An Archival Discovery: Alter Pinchas Szwarc in the Litzmannstadt Ghetto
- JewishLodz
- Feb 8
- 3 min read
Identity confirmation applications in the Litzmannstadt Ghetto
While working with archival material from Lodz, I was reviewing a collection of applications for confirmation of identity created during the period of the Litzmannstadt Ghetto.These
documents were produced for people who, for various reasons, lacked valid identification papers. In many cases, original documents had been lost, destroyed, or confiscated during the war.
Such applications usually include:
personal details provided by the applicant,
references to earlier documents (often birth certificates),
signatures of witnesses confirming the applicant’s identity,
and q photograph
For genealogists and historians, this collection is particularly valuable: it often preserves personal data and images that survived nowhere else.
The application of Alter Pinchas Szwarc
Among these applications, I came across a 1941 identity confirmation form submitted by Alter Pinchas Szwarc, later known as Pinchas Shaar.
Szwarc was a trained painter, connected to the artistic circles of prewar Lodz. He studied under Wladyslaw Strzeminski, one of the key figures of the European avant-garde, and remained artistically active even during the war. In the Lodz Ghetto he worked on stage design for the Jewish theatre, continuing his artistic practice under extreme conditions.
After surviving deportation and the camps, he became part of the postwar community of Jewish displaced artists, later working in Paris, Israel, and New York.
One particularly revealing detail in the 1941 application is that one of the witnesses confirming Szwarc’s identity was his fellow painter, Mojzesz Gurewicz — a small but meaningful glimpse into the social and artistic networks that still existed in the ghetto.
A problem with dates: 1917 or 1923?
In the 1941 ghetto application, Szwarc stated his year of birth as 1917, basing this information on an extract from his birth certificate.The photograph in the application matches later known images of the artist, and the names of his parents also correspond with other sources.
However, most later publications and biographical summaries give his year of birth as 1923.
At this stage, all personal identifiers align — photograph, names, profession — except for the year of birth.So which date is correct?
Following the trail: birth certificate and registration card
Further research led to the successful identification of Szwarc’s birth record, which confirms
the year 1917.
At the same time, I located a prewar family registration card (karta meldunkowa). In this document, the day and month of birth are identical to those given in the ghetto application — but the year is recorded as 1907, not 1917.
This discrepancy appears to result from a clerical error in the registration card. Importantly:
the ghetto application (1941) gives 1917, based on a birth certificate,
the birth record itself confirms 1917,
the registration card matches the day and month, suggesting continuity of identity
despite the incorrect year.
Situations like this are not unusual in archival research. Dates were often copied manually, sometimes decades after the original event, and errors — especially in the year — do occur.
What matters here is that two independent documents confirm the year 1917.
Why this matters for genealogists
This case is a good reminder that dates repeated in secondary sources are not always definitive. Once a year of birth appears in print, it is often copied without verification and gradually becomes accepted as fact.
Archival research works differently. It requires:
comparing multiple documents,
understanding how and why records were created,
and accepting that contradictions are part of the process.
For genealogists, this example shows why it is essential to look beyond summaries and biographies and return to original records whenever possible. Sometimes a single document does not give the answer — but several documents, read together, do.
And sometimes, what looks like a settled fact quietly changes.
Whant to know more about Alter Pinchas Szwarc? You can check out other pages:
Comments