Do you have memories from Warsaw?
I have a memory from the time I was a little girl. I was in a baby stroller and I was dressed with white fur while traveling in the a garden with my father.
I have a memory from the time I was a little girl. I was in a baby stroller and I was dressed with white fur while traveling in the a garden with my father.
Did you go back to Poland after the war?
No.
Why?
No.
Why?
Because I don’t have anything to do there.
Do you remember the house or street you were living in Warsaw?
No.
How old were you when you came to Israel?
I was 5 or 6 years old when I came on a kids "MAAPILIM" ship.
The first chocolate I ever had was given to me by an American soldier.
Have you always spoken this freely about the war?
No I haven’t spoken for many years just about 10 years ago I stated to talk about it.
Why?
I was a little and deferent girl in the KIBBUTZ. I looked at the kids around me and ,I was different from them. Until then all the kids I knew were without parents like me. And in the Kibbutz all of the kids had parents and a family.
Another thing was that all the kids had black hair and freckles and I had blond hair and white skin so I wav very different.
As a little girl, I thought that I might have done something very bad that made me deserve this .and I couldn’t think about all of it logically.
I really wanted to be like all the other kids in the Kibbutz but my hair was filled with lice. On the Kibbutz I was sleepping in a room with 3 more kids and every night had to get treatment against the lice that treatment was a very aggressive, thing they would put kerosrne on my hair and wrap it with a piece of cloth and let me sleep with it all night. This would happen night after night. And the kids who were sleeping with me in the room would laugh around me.
Later on, four more kids who survived the Holocaust came to the Kibbutz but they never talked about what they had been threugh either.
Did you go right away to the Kibbutz when you came to Israel?
Yes, at first I moved to Kibbutz Atlit Then a womAn who worked at a foundation called Aliat Hanoar who knew about a family that was looking to adopt a child on a Kiboz named Male Hachamisha took me. So I lived with that woman for a week on a Kibbutz named Kiryat Anavim and then I moved to the adopting family on Kibbutz MALE Hchamish. The woman who adopted me was named Badana.
A few years agoI found my an uncle who lived in America
Was tha uncle the only one who found you?
Yes, he was the only one left from my family after the ware. He died in 1953. I I didn’t know him or see him .We just mailed each other
Do you remember the house or street you were living in Warsaw?
No.
How old were you when you came to Israel?
I was 5 or 6 years old when I came on a kids "MAAPILIM" ship.
The first chocolate I ever had was given to me by an American soldier.
Have you always spoken this freely about the war?
No I haven’t spoken for many years just about 10 years ago I stated to talk about it.
Why?
I was a little and deferent girl in the KIBBUTZ. I looked at the kids around me and ,I was different from them. Until then all the kids I knew were without parents like me. And in the Kibbutz all of the kids had parents and a family.
Another thing was that all the kids had black hair and freckles and I had blond hair and white skin so I wav very different.
As a little girl, I thought that I might have done something very bad that made me deserve this .and I couldn’t think about all of it logically.
I really wanted to be like all the other kids in the Kibbutz but my hair was filled with lice. On the Kibbutz I was sleepping in a room with 3 more kids and every night had to get treatment against the lice that treatment was a very aggressive, thing they would put kerosrne on my hair and wrap it with a piece of cloth and let me sleep with it all night. This would happen night after night. And the kids who were sleeping with me in the room would laugh around me.
Later on, four more kids who survived the Holocaust came to the Kibbutz but they never talked about what they had been threugh either.
Did you go right away to the Kibbutz when you came to Israel?
Yes, at first I moved to Kibbutz Atlit Then a womAn who worked at a foundation called Aliat Hanoar who knew about a family that was looking to adopt a child on a Kiboz named Male Hachamisha took me. So I lived with that woman for a week on a Kibbutz named Kiryat Anavim and then I moved to the adopting family on Kibbutz MALE Hchamish. The woman who adopted me was named Badana.
A few years agoI found my an uncle who lived in America
Was tha uncle the only one who found you?
Yes, he was the only one left from my family after the ware. He died in 1953. I I didn’t know him or see him .We just mailed each other
What memories do you have from the ware?
I don’t really remember anything. I have visual memories in my head but I don’t have any order in my head.
I remember visual memories in the Concentration camp .I remember the train that took us to camp. I distinctly remember the feeling of unbearable density. I was with my mother.
I don’t remember her face but I know what she looked like from pictures.
I remember the first time that an Ukraine guy held me in his arms.
It happened in the begging of the war in our house. I remember hearing screams coming from the street.
I had a big dog.
I remember hearing screams and knocks on the door. The door opened and Ukraine solders came into the house. The Ukraines were more cruel than the Nazis. They broke into our house. And one Ukraine solder lifted me into his arms. His breath smelled of wine and his face was red. He was very big. I remember my mom screaming. The Ukraine put me on the ground. I saw my dog lying I touched him ,he was bleeding. He died. I remember someone saying that the dog died like the uncle, he was shot in the hed.
