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| Piotrków Trybunalski occupied by Germans. Until October 1942 there were approx. 20 000 Jews living in the Piotrków Ghetto. When the Gross action in the Warszawa Ghetto July-September 1942 was finished and more than 300 000 Jews were murdered in Treblinka camp, the deportation actions to the death camps started in other cities. In Piotrków during October 14—22, 1942 över 20 000 Jews were send to Treblinka or killed in or in the vicinity of the city. Just 2 000 Jews were left working for Germans. Here the black signs of the skull and bones on a blue background and white Ghetto sign. Skull and bone signs were earlier used in the military troops and since 1829 used in New York State as a symbol for poisonous substances placed at the ghetto boundaries and the main gate. |
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| Announcement from October 28, 1939 issued by the Jewish Congregation in Piotrków Trybunalski reminding about the final day om the moving into the ghetto area by October 1939. Piotrków Trybunalski is a town in central Poland, about 26 km south of Lodz. In 1939, there were some 10 000 Jews in Piotrków, about one-third of the total population. Piotrkow was occupied by the Germans on September 5, 1939 and on October 8, 1939, the German commander of Piotrkow Trybunalski issued a decree about the formation of the ghetto within the city. The ghetto area was not fenced and its boundary was not guarded. The Jews were allowed to leave the ghetto without permits,and also spend longer periods of time on specified “Aryan” streets but not on the main streets. An influx of refugees and displaced persons caused the ghetto population to swell from 10 000 at the beginning of the war to 20 000. The town of Piotrków Trybunalski was heavily bombed on second day of WWII, September 2nd, 1939at 8:30 a.m. Bombs were dropped on the city, and a second heavy bombing took place the next day, Sunday, beginning at 10:00 On Tuesday, September 5th, at 4 o’clock in the afternoon, the Germans entered Piotrkow and conquered the city after two hours of street fighting. |
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During Operation Bagration a Red Army campaign fought between 22 June and 19 August 1944 in the Eastern Front, the Red Army destroyed 28 of 34 divisions of German Army Group Centre and completely shattered the German front line. This Russian operation was the biggest defeat in German military history and the fifth deadliest campaign in Europe. It resulted in killing/capturing around 450,000 German soldiers, while 300,000 others were cut off in the north, in the Courland Pocket that was actually cut off from the general fighting. The new front line achieved in August 1944 remained actually until January 1945 - Vistula - Oder offensive.
Operation Bagration triggered the evacuation of the German industries, concentration camps, and slave workers west. They were needed for the war industries. That was also valid for slave workers in Piotrków Trybunalski. Germans, to start with, were sending the inmates to the west by railway, but thousands of prisoners were sent on death marches.
Earlier, after deportations from Piotrków to the death camp Treblinka in late 1942 the remaining Jews that were left in Piotrków Trybunalski were employed at the Hortensja Glassworks, which mainly produced jars and bottles, at the Kara factory, which manufactured plate glass, or the Bugaj Wood factory. They used to work shifts, and the families working there had the children living with them. This was the situation until December 1944. In December 1994 in the same manner as inmates and slave workers from the camps, the Piotrków Jews were to be moved west.
At the end of July 1943 the small ghetto (located at one street Staro-Warszawska) was liquidated. Only 1 720 Jews were allowed to remain in Piotrków and of them 1 000 in the Bugaj wood factory and the remainder in the two glassworks, Hortensja and Kara.
Bergen-Belsen after liberation in April 1945. Children from Barrack 211 - and Luba Tryszynska behind the barbed wire.
To start with, a short description - who was Luba Tryszynska, the Angel of Bergen-Belsen.
Kinderheim or Kinderbaracke number 211 (children’s barrack), was apparently run by the Nazis as a showplace for the International Red Cross. This organization’s representatives visited the place periodically, probably without being shown the rest of the camp. At such occasions, the children were, of course, scrubbed extra clean.
While the children were supposed to be under sixteen (under 14 according to Mala Helfgott) to live in the compound, at least two of them seemed to be older; they had lied about their ages so as to remain with their younger siblings.
Lusia Zajaczkowska. Photo most probably done for the Swedish Främlings passport allowing leaving the country. Many Polish Jews were also geting Polish passports.
