AUGUST 2016
Artifact of the month for August 2016
Identity card
Identity card
Abel Paul Kirschner (1905 – 1984)
Abel Kirschner was born on the 28th of October 1905 in Skuodas, Lithuania, as one of five children to Karl Leopold Kirschner (b. 1865 in Skuodas, Lithuania) and Sonja Rosa (b. 1872 Plung in Plateliai, Lithuania d. 1941 in Oslo). Karl Leopold came to Norway from Lithuania in 1909. Three years later he was joined by his wife and children. The family settled in Christiania where Karl Leopold worked as a traveling salesman.
Abel began his professional career already as a 13-year-old, working as a stock clerk at Greenland's Bookstore in Christiania. Economic recession in the 1920s was felt hard in Norway, as in many other places, and Abel decided to try his luck abroad. In 1927 he travelled to Argentina where he was involved in trading activities. Abel returned to Oslo in 1933. The following year he married Martha Bodnia from Copenhagen. In the autumn of 1942 Abel, Martha and the couple's two children fled to Sweden where they stayed until the end of the war. Abel's father, Karl Leopold Kirschner was deported with the ship Gotenland on the 25th of February 1943 and killed in Auschwitz. After the war Abel worked as a textile agent. He died in Oslo in 1984.
The identity card from Buenos Aires, Argentina, dated 24th of February 1933 is a gift to the museum from Abel Kirschners son, Rolf
The identity card from Buenos Aires, Argentina, dated 24th of February 1933 is a gift to the museum from Abel Kirschners son, Rolf
The identity card from Buenos Aires, Argentina, dated 24th of February 1933 is a gift to the museum from Abel Kirschners son, Rolf
Photo: Abel Kirschner, ca. 1950