In some point we moved to the Ghetto
I don’t really remember anything. I have visual memories in my head but I don’t have any order in my head.
I remember visual memories in the Concentration camp .I remember the train that took us to camp. I distinctly remember the feeling of unbearable density. I was with my mother.
I don’t remember her face but I know what she looked like from pictures.
I remember the first time that an Ukraine guy held me in his arms.
It happened in the begging of the war in our house. I remember hearing screams coming from the street.
I had a big dog.
I remember hearing screams and knocks on the door. The door opened and Ukraine solders came into the house. The Ukraines were more cruel than the Nazis. They broke into our house. And one Ukraine solder lifted me into his arms. His breath smelled of wine and his face was red. He was very big. I remember my mom screaming. The Ukraine put me on the ground. I saw my dog lying I touched him ,he was bleeding. He died. I remember someone saying that the dog died like the uncle, he was shot in the hed.
In some point we moved to the Ghetto
Warsaw Ghetto
The Warsaw Ghetto was the largest of the Jewish ghettos located in the territory of General Government during the Second World War. The Warsaw Ghetto was established by the Nazi German Governor-General Hans Frank on October 16, 1940. At this time, the population of the Ghetto was estimated to be 440,000 people, about 38% of the population of Warsaw. However, the size of the Ghetto was about 4.5% of the size of Warsaw. The ghetto was split into two areas, the small ghetto, generally inhabited by richer Jews and the large ghetto, where conditions were much worse. The two ghettos were linked by a single footbridge {See footbridge at The Nazis then closed the Warsaw Ghetto from the outside world on November 16, 1940, building a wall with armed guards.
During the next year and a half, thousands of the Polish Jews as well as some Romani people from smaller cities and the countryside were brought into the Ghetto, while diseases (especially typhus) and starvation kept the inhabitants at about the same number. Average food rations in 1941 for Jews in Warsaw were limited to 1184 kcal, compared to 1669 kcal for gentile Poles and 2,614 kcal for Germans.
Unemployment was a major problem in the ghetto. Illegal workshops were created to manufacture goods to be sold illegally on the outside and raw goods were smuggled in often by children. Hundreds of four to five year old Jewish children went across en masse to the "Aryan side", sometimes several times a day, smuggling food into the ghettos, returning with goods that often weighed more than they did. Smuggling was often the only source of subsistence for Ghetto inhabitants, who would otherwise have died of starvation. Despite the grave hardships, life in the Warsaw Ghetto was rich with educational and cultural activities, conducted by its underground organizations. Hospitals, public soup kitchens orphanages, refugee centers and recreation facilities were formed, as well as a school system. Some schools were illegal and operated under the guise of a soup kitchen. There were secret libraries, classes for the children and even a symphony orchestra. The life in the ghetto was chronicled by the Oyneg Shabbos group.
Over 100,000 of the Ghetto's residents died due to rampant disease or starvation, as well as random killings, even before the Nazis began massive deportations of the inhabitants from the Ghetto's Umschlagplatz to the Treblinka extermination camp during the Gross-aktion Warschau, part of the countrywide Operation Reinhard. Between Tisha B'Av (July 23) and Yom Kippur (September 21) of 1942, about 254,000 Ghetto residents (or at least 300,000 by different accounts) were sent to Treblinka and murdered there. In 1942 Polish resistance officer Jan Karski reported to the Western governments on the situation in the Ghetto and on the extermination camps. By the end of 1942, it was clear that the deportations were to their deaths, and many of the remaining Jews decided to fight.
Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and destruction of the Ghetto
On January 18, 1943, the first instance of armed resistance occurred when the Germans started the final expulsion of the remaining Jews. The Jewish fighters had some success: the expulsion stopped after four days and the ŻOB and ŻZW resistance organizations took control of the Ghetto, building shelters and fighting posts and operating against Jewish collaborators. During the next three months, all inhabitants of the Ghetto prepared for what they realized would be a final struggle.
The final battle started on the eve of Passover, April 19, 1943, when the large Nazi force entered the ghetto. After initial setbacks, the Germans under the field command of Jürgen Stroop systematically burned and blew up the ghetto buildings, block by block, rounding up or murdering anybody they could capture. Significant resistance ended on April 23, 1943, and the Nazi operation officially ended in mid-May, symbolically culminated with the demolition of the Great Synagogue of Warsaw on May 16, 1943. According to the official report, at least 56,065 people were killed on the spot or deported to German Nazi concentration and death camps, most to Treblinka.
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I have an image in my hed of my mom and me and dad in a room and they are yelling at each other. It probably was in the Ghetto. After the time in the Ghetto we moved to my parents friends who lived in the Aryan side.The next image I have is that my mom whent into the closet there. I remember her being very upset. Finally my mom was caught and she was sent to a labor camp.
