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Suitcases in the Attic Preserved One Family’s Holocaust History

Ellen Goodwin, Artifcts
January 27, 2025

Today is International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. Through the artifacts and stories carefully preserved and shared, we can connect with our shared history and bring forward its lessons to a new generation. We hope you find inspiration in this story, the spoken and unspoken history of a family that has now been brought into the light. We extend our deep gratitude to Deborah for sharing her story.

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Meet Deborah.  

Deborah grew up Jewish, the kind of Jewish that enjoyed matzah but also celebrated Christmas with other kids in her Connecticut neighborhood. Being Jewish, she felt different, special, “even if I didn’t know what being Jewish meant.”

While Deborah knew vaguely of her family’s migration from Austria to the United States during World War II, she knew little of the details that completely relandscaped her family’s lives.

Fast forward many years to 2003 when Deborah asked her mother about family documentation that might exist to support reparation claims for those who had property stolen as the Nazis swept across Europe. “My Mom said, ‘Good luck with that,’ and pointed up, to the attic, ‘Everything’s up there. Suitcases full. Take it.'"

Sure enough, Deborah’s great grandfather, her mother’s paternal family, had squirreled away a plethora of ephemera to document his original Vienna-based hat business, along with letters and other materials of their life. Everything they had departed Vienna for the US with, was all that remained. The rest? The rest was in secure storage at a port in Italy, destined for a ship to the US, and stolen when the Germans overtook the port. 

“It turns out, my mother’s maternal family, having left for the US a few years earlier arrived with practically all of their household items. We’re talking everything down to their 12-piece fine porcelain dinner service.” But of course, they lived in a small apartment in New York and had no need for most of the items. It all sat in storage for decades, wrapped securely in the same 1938 newspaper it shipped over to the US in.

Following are snippets from our co-founder Ellen’s conversation with Deborah in honor of today’s International Holocaust Remembrance Day. We’re sharing some of the spirit and content behind her discoveries into her own family history and the holocaust. Her Artifcted collection of family artifacts and her book Nothing Really Bad Will Happen provide you, the curious, with so much more historical color and context. We encourage you to explore and take in the themes of resilience, legacy, and survivorship.

_________________

Ellen Goodwin: Where did all these family artifacts come from? You have a hat designed by your great grandfather, a vast collection of mementos and ephemera. Who was keeping them all this time? How has it been preserved?

Deborah Holman: Well, one part of my family lost everything, and the other saved it all.

My mothers’ father’s family essentially lost everything. They moved it into a storage container in Italy in 1941 to ship to the US once they got here. But when the Germans captured the port, everything they owned was stolen. They arrived with a suitcase and 5 bucks. The only reason I have one of the hats from my great grandfather’s hat factory in Vienna is I was able to find one on eBay!

My mother’s maternal family left earlier, in 1938, and they kept everything. They dragged all of it from Vienna and deposited it in the storage area of their apartment building. It sat there until it migrated into my mother’s attic, wrapped, unused, and never spoken of.

cabinet with china from Vienna    offwhite plate in cabinet

Goodwin: But your great grandfather’s documents, they were an exception. They made the trip with him to the US, right?

Holman: Yes, exactly. When they confiscated his hat factory, he began immediately to try and get it back. He saved every document, every letter for reparation claims. It was a whole additional suitcase in my mother’s attic I never knew about.

Goodwin: You never knew. You mean your mother never discussed it? 

Holman: Never. My mom was six when she fled here with her mother and grandmother. All she ever said were things like, “I could have been a princess,” and “Maybe I could have had a sibling,” or “We had money, and then we had nothing.” I knew her father had spent 10 months in two concentration camps, my grandmother had all the letters he sent every two weeks, but that’s it. 

My daughter was the only one to ever open a small crack into my family’s holocaust history when she interviewed my mother for a school project in the late 90s. I don’t know how accurate the memories were, but my mother shared more than I had heard before. And then that was it, “There’s no point in talking about it anymore,” were my mother’s final words on it. 

Goodwin: When going through large collections like these you expect to find certain things: passports, travel papers, letters, and the like. Did you find anything surprising?

Holman: As I was writing my book, I was feeling guilty about how I portrayed my great grandfather, the hat maker. He does not come across as a really good guy, so stern. And that’s where the title of the book, “Nothing Really Bad is Going to Happen,” came from. His view of what the Nazis were doing was akin to “this happens to Jews all the time.” He almost blew it, not getting out until ’41 because of his mindset. 

