Research: White Boats and White buses - Name and age change during and after the Holocaust

A kennkarte was a sheet of thin cardboard, measuring about 30 by 14 cm (12 x 5.5 inches).The color of a Kennkarte was based on ethnicity. Poles had green-gray ones; Jews and Romas, yellow, etc. Many kennkarte seen nowadays on internet had a stamp duplicate, so it is likely that the war a market for both forged and original kennkarte.

Field Medical Card of Zofia (not Sophia) Mandel, 17 yers old. She survived Lodz ghetto and three concentration camps. Last X-ray was done on July 10th 1945 in Bergen-Belsen. Probably after that day she was transferred by ambulance train to Lübeck and Swedish Transit Hospital. She left Lübeck onboard White boat S/S Kastelholm that arrived to Stockholm early in the morning on July 15th. Her Lübeck nummer var L: 4084. She died on August 8, 1945 and is buried in Stockholm.

Researching the history of White Boats and White Buses one needs to be fully aware that the names and age of the survivors might have been changed both during and after the Holocaust. In my own family, my mother born in Lipno in 1918 as Perla Lucyna Rozental became Zofia Dabrowa during the war and remained that after the war when I was born. With the changed identity, her birthdate has also changed. And paradoxically her parents murdered 1942 in Treblinka also had their names changed after the war to match the new identity of my mother.

Many of the changes were done during the Holocaust and some soon after. Obtaining somebody else’s birth certificate was necessary for Jews trying to survive outside the ghettos. It usually meant getting someone else birth certificate, be it authentic or forged, and obtaining a German kennkarte based on the certificate. The Kennkarte was a basic identity document in use inside Germany during the Third Reich and in occupied incorporated territories during the war.

Kennkarte was a document printed on a sheet of thin cardboard paper, measuring about 30 by 14 cm (12 x 5.5 inches). To start it had two parallel folds with text on both sides, making it a six-page document. The color of a kennkarte was based on ethnicity: for instance, for Poles it was gray, for Jews and Romas, it was yellow. Many kennkarte were stamped “duplicate", strongly suggesting the existence of secondary market for both the forged and the original ones .

Your age, both on paper and in habitus at the time of deportation was often a matter of life or death. Wielka Szpera whose name in Polish came from German, Allgemeine Gehsperre (or prohibition to leave homes ) was a mass deportation to the extermination camp and one of the most tragic moments in the history of the Łódź Ghetto . The deportation was directed mainly at children under the age of 10 and the elderly over the age of 65. During Wielka Szpera, from the 5th to the 12th September 1942, more than 15,000 people were sent to the death camp in Chełmno.

Inspecting the documents issued after Bergen-Belsen was liberated, one finds numerous age discrepancies, indicating changes of age as well. According to the survivors, in this case the motivation was the desire to be asigned to the the same group in which one was hospitalized and later to the same group to be send by UNRRA to Sweden for hospital care and convalescence.

Several documents from that time display two different dates of birth, demonstrating that the age of the survivor most likely was changed. And in many cases, victims of starvation were so emaciated weighing as little as 20 kg, that it was almost impossible to be establish their age. The first document the survivors received was FMC, Field Medical Card issued by British, directly after the first medical examination. The age there is written like 17 y. Besides the age and the nam there nationality is indicated, for Jews JEW or just J. Inside FMS there is short medical history often accompanied by a simple drawing of the lungs with the diseased areas marked. The second document the survivor received was DP-Index Card issued by Allied Expeditionary Force with registration number and the cardholder signature.

The second document the survivor received was D.P. Index Card issued by Allied Expeditionary Force with registration number and the cardholder signature.

The former Bergen-Belsen prisoners with FMC and DP-cards were prior to transfer to Sweden registered by the Swedish Transit Hospital: The hospital was established in Lübeck in mid June. Here, the survivors on the way to Sweden received new identity cards (Identitetskort) with new numbers which were also printed on the entry cards to Sweden and also appeared on the White Boat ship lists for each transport.

These entry cards were actually the first Swedish document the survivors that were transferred from the new Bergen-Belsen emergency hospital for the displaced persons to Swedish Transit Hospital, got.

Finally, Mandel Zofia (Not Sophia), see above her FMC and Identitetskortet (below) got her name changed from Zofia to Sophia. The country she was born was Poland, not Tjeckoslovakia as it is written on her grave at Jewish cemetery in Stockholm.

The former Bergen-Belsen prisoners with FMC and DP-cards were prior to transfer to Sweden registered by the Swedish Transit Hospital: The hospital was established in Lübeck in mid June. Here, the survivors on the way to Sweden received new identity cards (Identitetskort) with new numbers which were also printed on the entry cards to Sweden and also appeared on the White Boat ship lists for each transport. Zofia (Sofia) Mandel got the card number 4084. This number will appear thereafter on her hospital documents.

Diagnosis card from Sigtuna Emergency Hospital with Zofia Mandels right name. Sofia died 3 week after she came with White Boat to Stockholm.

Finally, Mandel Zofia, got her name changed from Zofia to Sophia. The country she was born was Poland, not Tjeckoslovakia as it is written on her grave at Jewish cemetery in Stockholm. Is Chevra Kadischa in Stockholm going to redo her gravestone?