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| The list of males and boys (children) deported from Piotrków Trybunalski to Buchenwald concentration camp in December 1944. Nr. 74 Henechowicz Jidel. It is likely that there are other pages of the list of the males, as numerous names are missing on that list but are present on German documents issued at the arrival to the camp. |
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| In December of 1944, as the Russian and Polish Army advanced into Poland, the last Jews of Piotrkow were deported. Some were sent to Częstochowa. The rest, men including Jidele and 21 other boys with fathers, were sent to Buchenwald Concentration Camp, while women were sent to Ravensbrück. In Buchenwald, the Germans at the KZ were not especially happy to receive "the workers" from the Piotrków Trybunalski ghetto, who were just 2 years old (marked here in red). The boy, Jidele Henechowicz, was among the Kinderheim children who arrived to Sweden on July 26, 1945 with the UNRRA mission White Boats. |
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| Sondertransport Nr. 131 am 2.12.1944 aus Petrikau / GG ohne Papiere" (Special Transport No. 131 on Dec. 2, 1944 from Petrikau/Generalgouvernement without documents). 277 women and 9 children (of these, about 162 survived the war). The destination was the Ravensbrück concentration camp. Prisoner Number: 90084 - 90360. Later they were send further to Bergen-Belsen where they were liberated. Several children with and without mothers were, after the liberation of Bergen-Belsen, brought to Sweden. Page 1 of 3. |
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At the end of July 1943 the small ghetto (located at one street Staro-Warszawska) was liquidated. Only 1 720 Jews were allowed to remain in Piotrków and of them 1 000 in the Bugaj wood factory and the remainder in the two glassworks, Hortensja and Kara.
Final deportation.
On December 2nd, 1944, the deportation of Jews from Piotrków Trybunalski took place. After an assembly, Jewish men and male children were loaded into the cattle wagons according to the lists that were prepared in advance, and women with children, mostly girls, were directed to other wagons in the same train. After reaching an unknown station on the way west, the train was divided, and Jewish men and male children were transported to the Buchenwald concentration camp. Jewish women and children were transported to the Ravensbrück concentration camp. Later, during the first week of January 1945, several children from Buchenwald, Piotrków boys, were separated from their fathers and relatives and transported to Bergen-Belsen. This transport was carried out in the regular Deutsche Reichsbahn wagons. When in Bergen-Belsen, the children from Piotrków were allowed to Kinderheim in barrack 211. Dutch children were already there. They arrived just one week earlier.
Children from Kinderheim in Bergen-Belsen just after the liberation on April 15th 1945. The girl, first on the left, Elsa Biller.
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| Brought to Sweden by UNRRAs White Boats - Luba Tryszynska (middle) with two other Holocaust survivors. On the left Hermina Krancová, who was ordered by dr. Mengele i Auschwitz followed Luba, Ada Bimko, and five other women to Bergen-Belsen to take care of children in Barrack 211. |
The children's facility in Barrack 211 was managed by a woman named Luba Tryszynska. She was deported together with her husband and child to Auschwitz in January 1943. While there, she was separated from her husband, Herschel, and her little son, who were murdered there. She was later moved, together with 8 other women to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp to take care of the parentless children there. Luba was assisted by another woman, Hermina Krantzova. The barrack housed two categories of children: parentless and across the hall from them, young women with children of their own. Many of the children from this second group spend their time together with the parentless children. There were two reasons for that. One of the reasons was the possibility of finding children of their own, of the same age, and another, actively supported by the mothers, was the food. According to one of the children, there was always more food on the parentless children's side of the barrack. Food was the most important issue in the camp. Luba was the one to secure the food in the barrack through her contact within the camp, especially in the camp kitchen in this area of the camp.
The group of parentless children was actually two groups of children. The first group, let´s call it East-European children, was composed of children from Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary. The second group was the children deported from Holland, and this group of children came to be known after WWII as the Diamond Children.
Dutch children were sent back to Holland after the liberation. Luba assisted them and returned to Bergen-Belsen.
When Dutch children left Bergen-Belsen, repatriation to Holland, there were two Eastern European groups left in Kinderheim, and later in the Hospital in the Round House in Bergen-Belsen. The two main groups were: Parentless children and Children with mothers.
Some of the children like Mirka (Miriam) Stern and her mother, Nacha and Mirka's cousin Teodor were sent earlier, separately to Sweden. They arrived on July 7th, 1945 to Malmö.
Luba Tryszynska was called by the Swedish and Dutch media for “the Angel of Bergen-Belsen”. Several Swedish newspapers were calling her Ängel från Bergen-Belsen.
Like several other women who stayed with children in Barrack 211, Luba went to Sweden, where she stayed with children for one year and later married a fellow Polish Jew, also a Holocaust survivor. They moved to the United States, where she became known as Luba Tryszynska-Frederick, but kept her angelic title. In 1998, the A&E network ran a documentary called “The Angel of Bergen-Belsen” in its Investigative Reports series. Most recently, an as-told-to children’s book titled Luba: The Angel of Bergen-Belsen (written by Michelle R. McCann) was published by Tricycle Press with a 2003 copyright. “The Angel of Bergen-Belsen” was used as a title of several articles in a Swedish newspaper (Ängel från Bergen-Belsen).