And yet, one day out of the blue, my sister called to tell me she found his wallet in a box in her house. She has no idea how it came to be in her possession. And tucked in the back of the wallet was a newspaper article, written in German. I translated it and discovered it was essentially an advice column, advising against giving your children too much before you die because if you do, they won’t learn to be self-sufficient, and they’ll want you to die prematurely so they can get your stuff.

With that article, I realized, I portrayed him pretty accurately. Guilt gone!

Goodwin: And THAT is why I tell people the things we keep speak volumes about us, what we value, and even our aspirations.

So, you have all this now, and you know more about your family history. What will become of these physical artifacts?

Holman: We’ve agreed we want to donate items of broader interest to an institution where people will get to see it all up close, somewhere more intimate. There are some museums in NYC as well as the Center for Jewish History that we have in mind. 

Goodwin: As we bring our conversation to a close, I’d like to circle back to where we began. You said as a child you didn’t know what being Jewish meant to you. What does being Jewish mean to you now after you’ve done all this family research?

Holman: Being Jewish means strength and resilience. It means “Good luck. Do what you want. We’re not going anywhere.”  

_________________

Let this be your call to action on this International Holocaust Remembrance Day. Let this family's artifacts of the past and the people and stories they represent remind us always to stand against hate and intolerance in all its forms. We are better than our past, always improving with the lessons of history as our guide.

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© 2025 Artifcts, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Keepsake Boxes, Remembrance Boxes, Memento Boxes - Boxes Abound!

Boxes, binders, and bins, oh my! Maybe you know them as keepsake, remembrance, memento, memory, or memorial boxes. Some memory boxes even mirror the binder approach, with tabs by topic, checklists, and pouches for loose keys, thumb drives, and other small and useful or meaningful objects. 

No matter what, before you stick any ‘stuff’ in your box of choice and snap on the lid, Artifct it to remember what it is and why it mattered. Unlike boxes, Artifcts are:

      • Instantly and perpetually organized and searchable 
      • Fireproof and waterproof
      • Able to combine text, video, audio, and photos for every item
      • Easily shareable and accessible online to anyone you choose, anywhere, anytime 
      • Do not take up space or require dusting

And, obviously, the stuff inside your Artifcts collection will not run the risk of outlasting your memories like a box full of stuff will. The memories are captured and preserved. You are no longer the single point of failure, the family keeper of the memories behind the mementos. Breathe a sigh of relief!

Keepsake Box Options Abound

For those of us who relish holding onto those curated items that mean the most, we’ve tried to distill here what we’ve learned about the variety of boxes available. A common search on Google is "acid-free keepsake box," which tells you people care about keeping items for the long haul.

Many major retailers, like Crate and Barrel, The Container Store, Pottery Barn, Target, Hallmark, and Amazon, sell at least one or two. So, we know there’s demand, people are looking for them. We suspect from how they are marketed that a box makes for a simple and obvious gift for special occasions. You’ll see below that the options and qualities vary. There is something for most needs, styles, and price points! 

(Listed in alphabetical order.) 

    • Akin offers custom boxes that fit and showcase the curated items you have chosen to help tell your story - whether it’s memorabilia, journals, photographs, documents, records, or more. What further sets Akin apart is that it offers services bundled around the box for custom-designed books and genealogy research to help commemorate family stories and ancestral histories.

"Present and preserve your keepsakes as opposed to hiding them away. A curated memorabilia box not only holds your most treasured pieces, it should tell their origin story—beautifully and archivally—so they can be cherished and shared for years to come," explained Renee Innis, Akin Founder.

    • Archival Methods offers archival boxes as well as a whole product category for “object storage.” They have additional custom options for fitting objects more snuggly in the boxes, too. Check them out on Allies in 'Stuff' for a discount code!
    • Etsy is a logical choice for creative and custom options you’ve never even knew existed, offering a breathtaking variety of sizes, styles, and materials to match your purpose or occasion.
    • Infinity Trunk is new to this list since we first published this article. If you need more space like the cedar trunks of old, and truly want a box that is fireproof (and will not be damanged by the water to put out that fire either), this is the box for you. And if it burns, still protecting your items, they will even replace the box for free! Designed and built by expert engineers in Chicago.
    • Nokbox is about functional preparedness, organizing critical information about your life in a box. Keep in mind that if you’re going to store and rely on hardcopy, however, we strongly encourage: (1) fireproof, and know what that covers, (2) never put passwords into a single physical, open access, hardcopy location, and (3) use a digital equivalent for all your life documentation (such as a digital vault from Trustworthy). Digital options are less vulnerable, easier to update, and accessible from anywhere.
    • Petite Keep offers more traditional aesthetics for its boxes, sort of a Pottery Barn or Draper James feel, with customization for initials, patterns, and more.
    • Savor, in contrast to Petite Keep, offers a cleaner, more basic style like you might find from archival-quality sources. Its collection has expanded to offer drawers for vertically oriented boxes, built-in envelopes, and more to cover whatever ‘stuff’ you might have in mind to combine.  