There were "deals" of exchanging Jews with the Temples who were in Israel
Templers
The Warsaw Ghetto was the largest of the Jewish ghettos located in the territory of General Government during the Second World War. The Warsaw Ghetto was established by the Nazi German Governor-General Hans Frank on October 16, 1940. At this time, the population of the Ghetto was estimated to be 440,000 people, about 38% of the population of Warsaw. However, the size of the Ghetto was about 4.5% of the size of Warsaw. The ghetto was split into two areas, the small ghetto, generally inhabited by richer Jews and the large ghetto, where conditions were much worse. The two ghettos were linked by a single footbridge {See footbridge at The Nazis then closed the Warsaw Ghetto from the outside world on November 16, 1940, building a wall with armed guards.
During the next year and a half, thousands of the Polish Jews as well as some Romani people from smaller cities and the countryside were brought into the Ghetto, while diseases (especially typhus) and starvation kept the inhabitants at about the same number. Average food rations in 1941 for Jews in Warsaw were limited to 1184 kcal, compared to 1669 kcal for gentile Poles and 2,614 kcal for Germans.
Unemployment was a major problem in the ghetto. Illegal workshops were created to manufacture goods to be sold illegally on the outside and raw goods were smuggled in often by children. Hundreds of four to five year old Jewish children went across en masse to the "Aryan side", sometimes several times a day, smuggling food into the ghettos, returning with goods that often weighed more than they did. Smuggling was often the only source of subsistence for Ghetto inhabitants, who would otherwise have died of starvation. Despite the grave hardships, life in the Warsaw Ghetto was rich with educational and cultural activities, conducted by its underground organizations. Hospitals, public soup kitchens orphanages, refugee centers and recreation facilities were formed, as well as a school system. Some schools were illegal and operated under the guise of a soup kitchen. There were secret libraries, classes for the children and even a symphony orchestra. The life in the ghetto was chronicled by the Oyneg Shabbos group.
Over 100,000 of the Ghetto's residents died due to rampant disease or starvation, as well as random killings, even before the Nazis began massive deportations of the inhabitants from the Ghetto's Umschlagplatz to the Treblinka extermination camp during the Gross-aktion Warschau, part of the countrywide Operation Reinhard. Between Tisha B'Av (July 23) and Yom Kippur (September 21) of 1942, about 254,000 Ghetto residents (or at least 300,000 by different accounts) were sent to Treblinka and murdered there. In 1942 Polish resistance officer Jan Karski reported to the Western governments on the situation in the Ghetto and on the extermination camps. By the end of 1942, it was clear that the deportations were to their deaths, and many of the remaining Jews decided to fight.
Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and destruction of the Ghetto
On January 18, 1943, the first instance of armed resistance occurred when the Germans started the final expulsion of the remaining Jews. The Jewish fighters had some success: the expulsion stopped after four days and the ŻOB and ŻZW resistance organizations took control of the Ghetto, building shelters and fighting posts and operating against Jewish collaborators. During the next three months, all inhabitants of the Ghetto prepared for what they realized would be a final struggle.
The final battle started on the eve of Passover, April 19, 1943, when the large Nazi force entered the ghetto. After initial setbacks, the Germans under the field command of Jürgen Stroop systematically burned and blew up the ghetto buildings, block by block, rounding up or murdering anybody they could capture. Significant resistance ended on April 23, 1943, and the Nazi operation officially ended in mid-May, symbolically culminated with the demolition of the Great Synagogue of Warsaw on May 16, 1943. According to the official report, at least 56,065 people were killed on the spot or deported to German Nazi concentration and death camps, most to Treblinka.
.
I have an image in my hed of my mom and me and dad in a room and they are yelling at each other. It probably was in the Ghetto. After the time in the Ghetto we moved to my parents friends who lived in the Aryan side.The next image I have is that my mom whent into the closet there. I remember her being very upset. Finally my mom was caught and she was sent to a labor camp.
There were "deals" of exchanging Jews with the Temples who were in Israel
Templers
Templers are members of the Temple Society (German: Tempelgesellschaft), a German Protestant sect with roots in the Pietist movement of the Lutheran Church. The Templers were expelled from the church in 1858 because of their millennial beliefs. Their aim was to realize the apocalyptic visions of the prophets of Israel in the Holy Land. Membership in the Temple Society today is about 1000 members.[citation needed]
Etymology
The word Temple is derived from the concept of the Christian Community as described in the New Testament, see 1 Corinthians 3:16 and 1 Peter 2:5, where every person and the community are seen as temples in which God's spirit dwells.