Luba’s Dutch story is that one night in December of 1944, she heard the crying of fifty-four Dutch children who had been abandoned in a snowy field behind Barrack 211. “Some,” as the McCann narrative tells us, “were just babies tucked into pillowcases.” After a conversation in which the oldest of the children told her that their parents had been taken away on a truck and that the children were left to die in the cold, Luba “gathered the group together and led them back to the barracks.”
Kinderheim or Kinderbaracke number 211 (children’s barrack), was apparently run by the Nazis as a showplace for the International Red Cross. This organization’s representatives visited the place periodically, probably without being shown the rest of the camp. At such occasions, the children were, of course, scrubbed extra clean.
While the children were supposed to be under sixteen (under 14 according to Mala Helfgott) to live in the compound, at least two of them seemed to be older; they had lied about their ages so as to remain with their younger siblings.
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Brought to Sweden by UNRRAs White Boats - Luba Tryszynska, left and the right Hermina Krancová that on order from dr. Mengele i Auschwitz followed Ada Bimko and five others women to Bergen-Belsen to take care of children in Barrack 211. On the right Estera Fajner that was on the deportation list from Piotrków Trybunalski to Ravensbrück as number 215. |
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Stern Miriam (Mirka) was 2 year old when WWII started. She was in the Piotrków Ghetto and worked at Bugaj factory. |
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| Stern Miriam's mother Nacha, was 32 years old when WWII started. She was in the Piotrków Ghetto and worked at the Bugaj factory. She came to Sweden on the same boat as Miriam (Mirka). |
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| Mlynarska Henia was 5 years old when WWII started. She was in the Warsaw ghetto until Spring 1941 and thereafter in the Piotrków Ghetto. |
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| Lusia Zajaczkowska. |
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| Maria Zajaczkowska. |
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| Lusia Zajaczkowskas father Jozef Zajaczkowski was killed |
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| Finkler Kaja was 4 year old when WWII started. She was in Warsaw ghetto until Spring 1941 and thereafter in the Piotrków Ghetto. |
STAFF
Several persons from the Kinderheim in Bergen-Belsen and thereafter the staff from the Bergen-Belsens hospital traveled with the east european children to Sweden.
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| DP-2 card ofLuba Tryszynska born in Brest came to Sweden by UNRRAs White Boats - Luba Tryszynska and the children from Kinderheim in Bergen-Belsen. |
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| DP-2 card of Hermina Krancová that on order from dr. Mengele i Auschwitz followed Luba, Ada Bimko and five others women to Bergen-Belsen to take care of children in Barrack 211. |
Ada Bimko was born on August 26, 1912, in Sosnowiec, Poland. Prior WWII, she studied dentistry in France. In 1935, she returned to Sosnowiec in Poland, where she worked in a dental clinic. On August 2–3, 1943, she was deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau together with approximately five thousand Jews from the ghetto of Sosnowiec. Her parents, husband, and five-and-a-half-year-old son were immediately sent to their deaths in the gas chambers. Ada survived the selection and worked for dr. Mengele. In October 1943, Ada Bimko, Luba, and Hermina, together with five other Jewish women, were sent, as a “medical team” to the concentration camp of Bergen-Belsen in Germany to take care of the children in the Kinderheim.
In the Kinderheim in Barrack 211, there were children of different nationalities. Later a group of forty-nine Dutch Jewish children were placed there followed later by more Jewish children who had come to Bergen-Belsen from Buchenwald, Ravensbrück and Theresienstadt. The barrack 211 was turned into children’s home for around 150 boys and girls ranging in age from infants to teenagers.
Although officially Ada Bimko was responsible for the Kinderheim, it is likely that the facility was managed by a woman named Luba Tryszynska, herself also a Jewish prisoner from a town in eastern Poland, Brzesc, see her DP-2 card below. She was assisted by Hermina Krancova, from Slovakia.
Luba Tryszynska and Hermina Kranzová followed each other from Auschwitz to Bergen-Belsen and thereafter to Sweden.
When the children's ward in the Raundhaus was ending its presence, Robert Collis had been contacted by Swedish doctor Hans Arnoldsson. Arnoldsson was the chief of Swedish Transit Hospital in Lübeck and was responsible for the White Boat mission, thus transporting former inmates of the concentration camps to Sweden. Hans Arnoldsson was earlier involved in a Swedish Red Cross operation named later White buses.