Need we say it again? Just as we tell you “Before you store it, Artifct it," before you box that, Artifct that, too. And slip your Artifcts collection QR code inside or as a sticker on the box for safe keeping of all those stories, videos, and more from your Artifcts collection. Your future self will thank you! And if you need a little help getting started, check out Artifcts concierge options. ->

My Artifcts homepage with option to create personal collection QR code

 
 
 
Each Artifct has a QR code as does your Artifcts Collection. Access it from My Artifcts -> 

Before We Go, a Word to the Wise: Know What You’re Buying

Archival does not always mean archival. What? Yes; sad truth. Sometimes archival only means the paper is acid free, for example. And if you are a proponent of recycled paper, you have another potential recipe for disaster once you shut objects inside and create a little microclimate for terrible things to brew.

If you are popping items into a box that you truly cherish, do the homework on your archival products, or speak to a professional. You can contact nationwide companies like Archival Methods—one of our Allies in 'Stuff'—and Gaylord Archival or seek out archivists in your local area for guidance, products, and services.

The same goes for fireproof. Look up the certification on any product that you plan to purchase and see what it was tested to withstand.

 
 
Learn more about all things archival, fireproof, and protecting your photos, too, in this replay of Evenings with Artifcts.

Happy Artifcting!

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You might also enjoy a guest article shared here on Artifcts in response to this story: 

Why One Mom Moved Beyond Memory Boxes and Instagram

© 2025 Artifcts, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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The Real Gift: Time with Mom Sharing Stories of 'Stuff'

Artifcts is grateful to Arti Community member @Buchalgi for sharing her sweet story of bringing Artifcts into the birthday celebrations with her mother. Do not miss the final words of this story. They are everything.

___________________

What do you get your 85-year-old mother for her birthday? She doesn’t need a thing. She doesn’t want a thing.

Does she want to go out for the day and have lunch or go shopping? No, not really.

So, what does she love? Well, she loves her friends, her family, and telling stories about the past. Bingo! I decided to fly down and spend a day last week asking her about things that I’ve seen in her home, but never knew the story behind them, and then, Artifct them!

We started the day with me choosing 5 items in her house.

It started with the green metal plate on the wall. I remember that plate forever, in all the homes we’ve lived in, always on the wall. I never knew the origin or who gave it to her, or why, or when. She told me how the plate was a gift from her grandmother who had come back from her honeymoon in Isreal in 1968. She wanted to bring something back for her eldest granddaughter (my mother) and her husband. My mother remembered the level of detail to say they were all together on Cozine Street in Brooklyn and I was there (aged 19 months) wearing a pink & white dress that she had bought me to celebrate their wedding. She told the story like it was yesterday and delighted in the fact that I was typing as fast as I could to keep up with the details.

 
 
Did you know you can record audio and video directly in the Artifcts app? Or add the same to your Artifcts on desktop/laptop computers? Get Mom's stories her way, funny expressions, intonations, and bluppers included, for always. 

Next was the candy dish. I have seen this dish on every end table or coffee table for as many years as I can remember. It was usually filled with hard candy but got filled with better candy when company was coming. And I can remember reaching into it for a hand full of M&Ms on many occasions. I didn’t know that the dish was given to my mom and dad as a gift when they got their first place, and I didn’t know it was a hand-me-down gift from my grandparents who also received it as a gift for their first apartment. It was from the Fostoria Glass Company in 1952. They closed in 1986 after 100 years in business, but I imagine their pieces have a place in a lot of family histories.

glass candy dish from Fostoria Glass Company

 
 
We wonder, how many people have Artifcted candy dishes? We know it's many, including this dish. If you do not have a candy dish in your family yet, maybe it's time to get one!

We went on to talk about Nana’s hot chocolate pot, the framed family photos found in a box, the baby record books with beautiful illustrations, the favorite pieces of artwork, and so much more. Hours had gone by. I was tired and she wasn’t. She was elated. She honestly loved that I asked for these stories. This is how we celebrated her birthday, but who got the gift?

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Mother's Day Surprise!

We always honor Mother's Day with our deepest sale of the year at Artifcts.

We love our men, don’t get us wrong, but it’s more often than not the women who:

- Keep our homes and lives decluttered and organized on a daily basis
- Play the role of family keeper and the memories, birthdays, and family history that entails
- Become the caregiver, even when still raising their own children
- In the end, take on the role of estate executor to clean-out the homes of our loved one’s when they pass.

