Hancock Bank Presents Highlights from our Permanent Collection

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This exhibit tells the story of Erich and Malvine Rosengarten (née Langberg). Erich grew up in a small town in Germany and was interned at Buchenwald Concentration Camp after Kristallnacht, and Malvine grew up in Austria. Both escaped to Shanghai with their families when they were only teenagers. There they met and eventually married. The exhibit outlines their lives before the war, through their experience in China and their eventual emigration to the US.

The collection was recently donated by Susan Fader (née Rosengarten), the daughter of Erich and Malvine. Incredible artifacts like her parents’ Chinese marriage certificate, pre-war objects, documents that aided the couple in their escape to Shanghai from Nazi occupied Europe, and objects from the Jewish ghetto are on display.

“China was the only place left that accepted people without visas,” said Fader. After Fader’s parents arrived, the Japanese put refugees and locals together in ghettos. When the British came to the rescue and the war ended, the couple married in Shanghai so they could relocate to the United States together.

The “Hancock Bank Presents Highlights from our Permanent Collection” Rosengarten artifacts will be on display on the Museum’s third floor through February 28, 2015.