad, now Volgograd, Russia. Labeled by Soviet authorities “unreliable” for fleeing Poland after the German invasion, he was sent to build a bypass channel from the Baydayevka River, in the region of Kabardino-Balkariya. After the Second World War, in 1946, he was allowed to leave the USSR and was brought by train to Szczecin, Poland. His entire immediate family except for his brother Jakub perished in the Holocaust. Gina Dimant, also known as Longina (birth name Hinda Wejgsman, b. January 11, 1926, in Warsaw, Poland) was Permalink: https://collections.vhec.org/Detail/collections/698 born to Abram Wejgsman and Dora Grinblat. She had a younger sister, Lina Wejgsman (b. January 2, 1937 in Warsaw, Poland; d. June 10, 2016, in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada), who worked many years as a radio announcer in Szczecin before moving to Canada. In September 1939, the Wejgsman family left their home in Pelcowizna, a suburb of Warsaw. They went to the Soviet border by train and by foot, staying for a time in Biešankovi?y, Belarus. At the border of the USSR, the guards registered Hinda’s name as Gina. In December 1939, the family was transported to Leninogorsk, now Ridder, Kazakhstan. The journey took six weeks, and the family arrived in January 1940. In Leninogorsk, Gina worked at the brick factory, the timber mill and finally in the cinema of the local House of Culture. She married Jan (surname unknown), a Polish Jewish hairdresser, in January 1946 and shortly after returned to Poland. Crossing the Polish border, Gina’s name was changed to Longina, because the name Gina did not appear in the official Polish list of first names. Jan and Gina settled in Szczecin. Their son, Saul Seweryn Dimant, also known as Salek, was born February 1, 1947. Gina and Jan divorced in 1948. Gina met Alexander at the Jewish Centre in Szczecin and the two married in 1952. Alexander graduated with a Master of Economics from the Economics Department of the Polytechnic in Szczecin and worked as Director of Retail Trade in the municipal government. Gina worked in health care. In 1968 Salek was arrested after attending an anti- government meeting at Szczecin University. Around this time, tensions were growing between the Polish government and Polish Jews, and the Dimant family left Poland in September 1969 after their citizenship was revoked. They stayed in Vienna, Austria, and then in Rome, Italy, for almost one year, supported by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee. Alexander and Gina immigrated to Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, in August 1970. In Vancouver, Alexander opened an accounting firm and Gina worked in the Finance Department of the University of British Columbia from 1973 to retirement. Salek followed his parents in 1971 and worked as a taxi driver and businessman. Salek married Rosalie Neuwirth (b. March 27, 1950, Vancouver; d. May 20, 2016, in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada) in Vancouver in 1974. Their two children are Henry “Dov” Dimant and Sally Dimant. Gina and Alexander became actively involved with Holocaust remembrance activities in Vancouver. In 1993 Alexander traveled to Poland to participate in the fiftieth anniversary of the Warsaw ghetto uprising. In 1996, he was involved in preparations for The Warsaw Ghetto: A Pictorial Remembrance exhibition at the VHEC (April 18 to June 7, 1996). Gina was a co-founding member of the Janusz Korczak Association of Canada. On May 3, 2013, she was awarded the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland for her efforts in strengthening cordial relationships between Poles and Jews. Alexander died March 9, 1998, in Vancouver. Saul died May 1, 2002 in Vancouver. Gina lives in Vancouver. SCOPE & CONTENT Fonds is comprised of correspondence, photographs, identity and personal documents, society registration documents, minutes, clippings, memorabilia and ephemera created or collected by Alexander and Gina Dimant in Poland, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), Italy and Canada. Records pertain to their family history, work, school, and social and volunteer activities prior to and after the Second World War. Records have been arranged into the following series: Correspondence (1941–2019), Photographs ([1920?]