Story 6 – The Tenebaum family

Mordko and Ursula Tenenbaum stayed at the Cinecittà Camp since 1944. Mordko was born in Kobrin, Russia in 1911 and grew up in Brest-Litovsk, Poland. As the numerus clausus was enacted in the Polish higher education, he moved to Italy to study medicine at the University of Florence. Ursula was born in Breslau, Germany in 1916. In 1933, she moved to Florence to complete her high school education, there she enrolled in the further studies to become a midwife. In Florence, she met Mordko. They married in 1939. 

During the war, Mordko was arrested as a “foreign Jew”, detained in Le Murate prison in Florence, and then deported to Campagna internment camp and, subsequently, to the camp of Ferramonti di Tarsia. Ursula was interned with other Jewish women in San Donato Val di Comino under the status of “confino” (surveilled residence). She was lodged in a private home and was prohibited from employment or free movement. In 1940, Mordko was transferred to confino (surveilled residence) in San Donato Val di Comino. He and Ursula lived in the house of Francesca Cardarelli and her three daughters. Their daughter Katrin Tamara Tenenbaum (aka Katja) was born there in 1942.

Mordko later joined the resistance, while Ursula and Katja hid until the Allies liberated Rome on June 4, 1944. Initially planning to repatriate to the Soviet Union, Mordko instead took a position as a doctor at the UNRRA Cinecittà displaced persons camp. Their son, Sascha, was born there in 1945. The family briefly moved to Israel in 1949 before returning to Italy, where Mordko worked for the IRO and became the director of the OSE (Organizzazione Sanitaria Ebraica or OZE) in 1953, a role he held until 1970. Ursula worked for the Italian achsharoth, JDC, HIAS, and IRO, dedicating her efforts to women’s sexual education and later working with Planned Parenthood in Africa.

Source: USHMM