Kafka’s Hairbrush

With a research grant from Hadassah International Research Institute at Brandeis University, in 2000 Kathi Diamant visited the Kibbutz En Charod in Israel where Dora stayed in 1950, and met a surviving daughter of the family with whom Dora lived, who shared two possessions Dora left with them for safekeeping: a framed photograph of Kafka and Kafka's hairbrush, the only personal item of his known to survive.


Framed photograph Dora gave to the Maletz family. She left an identical photograph with her sister Sara Baumer in Tel Aviv.
May not be reprinted without permission.
© Archiv Klaus Wagenbach


Kafka's military-style hairbrush made by G.B. Kent & Sons, established 1777 in England.
May not be reprinted without permission.
© Kathi Diamant


Kafka's hairbrush
May not be reprinted without permission.
© Kathi Diamant


Dora with Ruhama Maletz, En Charold Kibbutz, 1950. Ruhama was the wife of David Maletz, Dora's Hebrew teacher from Bedzin, Poland. The hairbrush was a family secret until after Ruhama's death in 1992.
May not be reprinted without permission.
© Noga Maletz