Museum exhibit /Bench from the house of a special settler family.
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A bench from the house of the special settler family Tserr, who were exiled to the workers’ settlement of Iurga, in Kemerovo oblast’. It was made in Iurga in the 1940s or 1950s. In 2000 Iosif Tserr (born 1939) gave it to the Iurga Municipal Local History Museum, where it became part of the permanent exhibition (Photo 04.07.2005). 
 
 
 
 
Date of acquisition2004?
 
Types of exhibitsMuseum exhibits/Objects/
 
Date and place of creation1940s -1950s
 
MaterialsWood
 
Description of exhibitAn ordinary bench, without a back, made out of wood, later pained dark brown. The seat is a cut-off section of a wider plank-structure, positioned on two supports. The supports are also made from strips of wood and the lower ends have Λ-shaped notches. Slanting laths are placed in grooves in the seat and support each other additionally.
 
State of preservationNo deformations. The paint in the corners of the bench is somewhat shabby and chipped.
 
Detailed annotationA bench from the house of the special settler family Tserr. It was made in either the 1940s or 1950s in Iurga, Kemerovo oblast’. Before the war the Tserr family lived in Odessa oblast’ (Eremeevka Village, Razdel’niansk Region). The members of the family were: the mother, Mariia Tserr (nee Mastel’), the grandmother, Magdalena Mastel’, the children Emiliia, Leonid, Iosif and Pius Tserr. The father, Klimentii Tserr, was a prisoner in a camp. In 1941, the Tserrs found themselves in occupied territory. Then, on the retreat of German troops from the Odessa province, the family was transported to Poland to do forced labour (in the Poznan area), then to Germany (Bestensee village). In 1945, the Tserr family found themselves in the Soviet Occupation Zone, at the assembly-point in the town of Zeelov, where they stayed until the end of August. They were then taken by road to the assembly-point at Brest, and by special train to special settlement in Iurga, Kemerovo oblast’. Magdalena Mastel’ (1948) and Pius Tserr (1947) died as special settlers. In 1953, upon his release from the camp, Klementii Tserr joint his family in Iurga. In the 1970s the family emigrated to Germany: Klimentii and Mariia Tserr in 1977; Leonid Tserr in 1978; Iosif Tserr and his family in 1979 and in 1988 Emiliia Tserr, also with her family. The Tserrs’ house in Iurga was on Kol’tsevaia ulitsa. After the family emigrated it was abandoned (the grown-up children lived with their families in other houses). In about 2004, during one of his visits to Iurga, Iosif Tserr, at the request of the film director A.N. Ponomarchuk (a friend of the Museum), gave the bench and other items that had been kept in the house to the Iurga Local History Museum. The bench is part of the permanent exhibition there.
 
Web page?Yes
 
 
Museum exhibit /Bench from the house of a special settler family.