History
Christoph Hoffmann and Georg David Hardegg founded the Temple Society at Kirschenhardthof near Ludwigsburg in 1861. This religious society has its roots in the Pietism within the Lutheran Church in the State of Württemberg. Called "Deutscher Tempel" by its founders, their aim was to promote spiritual cooperation to advance the rebuild of the Temple in the Holy Land (Palestine), in the belief that their foundation promotes the second coming of Christ. On their course to achieve that goal, their contributions towards raising the standards of agriculture, crafts, scientific research, business and building in an undeveloped province under Turkish rule were significant. Many see them as an indispensable aid in the early establishment of the Yishuv, and perhaps a role model for the Zionist Movement of the time. The Templers are sometimes confused with the Knights Templar, a Crusader order.
Early settlement in Palestine
Etymology
The word Temple is derived from the concept of the Christian Community as described in the New Testament, see 1 Corinthians 3:16 and 1 Peter 2:5, where every person and the community are seen as temples in which God's spirit dwells.
History
Christoph Hoffmann and Georg David Hardegg founded the Temple Society at Kirschenhardthof near Ludwigsburg in 1861. This religious society has its roots in the Pietism within the Lutheran Church in the State of Württemberg. Called "Deutscher Tempel" by its founders, their aim was to promote spiritual cooperation to advance the rebuild of the Temple in the Holy Land (Palestine), in the belief that their foundation promotes the second coming of Christ. On their course to achieve that goal, their contributions towards raising the standards of agriculture, crafts, scientific research, business and building in an undeveloped province under Turkish rule were significant. Many see them as an indispensable aid in the early establishment of the Yishuv, and perhaps a role model for the Zionist Movement of the time. The Templers are sometimes confused with the Knights Templar, a Crusader order.
Early settlement in Palestine
The remains of Templer buildings of Sarona in the HaKirya section of Tel Aviv.
Hoffmann and Hardegg purchased land at the foot of Mount Carmel and established a colony there in 1868. At the time, Haifa had a population of 4,000. The Templers are credited today with promoting the development of the city. The colonists built an attractive main street that was much admired by the locals. It was 30 meters wide and planted with trees on both sides. The houses, designed by architect Jacob Schumacher, were built of stone, with red-shingled roofs, instead of the flat or domed roofs common in the region. Hard work, the harsh climate and epidemics claimed the lives of many before the colony became self-sustaining. Hardegg stayed in Haifa, while Hoffmann established colonies in Sarona near Jaffa a year later, in the Valley of Refaim Jerusalem.The Templer's first agricultural colony was Sarona on the road from Jaffa to Nablus. The colony's oranges were the first to carry a "Jaffa orange" brand, one of the better known agricultural brands in Europe, used to market Israeli oranges to this day. The Templers established a regular coach service between Haifa and the other cities, promoting the country's tourist industry, and made an important contribution to road construction.
Affiliation with the Third Reich
During the 1930s, when the Nazi party rose to power, Nazi youth movements were established in the Templer colonies. Some Templers enlisted in the German army. In 1939, when World War II erupted, the British authorities declared them enemy nationals, placed them under arrest and deported many of them to Australia. During World War II, the British government brokered the exchange of about 1000 Templers for 550 Jews under German control. In 1962, the State of Israel paid 54 million Deutsche Marks in compensation to property owners whose assets were nationalized.
Timeline of the Temple Society
1861 The Temple Society was founded in south-west Germany by Christoph Hoffmann (1815-1885) and his friends, following a split with the Lutheran Landeskirche in Württemberg (7/10/1859) over dogmatic rituals. Plans for a move to Palestine considered.
The centre of the new movement was from 1856 on at Kirschenhardthof, were a community Hall and a school were commissioned in July that year. The community consisted of 9 properties of approximately 5ha each. It could at most accommodate 132 residents.
Attempts by impatient members in 1867 at settlement in Palestine on their own had tragic consequences. Of the 25 persons in the group who tried to settle in the north, 15 died within a year, 7 in Medjedel and 8 in Samunieh.
1868 Beginning of carefully planned migration of Templers to the Holy Land (then part of the Ottoman Empire). Over many years urban and rural settlements with church halls and schools, and commercial, trade, farm and transport enterprises were established in a number of locations including Jerusalem, Haifa and Jaffa.
The faith and ideas of the Templers also spread to the Russian Mennonite settlement of Molotschna where Johann Lange, former student from Württemberg, formed the Tempelhof congregation in Gnadenfeld after years of bitter controversy.
1875 Publication of 'Occident und Orient, Part 1' by Christoph Hoffmann. English translation 1995 'The Temple Society and its Settlements in the Holy Land' [ISBN 0-9597489-4-6], Occident and Orient, Part 1.
1921 Those Templers interned in Helouan, Egypt, towards the end of World War I returned to their settlements in Palestine (now a British Mandate). The settlements soon flourished again.
1939 German Templers were interned in Palestine at the outbreak of World War II.
1941 Over 500 Templers from Palestine were transported to Australia, where internment continued in Tatura, Victoria, until 1946-7.
