Kinderbaracke number 211 - Kinderheim - Mothers with children - Bergen-Belsen - UNRRAs White Boat Mission to Sweden - Child Survivors.

From the Ghetto in Piotrków Trybunalski, mother Bajla Goldhersz and her son Sevek were deported to Ravensbrück and thereafter to Bergen-Belsen.  At the same time, Bajla's husband, Herszgold Herszel, was deported to Buchenwald. In the photo, Bajla Goldhersz and her son Sevek Goldhersz are on the way to Eretz Israel. Actually, in this photograph, they travel on the same boat that the UNRRA White Boat brought them to Sweden in July 1945, the SS Kastelholm.

There are numerous testimonies by Bergen-Belsen Child Survivors. I was trying to find out how the Kinderbaracke number 211 was established and how it was functioning. It is known that most of the children arrived in late 1944 and the beginning of 1945.
Bergen-Belsen camp was not a uniform camp with the same conditions for the inmates. Besides POWs and slave workers, it was used for neutrals and other ‘exchange Jews’. As the camp was inspected by the Red Cross, this was likely the reason that the Kinderbaracke was established there. Kinderbaracke in hut number 211 was placed in the proximity of the camp, close to the woods on the other side of the wires.

Bergen-Belsen. April 1945. Children barrack and a newly dug mass grave.

Who were the children and teenagers in Bergen-Belsen? There were actually two main groups of children, one Eastern European group, 50 children from Poland, Slovakia, and Hungary, and Dutch children of the same size. Dutch children from Jewish families involved in the diamond trade. They arrived as a group at Bergen-Belsen in December 1944. The fate of this group has been well described.

Where did the Eastern European group of 50 children come from, and how did they survive until 1944? The bitter truth is that there was little chance of survival for Jewish children in Nazi-occupied Europe. This explains why there were so few children at the concentration camps at the time of liberation. It is difficult to come up with exact numbers!
Most of the children and young people were at the camp at the time of liberation; however, numerous had arrived there with the massive influx of survivors of other camps in the last months of the war. They all had experienced the Nazi hell as children in ghettos and in camps. Many had matured early and had seen much, and their testimonies enable us to see these experiences through children’s eyes. They also demonstrate the unique and intense nature of the few weeks spent in Bergen-Belsen during those last weeks of the war.
Many of the children were veterans of ghettos, and concentration camps like Auschwitz, and also survived like twin sisters Weiss the death marches before they entered Bergen-Belsen. The children

Baksidan

Family Zajaczkowski Father: Jozef Mother: Maria Son: Lolek, Daughter: Lusia

Fake Mothers with Fake Children - Holocaust Daughterhood

As I wrote earlier, numerous new families were built in the camps and thereafter in the hospitals and DP camps. This situation actually continued later, and I had numerous uncles and aunts during my childhood. None of them was blood-related. In many cases, there were numerous fake cousins, and mother-daughter relations were given as status to Allied authorities. "Holocaust daughterhood" is a fake state of being someone's daughter without blood relation.

Below is the story of Paulina and her Holocaust mother, Rywka-Regina Rundbaken. Regina was born in Lodz and moved to Piotrków Trybunalski (German: Petrikau) in September 1939. Her husband was in the Polish Army in Africa and was killed in December 1941 in Tobruk. Regina escaped Piotrkow Ghetto in October 1942 together with Paulina and Regina's sister Rut. Paulina's father followed them later and reunited with them in Austria, where they lived with forged papers as Polish workers.

DP-2 card of Paulina Janaszewicz (below) and her Holocaust mother, Regina Rundbaken (above).  This DP-2 card was issued in Lübeck, one day before departure to Sweden by White boat S/S Kastelholm.  At number 8 on this DP-2 card, there is a clear statement that Regina Rundbaken was traveling with her daughter, Paulina.

DP-2 card of Paulina Janaszewicz and her Holocaust mother, Regina Rundbaken (above). This DP-2 card was issued in Lübeck on July 24, 1945, one day before departure to Sweden by White boat KS/S Kastelholm.

Other mothers and children:
Mother Fajner Janka with daughters Tusia (Estera) and Rachela. All from Piotrków Trybunalski, were liberated on April 15 in Bergen-Belsen. Fajner Janka, mother, died after the liberation of the camp. Daughters, Tusia (Estera) and Rachela, left for Sweden with UNRRA White Boats, where they have lived until today.

Bajla Goldhersz and her son Sevek Goldhersz left Sweden for Israel.

Not all mothers with children in Bergen-Belsen were accommodated in the Kinderheim. See the history of the family Rubenlicht.

There is a book by Federica Clementi (2013) entitled Holocaust Mothers and Daughters: Family, History, and Trauma that focuses on the real mother-daughter bonds and experiences before, during, and after the Holocaust.

Numerous children from Kinderheim in KL Bergen-Belsen were transported first to Sweden in July 1945 during the UNRRA White Boat Mission. After recovery, they left Sweden for France and thereafter Eretz Israel. The trip from France on S/S Kedmah to Haifa (photo) ended on April 3rd, 1948.