–[2016], Personal records (1938–2013), Artefacts (1940–[before 1948], 1997), Clippings and ephemera ([after 1942]–2019) and Janusz Korczak Association of Canada records (2001–2008). ARCHIVAL HISTORY Currency was purchased by Alexander Dimant in Warsaw after the war and donated to the VHEC. Some photographs Permalink: https://collections.vhec.org/Detail/collections/698 were kept by an uncle of Alexander’s who fled Europe to Cairo, and eventually returned them to the Dimants in Vancouver. Textual records, artefacts and photographs were kept by Gina and Alexander Dimant until Alexander’s death in 1998, after which they were in the sole custody of Gina Dimant. Records were donated to the VHEC in several accessions in 1996, 2000, 2002, 2014, 2018 and 2019. IMMEDIATE SOURCE OF ACQUISITION OR TRANSFER Records were donated by Alexander Dimant in 1996 and by Gina Dimant in 2000, 2002, 2014, 2018 and 2019. ACCRUALS Further accruals are not expected. LANGUAGE English, French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Polish, Russian NOTE Not all items in this collection have been digitized or described. Some records were digitized and scans used as representative media representations of collection- and series-level descriptions. Consult the archivist for more information. SYSTEM OF ARRANGEMENT Fonds is arranged into six series by the archivist. RIGHTS Materials available for research and education purposes only. Permission to publish, copy or otherwise use these materials must be obtained from the VHEC. RULES OR CONVENTIONS ISAD(G) informed by RAD. ARCHIVIST'S NOTE Finding aid prepared by Lorenzo Camerini in November 2018. Revised in February 2019 by Shyla Seller and April 2019 by Lorenzo Camerini. Reviewed by Gina Dimant and corrections input in August 2019. DATE OF DESCRIPTION 2019 Collection Contents Correspondence series (RA016-01) Series consists of correspondence received by Alexander and Gina Dimant in Russia and Canada. Series has been arranged into three sub-series: Postcards from the Warsaw ghetto (1941); Maryla Zalesjka-Komar correspondence (1994–1999) and Miscellaneous correspondence (1989–2019). Postcards from the Warsaw ghetto (RA016-01-01) Sub-series consists of four postcards sent to Alexander Dimant while he lived in Makhachkala, Russia, from his parents Permalink: https://collections.vhec.org/Detail/collections/698 Izrael Dimant and Fajga Szrajbaum in the Warsaw ghetto. Postcards have a Judenrat (Jewish Council) stamp, a General Government stamp and a Makhachkala stamp. Postcards describe living conditions and the lives of friends and family from the Warsaw ghetto. Postcards represent the last communication Alexander received from his parents, who were sent to Treblinka and perished in the Holocaust. Maryla Zalejska-Komar correspondence (RA016-01-02) Sub-series is comprised of seventeen letters written from Holocaust survivor Maryla Zalejska-Komar in Warsaw to Alexander and Gina Dimant in Vancouver. Letters cover subjects such as the letter-writer’s memories of the Warsaw ghetto and personal information about her life and family. Miscellaneous correspondence (RA016-01-03) Sub-series is comprised of correspondence received by Alexander and Gina Dimant; letters document their fundraising, exhibition and event planning, education and advocacy work. Correspondents include the Canadian Society for Yad Vashem, the Jewish Historical Institute in Poland, the Canadian Jewish Congress, Sol Littman, Slawa Przybylska and the Consul General of the Republic of Poland. Photographs series (RA016-02) Series consists of photographs of the Dimant and Wejgsman families taken before the Holocaust in the Warsaw ghetto, in Poland and in Siberia during the Second World War, and photographs of Gina and Alexander and their family and friends after they settled in Vancouver. Series is arranged into three sub-series: Dimant family photographs ([1928 or 1929]–[circa 2004]), Wejgsman family photographs ([1920?]–[2016]) and Alexander and Gina Dimant photographs (1948–2013). Dimant family photographs (RA016-02-01) Sub-series consists of photographs of Alexander Dimant’s parents and relatives before the Second World War, photographs of his family’s grave in a Warsaw cemetery as well as two photographs of Alexander with friends in Siberia and Szczecin. Wejgsman family photographs (RA016-02-02) Sub-series consists of photographs of Gina Dimant’s family and friends taken before and after the Second World War, and photographs from Gina’s visits to Poland.
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