1948 Formation of the State of Israel. Templers cannot return there, those left had to leave. Most now live in Australia and Germany.
The Temple Society Australia
1948-50 Australian Templers consolidate around Melbourne, Sydney and Adelaide. Over the years church halls and community centres were established at Boronia, Bayswater and Bentleigh in Melbourne, Meadowbank in Sydney and at Tanunda near Adelaide.
1950 Formation of the Temple Society Australia with Dr. Richard Hoffmann as Regional Head
1970 Australian and German Templer Regions linked formally by appointment of Dr. R. O. Hoffmann as President of the Temple Society
1972 Templer Home for the Aged opened in Bayswater
1979 Tabulam Nursing Home, located next to the Templer Home for the Aged, begun as a joint undertaking with the Australian-German Welfare Society.
1981 New Youth Group club room and school rooms completed at Bayswater.
1986 Templers in Germany and Australia celebrate 125 years of Temple Society.
1987 Sydney Templers secure places in the St. Hedwig Homes for the Aged of the Catholic German Community of St. Raphael in Blacktown NSW, opened in 1989.
1988 Dr Richard Hoffmann retires. Dietrich Ruff is elected as the new President of the Temple Society
1990s New initiatives: Templer residential unit development in Bayswater, Kids' Club, Australian-German Templer Exchange, Country Victorian Templer Groups
2001/2 Dietrich Ruff retires. Peter Lange is elected as the new President of the Temple Society
2002 A new Temple Chapel is built in the Bayswater Community Centre. Extensive Remodel of the TTHA.
2005 TSA Constitution changed to reflect the lifestyle of its members in Australia. It is no longer a community-based organisation, but one consisting of many focus and interest groups.
Tempelgesellschaft in Germany
1949 After a pause of 10 years, publication of Die Warte des Tempels is resumed in September. Rundschreiben keeps members informed.
1950 Management office installed at Mozartstraße 58, where meetings and religious services were held. Treffpunkt Mozartstraße became hub of social activities.
1954, at a General Meeting in September a revision of the 20 year-old constitution is propose.
1962, on January 27 the new constitution was finalised and accepted and the Tempelgesellschaft in Deutschland e.V. (TGD) instituted. A move to larger premises initiated.
1967 New community centre officially opened in Felix-Dahn-Straße, Degerloch
1970 the Australian and German Templer Regions formally linked by the appointment of Dr. R. O. Hoffmann as President of the society.
1976 TGD joins Bund für Freies Christentum.
We succeeded in being in one of those exchange deals and one day my mom took me to a hotel named Hotel Polsky .It was the place where those deals took place ,only we ended up in Bergen Belzen rather then in Israel.
To get into one of these deals you needed a certificate. My mom paid some one who had a certificate with jewelry or money I assume we were a very rich family. He filled our name in the his certificate.
We arrived at Bergen Belzen with these men. He was a big crook.
Bergen-Belsen concentration camp
Bergen-Belsen (or Belsen) was a Nazi concentration camp in Lower Saxony in northwestern Germany, southwest of the town of Bergen near Celle. Between 1943 and the war's end, an estimated 50,000 Russian Prisoners of War and a further 50,000 inmates died there, up to 35,000 of them dying of typhus in the first few months of 1945.
The camp was liberated on April 15, 1945 by the British 11th Armoured Division. 60,000 prisoners were found inside, most of them seriously ill, and another 13,000 corpses lay around the camp unburied. The scenes that greeted British troops were described by the BBC's Richard Dimbleby, who accompanied:
Operation
Bergen-Belsen was first set up in 1940 as the prisoner of war camp Stalag XI-C (named Stalag XI-C/311 for 600 Belgian and French POW's). Between this time and the spring of 1942, about 18,000 Soviet soldiers died of hunger, cold and disease.
In 1942, Bergen-Belsen became a concentration camp and was placed under SS command in April 1943. Initially it was designated Aufenthaltslager ("detention camp") to hold several thousand Jews intended to be sent overseas in exchange for German civilians who were interned. In March 1944, part of the camp was redesignated as an Erholungslager ("recovery camp"), where prisoners too sick to work were brought from other camps. In August 1944, a shipment of approximately 8,000 female prisoners of various nationalities arrived from Auschwitz, most of whom were sent to Arbeitskommandos to work in factories.
December 1944 saw the completion of the change-over of Bergen-Belsen into a concentration camp when SS-Hauptsturmführer Josef Kramer, previously at Auschwitz-Birkenau, became the new camp commander. The number of inmates in the camp on December 1, 1944,was 15,247. . In 1945, large numbers of prisoners were moved to Belsen from the eastern camps as the Soviet forces advanced. The resulting overcrowding led to a vast increase in deaths frowas m disease (particularly typhus) and malnutrition in a camp originally designed to hold about 10,000 inmates. The number of inmates increased from 22,000 on February 1, 1945, to 41,520 on March 1, 43,042 on April 1 and ultimately to about 60,000 on April 15. The number of deaths increased from 7,000 in February to 18,168 during March and 9,000 during the first half of April. The bodies of these prisoners were buried in mass graves.
