Hans Lebel, born in Mödling, Lower Austria, met his wife, Karla, a lawyer, before the War. The couple’s life was upended following the Anschluss in March 1938 and the infamous November 1938 Pogrom in Germany and Austria. These events prompted Hans and Karla's escape to Mandatory Palestine in 1939. Tragically, their parents did not have the same opportunity. Irina Lebel died in Vienna before the Holocaust, while Isidor Lebel, Hans's father, was murdered in Treblinka. Karla’s mother, Rosa Columbus, was deported to Bergen-Belsen and fortunately was released and able to reunite with her family in Israel. Once there, she met her granddaughter Michaela, who was born in 1943.
Among the few possessions the couple managed to flee with were a film projector and two reels of film shot in Europe during the 1930s. Years later, their daughter Michaela Mashat donated these Holocaust-era reels to Yad Vashem. The reels arrived in an advanced state of decay, damaged by vinegar syndrome. Despite initial failed restoration attempts, Yad Vashem’s team revisited the project with determination and advanced techniques. Using organic solvents, they managed to restore some of the film negative's flexibility, allowing experts to flatten the warped strips. After some time, the experts at Yad Vashem successfully extracted a series of frames from the film, which depicted pre-war life in Europe. Through these efforts, the conservation experts were also able to identify the film manufacturer as PERUTZ, a Berlin-based company.
Photography conservator expert Reut Ilan-Shafik expressed joy at finding these poignant images, who joined Yad Vashem from in 2022. Shafik remarked:
"I'm not aware of another instance of using these techniques to rescue photos in this manner; definitely not in Israel. This is what brought me to Yad Vashem so that I can help recover such historical treasures and that they can be shown to the world. When I managed to capture the image of the recovered frame of a kissing couple and their 'assistant', I felt that I had a role in providing a glimpse into pre-war European life."
Combining ingenuity, cutting-edge techniques and an unprecedented commitment to the historical record, Yad Vashem experts succeeded in rescuing these images from chemical decay. This restoration triumph is emblematic of the work being done at the new David and Fela Shapell Family Collections Center, at the heart of the newly inaugurated Moshal Shoah Legacy Campus.
“I was surprised when they first called me and said that they were able to save the film reel,” remarks Orit Feldberg, granddaughter of Hans and Klara Lebel. "It's extraordinary that these images were recovered, allowing my grandparents' story to live on at Yad Vashem through these irreplaceable snapshots of the past. These photographs not only tell their unique story but also keeps their memory vibrantly alive, bridging generations and preserving our family's history."
