Lewis Lax (Lutek Laks) Papers, 1939-1945 | Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust

This collection contains official documents, false identity papers, and a testimony of Lewis Lax. Lax was a Holocaust survivor from Poland who was also a partisan during the war, acting under false identity .

Lewis Lax (1939 -- 1945)

Lewis Lax was born in Belrzice, a small village in Poland, into a family with five brothers, two daughters, and two others who had passed away. Lax was living in a small town when the Germans invaded. Captured by the SS, he was interned at Majadnek. His job there was sorting the prisoners’ clothing and possessions. Lax used the jewelry and gold he was sorting to bribe a Russian guard. In exchange for a bag of jewelry, the guard delivered a letter to Lax’s girlfriend and her mother. The girlfriend approached the government of Chodel about Lax’s internment and the government arranged his release. Lax is one of the few men to survive Majdanek.

Lax returned to Lublin and was unable to find his family. Eventually, he found his mother was in the hospital after being shot and the rest were hiding out in the city ruins. Lax’s girlfriend’s mother supplied him with enough money to escape, and they took the train to Pulway, between Warsaw and Lublin. They then moved to Warsaw where some gentiles hid Lewis’ older brother, his girlfriend and her mother.

Lax went to the Catholic Church and his name was changed to Joseph Laskowski. He then joined the A.K (Armia Krajowa) also known as the Anderson Army, an underground, nationalistic party. The Gestapo eventually found Lax in his apartment and he was sent to Pawiak, an infamous political jail. He was interrogated and beaten for over three weeks. Lewis, along with a plumber and several men organized and built an escape route. After six weeks, they managed to escape through the pipes and water ducts. After escaping, Lax rejoined the underground and returned to Warsaw with the AK to fight the Nazis.

Organization: Documents, certificates

Language, German, Polish, English

Author: Staff

Acquisition of gold and valuables by survivors
Acting under false identity, Jewish survivors
aid and rescue in Poland, 1939 -- 1945
Aid in the Holocaust in exchange for money, 19133 -- 1945
Armed forces, Polish, 1918 --1939
Assuming false identity, Jewish survivors
Auxiliary police in Nazi-German concentration camps
Business activity under false identity, Jewish survivors
Chelm (Poland)
Chodel (Poland)
Collaboration of Jewish order police with German police and security forces in the ghettos
Collaboration with German administration
Commercialization of survival experience
Communications through the Warsaw Sewers, 1939 -- 1945
Conducting clandestine businesses under the German occupation by Jewish survivors
Documents in English language
Documents in German language
Documents in Polish language
Emigration to United States, postwar
Germany invasion of Poland, September 1, 1939
Identification documents, German issued, 1933 -- 1945
Identification documents, Polish issued, 1939 -- 1945
Inconsistent and biased reflections on the Polish military resistance against the German invasion
Israel Laks (Lewis Lax), assumed false identity in Poland
Israel Laks (Lutek Laks, Lewis Lax), personal testimony
Life under false identity
Life under false identity in Warsaw, 1939 -- 1945
Life under German occupation--Poland (1939-1945)
Lublin (Poland)
Majdanek (Poland: Concentration Camp)
Means of adaptation and survival in Nazi-German prisons
Means of adaptation and survival in the ghettos
Means of adaptation and survival in the Holocaust
Medical operations, camouflaging the feature of male Jewishness, Warsaw, 1939 -- 1945
Numerus Clausus, a quota reducing admission of Jewish students to Universities, Poland
Pawiak Prison (Warsaw, Poland)
Personal survival skills
Personal testimonies, postwar
Poland (1939-1945)
Polish - Jewish relations in the Holocaust
Polish collaborating police, money extortion, 1939 -- 1944
Polish Home Army (Armija Krajowa)
Polish Resistance supplies the Jewish Resistance with ammunition in Warsaw ghetto
Prisoners of War, Polish
Reflection on a Polish character at wartime, Jewish
Rejection of Jewishness in the Holocaust for the sake of survival
Resistance, Polish
Role of money and connections in survival in the Holocaust
Soviet annexation of Eastern Poland, September 1939
Stereotypes with regard to Polish antisemitism
survival tactics
Survivors postwar views, biased
Testimonies, postwar
The role of money and connections in the survival during the Second World War
The Warsaw Sewer System as a hiding place, 1940 -- 1945
The Warsaw Sewer System as the clandestine paths, 1939 -- 1945
Untruthful stories, survivors
Warsaw (Poland)
Warsaw (Poland: ghetto)
Warsaw Polish Uprising
Warsaw sewage canals, means of underground communications
Will and energy for survival

Personal memoirs and recollections
Personal testimonies

German
Polish
English