There were no gas chambers in Bergen-Belsen, since the mass executions took place in the camps further east. Nevertheless, an estimated 50,000 Jews, Czechs, Poles, anti-Nazi Christians, homosexuals, and Roma and Sinti (Gypsies) died in the camp. Among them were Czech painter and writer Josef Čapek (est. April 1945), as well as famous Amsterdam residents Anne Frank (who died of typhus) and her sister Margot, who died there in March 1945. The average life expectancy of an inmate was nine months.
After the war, there were allegations that the camp (or possibly a section of it), was "of a privileged nature", compared to others. A lawsuit filed by the Jewish community in Thessaloniki against 55 alleged collaborators claims that 53 of them were sent to Bergen-Belsen "as a special favor" granted by the Germans.
Liberation
When the British and Canadians advanced on Bergen-Belsen in 1945, the German army negotiated a truce and exclusion zone around the camp to prevent the spread of typhus. Under the agreement, Hungarian and regular German troops guarding the camp returned to German lines when Allied troops liberated the camp on April 15, 1945. Although many SS guards had fled the camp, a small number remained, wearing white armbands as a sign of surrender. As a final act of defiance, the retreating Germans cut the water supply to the camp, making it hard for the Allied troops to treat the ill prisoners.
When British and Canadian troops finally entered they found thousands of bodies unburied and thousands of acutely sick and starving inmates. Over the next days the surviving prisoners were deloused and moved to a nearby German Panzer army camp, which became the Bergen-Belsen DP camp. The remaining SS personnel were then forced by armed Allied troops to bury the bodies in pits.
Bergen-Belsen concentration camp was then burned to the ground by flamethrowers mounted on Bren carriers because of the typhus epidemic and louse infestation. The name Belsen after this time refer to events at the Bergen-Belsen DP camp.
In spite of massive efforts to help the survivors, about another 9,000 died in April, and by the end of June 1945 another 4,000 had died (after liberation a total of 13,994 people died). On the 13th day after liberation, the Luftwaffe bombed one of the hospitals in the DP camp, injuring and killing several patient and Red Cross workers. The total number of deaths at Bergen-Belsen from 1943 to June 1945 was about 50,000.
The British troops and medical staff tried these diets to feed the prisoners, in this order:
Bully beef from Army rations. Most of the prisoners' digestive systems were in too weak a state from long-term starvation to handle such food.
Skimmed milk. The result was a bit better, but still far from acceptable.
Bengal Famine Mixture. This is a rice-and-sugar-based mixture which had achieved good results after the Bengal famine of 1943, but it proved less suitable to Europeans than to Bengalis because of the differences in the food to which they were accustomed. Adding the common ingredient paprika to the mixture made it more palatable to these Europeans and recovery started.
Aftermath
Many of the former SS staff that survived the typhus epidemic were tried by the British at the Belsen Trial. At the trial, the world got its first view of Irma Grese, Elisabeth Volkenrath, Juana Bormann, Fritz Klein, Josef Kramer, and the rest of the SS men and women who before served at Mittelbau Dora, Ravensbrück, Auschwitz I, II, III, and Neuengamme. Many of the female guards had served at small Gross Rosen subcamps at Neusalz, Langenleuba, and the Mittelbau-Dora subcamp at Gross Werther. Dozens of the personnel of Bergen-Belsen were found guilty of murder and of crimes against humanity, and most of those were hanged.
After liberation in April 1945, the military training barracks became a camp for displaced persons. Jews awaited transport to America, Australia and to the new Israel. Some Jewish survivors inaugurated a theater company called Kazet (the name played on the German KZ, for concentration camp).
Bergen-Belsen fell into neglect. Ronald Reagan's visit to West Germany in 1985 (see Bitburg) included a hastily-arranged stop at Bergen-Belsen which prompted the West Germans to put together a small documentation center. It soon became inadequate to the accumulating archives, to the general liberalizing process of German identity building after the wall fell, and to the growing public appetite abroad for Holocaust museums, along with the tourist economy they generated. The site is open to the public, featuring a visitors' center, a monument to the dead, and a "House of Silence" for reflection.
On April 15, 2005 there was a commemorative ceremony, and many ex-prisoners and ex-liberating troops attended.
When my mom was caught on the Arian side the Nazis took her to a labor camp where she caught tuberculosis. I first came to Bergen-Belsen when I was 2 years old (I was there for probably 4 years). The Nazis didn't let my mom get in with me because of her tuberculosis. There was a hospital right outside the camp. They took me and my mom and I saw her lying in bed. Later they took me back to camp. Apparently, she was dead.