This year, in addition to our 30% off sale, we are also offering a special gift FREE with any purchase of a bundled Artifcts membership + virtual conicerge session. We will ship our premier Artifct That! Kit to the destination of choice, gifting ready. Just look for the "Bundle & Save" at checkout!

bundle and save

© 2025 Artifcts, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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What I’ve Learned In 400 Artifcts

Truth is Stranger Than Fiction

During a virtual webinar of #longevitech (meaning, longevity technology) thought leaders in the early days of Artifcts, I was invited to present Artifcts to the group. As always, talking about Artifcts brings out stories and connection, breaking down barriers in a group of strangers as we all recognize that emotional pull to the objects we’ve collected over the course of our lives.

At the end of this particular event, one of the participants asked me for a follow up call. I would casually describe this person as a “highflyer” for their frequent appearances on the conference circuit as well as in mainstream print and broadcast media.

I was delighted. I thought perhaps they were interested in helping Artifcts break into the media spotlight, a huge challenge for a startup. 

No, it turns out that they had a different objective, an objective to reshape our vision for Artifcts.

“You have built a brilliant product that focuses on a critical gap no one else is addressing and will be hard pressed to address with the integrity and thoughtfulness that you have done. But you talk about it all wrong.”

That was one hell of a way to start the conversation. They continued:

“Never again tell that story about the first Artifct ever created. It diminishes and confuses the value of what you created.” 

The Story of the First Artifct

When we were first building Artifcts, we invited a small group of trusted allies and friends to try us out. They were our beta group.

The beta member who created the first Artifct gave us a shock. He Artifcted a living, breathing cat: Princesa. He and his wife had adopted Princesa off the streets of Sao Paolo, Brazil, and now she enjoys total reign inside their new home back in the United States.

“While we chatted with [her fosters], she walked off to explore. After about 15 minutes we went looking for her and found her lying in a sunbeam, asleep in our home office. We decided that she had chosen to adopt us,” recalled Charles in his Artifct.

Never had we imagined that living creatures, human or otherwise, would be Artifcted. We were focused on solving our original problem: the inanimate ‘stuff’ in our homes and what its value is to us.

Princesa the Artifct, however, lines up beautifully with Artifcts and why we took out that second 'a' in “artifacts.” We are redefining artifacts from conventional objects of absolute financial and/or historical value that may belong in museums to items of meaning and value to you. In this process, yes, we can easily Artifct items of financial value, collectibles, fine art, and more, but we can also capture the ordinary and sentimental items that represent important pieces of our life stories, our legacy.

Princesa is a story of compassion and warmth and speaks volumes about the person who created the Artifct in her honor. We like to think of her as the Arti Cat.

What Do I Personally Artifct?

True enough, no cat Artifcts for me. I would say that I Artifct the 'stuff' that I care most about, truly has a great story, or I want to be sure stands out from the rest of my 'stuff' for my family so they know what it means to me. My Artifcts are a roadmap for my loved ones.

My top 5 Artifcts categories: 

I smiled when I looked to see what my top 5 categories were, because there are no surprises here. I cherish moments, invest a lot of time and energy decorating our home, and am certainly a lover of books (especially REAL books, not digital). My top 5 Artifcts categories are:

      1. Life moments, with “photographs” and “life’s firsts” my most popular topics 
      2. Home, which is dominated by recipes and holiday ‘stuff’ 
      3. Art, with kid art far and away the top subcategory I’ve used 
      4. Textiles, and here apparel was my top subcategory. I said, “Really?” Sure enough, hats, t-shirts, Halloween costumes and more are all represented.
      5. Books and other print media, with a fair balance between fiction and non-fiction and a dash of signed editions, too.

My top 5 Artifcts tags: 

Since you can create custom tags and add as many as you want to each Artifct, tags are both practical for easy sorting and personalized reflections of why things you Artifct are important to you. My top 5 Artifcts tags are:

      1. #Violet, my daughter. Enough said. 
      2. #ArtifctsVideo, but rarely do I record a video to tell a story. Instead, I am almost always adding a video from my phone that I recorded at an event—family gathering, concert, swim meet, etc.—that relates to the Artifcted story. 
      3. #WorkLife, because it’s good to see how far you’ve come, what you’ve done, easily share that with others, and lessen the burden of keeping all those mementos. I don’t even have an office to display them in! 
      4. #Decor, as I mentioned, I put a lot of energy and thought into our home with authentic personally meaningful items to make it warm, inviting, and comfortable. 
      5. #Christmas, because no matter your religion, it’s a time of year when people are a little bit kinder, have an excuse to be a bit merrier, and we take a breath to enjoy more time together.

