The Doll Cradle

Icek Horonczyk was sent from his home in Paris, France to a camp called Beaune la Rolande and later to the Drancy assembly and detention camp. While he was in Beaune la Roland, Horonczyk built a doll cradle and was able to get it to his infant daughter Francine who was in Paris with her mother, Perle. On the cradle he inscribed the address to his house and the date: May 1941. Icik Horoncyzk was eventually sent from Drancy to Auschwitz, where he perished.  Francine and Perle fled from their apartment in Paris and escaped arrest. After the war, when Perle returned to her apartment, the cradle was the only object that she was successful in retrieving. Francine, who resides in Israel, gave the cradle to the Historical Museum.

In 1986, Francine submitted a Page of Testimony to Yad Vashem’s Hall of Names in memory of her father.