I stayed with the man that we bought our immigration certificate from him, we were in the men shack. I think he abused me. He put me on the top bed and I couldn't get down to pee so I peed in bed. I remember I was always crying. I don't know if he hit me but apparently now that he did. I did a X-ray and signs of broken ribs were found so it seem like he did hit me. I remember a picture of me lying on the top bed and hearing people talking. I realized they were talking about me and about my mom's death. I also remember someone humming, that's way I have a connection between music and bad news.
The women in camp bought me with bread, and they took care of me. At the beginning, a woman named Bronka took care of me and we kept in touch for many years after the war. One day she was transferred to a concentration camp in France. There were a lot of women that took care of me but I can't remember any of them. They were always changing and I can't remember even their faces. Except for Bronka that I knew about , all the other women took care me in an anonymous way, no names and no face. I remember especially the Germans in the camp. There was always a Germen who picked me up.
I stayed with the man that we bought our immigration certificate from him, we were in the men shack. I think he abused me. He put me on the top bed and I couldn't get down to pee so I peed in bed. I remember I was always crying. I don't know if he hit me but apparently now that he did. I did a X-ray and signs of broken ribs were found so it seem like he did hit me. I remember a picture of me lying on the top bed and hearing people talking. I realized they were talking about me and about my mom's death. I also remember someone humming, that's way I have a connection between music and bad news.
The women in camp bought me with bread, and they took care of me. At the beginning, a woman named Bronka took care of me and we kept in touch for many years after the war. One day she was transferred to a concentration camp in France. There were a lot of women that took care of me but I can't remember any of them. They were always changing and I can't remember even their faces. Except for Bronka that I knew about , all the other women took care me in an anonymous way, no names and no face. I remember especially the Germans in the camp. There was always a Germen who picked me up.
Were there any actions?
People in the camp were dropped dead like flies so they didn't "need" the actions. In Warsaw the actions weren't organized, people were caught up in the street and killed by the Nazis . That is why there are no lists of the dead people that were in Warsaw, and there are no birth certificates – everything was destroyed. Now, people are starting to find out about what was going on, but there is a lot that will never be found.
The Death Marches
The death marches refer to the forcible movement between Autumn 1944 and late April 1945 by Nazi Germany of thousands of prisoners, mostly Jews, from German concentration camps near the war front to camps inside Germany.
Towards the end of World War II in 1944, as Britain and the United States approached the concentration camps from the west, the Soviet Union was advancing from the east. Trapped in the middle of the allied advance, the SS, not wanting the world to know about the Holocaust, decided to abandon the camps, moving or destroying evidence of the various atrocities they had committed there. Thousands of prisoners were killed in the camps before the marches commenced, in acts which at Nuremberg were tried as crimes against humanity.
Although the prisoners were already weak or ill after enduring the routine violence, overwork and starvation of concentration camp life, they were marched for tens of miles in the snow to railway stations; then transported for days at a time without food, water or shelter in freight carriages originally designed for cattle. On arrival at their destination, they were then forced to march again to the new camp. Any prisoners who were unable to keep up due to fatigue or illness were immediately and summarily executed by gunshot.
The first evacuation of Majdanek inmates started in April 1944. Prisoners of Kaiserwald were transported to Stutthof or killed in August.
Mittelbau-Dora was evacuated in April 1945.The SS killed large numbers of prisoners in gas chambers, by lethal injection and by starvation before the marches, and shot dead many more both during and after the death marches. Seven hundred prisoners were killed during one ten-day march of 8,000 Jews, including 6,000 women, who were being moved from camps in the Danzig region, which is bordered on the north by the Baltic Sea. Those still alive when the marchers reached the coast were forced into the sea and shot.
The death marches refer to the forcible movement between Autumn 1944 and late April 1945 by Nazi Germany of thousands of prisoners, mostly Jews, from German concentration camps near the war front to camps inside Germany.
Towards the end of World War II in 1944, as Britain and the United States approached the concentration camps from the west, the Soviet Union was advancing from the east. Trapped in the middle of the allied advance, the SS, not wanting the world to know about the Holocaust, decided to abandon the camps, moving or destroying evidence of the various atrocities they had committed there. Thousands of prisoners were killed in the camps before the marches commenced, in acts which at Nuremberg were tried as crimes against humanity.
Although the prisoners were already weak or ill after enduring the routine violence, overwork and starvation of concentration camp life, they were marched for tens of miles in the snow to railway stations; then transported for days at a time without food, water or shelter in freight carriages originally designed for cattle. On arrival at their destination, they were then forced to march again to the new camp. Any prisoners who were unable to keep up due to fatigue or illness were immediately and summarily executed by gunshot.
The first evacuation of Majdanek inmates started in April 1944. Prisoners of Kaiserwald were transported to Stutthof or killed in August.