My 5 favorite Artifcts: 

Favorite is probably relative to my mood. But the ones that pop first to mind as I write this article are these:

      1. Aquamarine Ring. I have no heirloom jewelry to pass down to my daughter, so through a bit of adventure, I bought a ring to pass down to her one day. I Artifcted the crazy story of my trip to Brazil and included the receipt and appraisal in the Artifct, too.
      2. Coqui frog. On a trip with my co-founder Heather and her daugthter, hiking in the rain forest of Puerto Rico, my daughter picked up a whisteling coqui frog keychain. The Artifct includes a video proving that she had learned how to whistle just like the frog.
      3. Ice Skating in Russia. Russia was never a country I imagined visiting once, nevermind half a dozen times. So finding myself ice skating there was surreal. One of my colleagues even captured a video of me on the ice, my Wisconsin roots serving me well.
      4. Muriel the Welder. My great-aunt didn't think people were interested in her stories. She was 97 years old when I flew to Arizona to Artifct with her and I learned she was a Rosie the Riveter during World War II. Such a powerful combination of personal, family, and world history in one little Artifct of a photo of her welding, the goggles she wore, and a video of her telling me all about it. 
      5. Petra 2023. I wish everyone could visit each of the Wonders of the World. Petra was worth the 12+ hour bus ride, and then some. I'll never forget it.

Interesting aside: As I wrote about those favorite five, I realized there are two themes among those Artifcts. First, every one of them is tied to travel. And second, all but one includes a video. I think you can learn a lot about yourself simply by looking at WHAT you choose to Artifct.

I think you can learn a lot about yourself simply by looking at WHAT you choose to Artifct. - Ellen Goodwin, co-founder, Artifcts

What I've Learned in 400 Artifcts

Why I am sharing all this with you?

Earlier this year I passed an arbitrary threshold of 400 personal Artifcts. My 400th Artifct was a special Christmas present from my daughter: the vinyl version of Adele 21, “I remember you playing this album in the car when I was little,” she said, as I unwrapped it Christmas morning. 

In full disclosure, I never expected to have so many Artifcts. Like my critic who told me to never again speak of Princesa if I wanted insurance companies, financial planners, and estate attorneys to take me seriously, I had a narrow “let’s get started somewhere” vision of Artifcts. To me, Artifcts was first and foremost about capturing items of significant financial value or that were family heirlooms. And I don’t have many of either.

But Artifcting is as much a stress release and therapeutic benefit to me now as anything else. I love that I’ve captured these great moments in my life AND digitally organized it all for myself and my loved ones in case I get hit by a bus, so to speak. It’s connection, peace of mind, and a creative outlet.

Looking inside my Artifcts collection, several life themes emerge:

      • I’m reconnecting with people through my Artifcts. Sometimes I’ll go months even years without talking with someone. We’re both busy, geography has divided us, life has happened, but that has not diminished their importance to me. Sometimes I no sooner create an Artifct than realize I must share it with So-And-So, they’ll love the memory, they’ll laugh, they’ll feel better. I’m not demanding any time from them either. I can share it, and they’ll see it when they see it, like a surprise gift in the waiting.
      • Maybe I am funny. Lately, other professionals in my sphere keep remarking that I’m funny. Come to think of it, even at the car dealership last week, the guy who insisted on calling me “young lady” (really, I’m not young), also said I was funny. But as a kid, I’m not sure my family ever thought I was funny. Now when I re-read Artifcts I’ve created, I realize I tend to tell stories as they are, no holding back any of the color, and they are funny. Sometimes it’s more like “you have to laugh or cry” but funny all the same.
      • Appreciation for life. I’m far from perfect; I make mistakes and try to learn quickly from them. I hit roadblocks like cancer. I come through it all seeing so clearly what a great life I’ve had. Maybe a bit predictable and boring according to some, but I love my family, community, amazing people I’ve met, and world travels and petite road trips. I’ll take it all with gratitude. 

I challenge you all to take a look at your Artifcts collection as it grows and see what themes emerge. 

_______________

Artifcting has so many benefits in life. Which of those benefits are most important to you is personal. And you may discover, like I did, that the benefit you care about most changes over time, too.

As always, we love to hear your stories and hope you’ll write to us (Editor@Artifcts.com) to share what Artifcts and the act of Artifcting means to you. We’d love to share with the broader Arti Community in future editions of ARTIcles by Artifcts.

Happy Artifcting!

###

© 2025 Artifcts, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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