Borough Park, Brooklyn, NY - Kiddush Cup Back Where it Belongs

Borough Park, Brooklyn, NY - Holocaust survivor Elisabeth Bleier has one precious family heirloom to pass on to her children and grandchildren - a sparkling silver Kiddush cup that belonged to her father.

Along with jewelry Bleier wore at her wedding and hundreds of expensive household items, the cup was taken by Hungary's police as they systematically confiscated Jewish valuables in 1944 and hoisted them on the notorious Hungarian Gold Train.

By a twist of good fortune, the cup was returned to Bleier's father several years later in New York. The family had fled to Brooklyn after World War II.
"It's very important; it's very sentimental," Bleier, now 87, said of the elegant religious cup. "It brings back all my childhood, how I grew up."

The cup was returned when a Manhattan gallery recognized the name of Rabbi Jonathan Steif inscribed on the base. Steif, Bleier's father, had been Budapest's chief Orthodox rabbi.
A gift to the rabbi from his congregation in Budapest in 1934, the wine cup is believed to have come to America after U.S. forces took custody of the Gold Train in 1945.
Except for Steif's cup, all the goods believed to have been on the train were lost. Many were stolen by American soldiers, and the U.S. never attempted to return the belongings to Hungarian Jews, American officials have conceded.