Mittelbau-Dora was evacuated in April 1945.The SS killed large numbers of prisoners in gas chambers, by lethal injection and by starvation before the marches, and shot dead many more both during and after the death marches. Seven hundred prisoners were killed during one ten-day march of 8,000 Jews, including 6,000 women, who were being moved from camps in the Danzig region, which is bordered on the north by the Baltic Sea. Those still alive when the marchers reached the coast were forced into the sea and shot.
I was about 5 years old. Eventually, after a long walk, the Nazis put all of us on trains. If the Americans sttoped them, the Nazis would have the Jews and they could negotiate with the Americans. The Americans were getting closer so the Nazis stopped the trains and started taking people out of the trains (in an organized way as they were well organized). They killed every one of them. A woman took me with her and we hid under the train. She got out just for a second and she was killed. I was left by myself and waited for the Americans. It turns out that I have been waiting for about 3 days. The train was abandoned and the Germans ran away. When the Americans came they took all the Jews who had left been to different displaced person camps, they took me to Buchenwald Displaced Persons Camp. In Buchenwald I was alone. Everybody left the camp.
Buchenwald
Buchenwald concentration camp (German: Konzentrationslager or 'KZ' Buchenwald) was a Nazi concentration camp established on the Ettersberg (Etter Mountain) near Weimar, Thuringia, Germany (at the time, Nazi Germany), in July 1937, and one of the largest and first camps on German soil.
Camp prisoners worked primarily as forced labour in local armament factories. Inmates were Jews, Poles, political prisoners, Roma and Sinti, Jehovah's Witnesses, religious prisoners, criminals, homosexuals, and prisoners of war (POWs). Up to 1942 the majority of the political prisoners consisted of communists; later the proportion of other political prisoners increased considerably. Among the prisoners were also writers, doctors, artists, former nobility, and princesses. They came from countries as varied as Russia, Poland, France, Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia, the Netherlands, Belgium, Norway, Denmark, Latvia, Italy, Romania and Spain (some Second Spanish Republic exiles). Most of the political prisoners from the occupied countries were members of the resistance.
I was left alone with my doll that Bronka made me, it even didn't have hands or legs. I have this picture in my head of myself sitting on my tiny suitcase that I had in Buchenwald and I said to my doll "Don't worry I'll look after you".
A woman named Hilda Hupert saw me. She went back to take me with her. I came to Israel with her. Hilda Hupert took care of Jewish children who were left alone after the war. She knew a Rabbi named Rabbi Newman. With him and with her son they arranged the Jewish Group. 3 weeks before we arrived in Israel they took all the Jewish kids to a palace in Paris, to cheer up the kids. Hilda Hupert said that the kids were happy and had a lot of fun that day. In the nights there were crying and yelling. In Paris they took us to the Eifhel Tower, and let us go up to the second floor.
We came to Israel on a meteor ship on August 16th 1945. We were on the ship for about 2 weeks.
Did you have nightmares at nights?
Yes. I used to stay awake at nights. It has been going on for many years. I couldn't go outside to the toilets at night because I was scared. At the concentration camp we couldn't go out to use the toilet, so when I got to Israel I couldn't go either. Even though was able to walk, I was afraid to go outside. Especially because at the camp there were always male prisoners outside screaming, and it was horrible. They always stood outside in their striped pyjamas near the fences. As a little girl, it frightened me. So I didn't go outside to use the toilet and I wetted my bed as a result.I think that my memory is reconstructed. In the beginning, as I was telling you, all I could remember were pictures and only later on, things that I could relate to something started to come back to me. The camp, the people in the camp, I remember all of them. There's always this picture in my head of the prisoners standing near the fences, always with their striped pyjamas and hats.My memories from the camp are in black and white. Memories of cold, freezing cold. Actually, I think the memories are not even in white, they all very dark, in different shades of black. I'm always surprised that I cannot remember faces, I remember people only because the people who took care of me told me about them. It seems to me like a long line of women with no face. I cannot remember any conversation among people, I cannot remember myself talking to anyone, asking questions in the camp, and not in Israel. It felt like I was a little animal who needs to survive, and nothing is human. No rules, no conversation, no words- none of those things exists.
Hilda Hupert was the first one to talk to me. Tomi, her son, was always teasing me. I don't remember any other communication between people except that, I didn’t ask any questions and noune asked me. In my opinion, it's because it wasn't important enough, the important thing was to survive. I remember the feeling of hunger, and I know that when I first came to Israel I was swollen due to hunger. The first couple of years I was fat because of the hunger, later on I was eating properly and I wasn't fat anymore.I have all these childhood memories, but I'm not sure if it was before the war or during the war because I don't exactly know when I was born. I remember the sound of horseshoe like in a horse carriage. I remember that voice.The first sight I remember was as a baby, lying in my baby carriage wearing white fur, with my father in the garden. I don't have any memories of the city, I don't think I saw the city. All of those memories are soiled- the concentration camp, the shacks and the poor beds.
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