At the end of White Boat mission, Arnoldsson became disappointed when mostly healthy subjects came by ambulance train from Bergen-Belsen. He informed the Swedish authorities and went by himself to Bergen-Belsen hospital to talk to British authorities about the case.
Among the patients that arrived on the White Boat Kastelholm to Sweden were two of Mengele´s twins with tattoos A-6026 and A-6027. They were just twelve years old when they came to their first concentration camp, Auschwitz, where they lost their mother upon arrival.
After two years in Sweden, the Weiss (Weisz) sisters decided to go to Eretz Israel. They went first from Sweden to France. They tried thereafter to get into the British Mandate from France, but their ship was caught by the British, and both girls (now 17) were imprisoned in the detention camp on Cyprus.
* Hachshara and Youth Aliyah in Sweden 1933-1948. Emil Glück, Judith Diamond, Yaël Glick
In the Kinderheim in Barrack 211, there were children of different nationalities. Later a group of forty-nine Dutch Jewish children were placed there followed later by more Jewish children who had come to Bergen-Belsen from Buchenwald, Ravensbrück and Theresienstadt. The barrack 211 was turned into children’s home for around 150 boys and girls ranging in age from infants to teenagers.
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| Mala Helfgott (Tribich) said that she was admitted to Kinderheim thanks to her little cousin Hania, who was born in 1936. Mala was born in 1931, so she was 14 when in Bergen-Belsen. |
Although officially Ada Bimko was responsible for the Kinderheim, it is likely that the facility was managed by a woman named Luba Tryszynska, herself also a Jewish prisoner from a town in eastern Poland, Brzesc, see her DP-2 card below. She was assisted by Hermina Krancova, from Slovakia.
Immediately upon liberation, Ada worked alongside the British Army medical personnel while Luba and Hermina stayed with the children.
In addition to the parentless 150 children ( 94 + 54 Dutch Children) overseen by Luba and her assistants, the barrack also housed, across the hall from them, young women with infants of their own. Another Luba´s helper was Hetty Verolme, who as a 14 year old and was sent to Bergen-Belsen together with her brothers. Verolme and her brothers, Max and Jack, were sent to Barrack 211, also known as the Children's House.
In addition to the parentless 150 children ( 94 + 54 Dutch Children) overseen by Luba and her assistants, the barrack also housed, across the hall from them, young women with infants of their own. Another Luba´s helper was Hetty Verolme, who as a 14 year old and was sent to Bergen-Belsen together with her brothers. Verolme and her brothers, Max and Jack, were sent to Barrack 211, also known as the Children's House.
Despite Verolme's age, she was tasked with supervising the small children there. She became known as 'Little Mother'.
After the war, the Deutsch children were repatriated to Holland and reunited with what was left of their families. As many of these families had been in the diamond business, the children came to be known as the Diamond Children.
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| Luba Tryszynska and children from Barrack 211 just after liberation. The boy on the far right reminds me of Hetty Verolme´s youngest brother. |
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Verkendam - Verolme and her brothers, Max and Jack, were sent to Barrack 211, also known as the Children's House - Kinderheim. Verkendam Esther b Feb 24, 1930 Hetty Verolme Kinderheim 211 Little Mother |
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Inmate card of Verkendam Esther b Feb 24, 1930 Hetty Verolme Kinderheim 211 Little Mother. The first date on this pink card is September 29, 1943 and the last one May 3rd, 1945 marked Hospital BB, Bergen-Belsen.  |
Luba and Hermina decided accompany the rest of the children to Sweden. Ada Bimko stayed in Bergen-Belsen that become a huge Jewish DP-camp.
So actually young boys and girls from the Piotrków Ghetto, who were separated during imprisonment and sent to Buchenwald, boys and Ravensbrück, girls, reunited just before the end of the war at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp and the barrack 211.
So actually young boys and girls from the Piotrków Ghetto, who were separated during imprisonment and sent to Buchenwald, boys and Ravensbrück, girls, reunited just before the end of the war at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp and the barrack 211.
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| Gross sisters from Bratislava, born in 1933 and 1935 |
Dr. Robert Collis, with another Dublin paediatrician, Patrick McClancy, and surgeon Nigel Kinnear they went to the "Horror Camp" at Belsen. The stench of death was apparent 20 miles off, a memory that stayed with Han Hogerzeil (later Han Collis) all her life. When Han Hogerzeil, a Dutch student, arrived with Bob Collis's British Red Cross and St John Ambulance Brigade field hospital, malnutrition was killing about 4,000 people a day. Soon after the British liberated the Bergen-Belsen camp in April 1945, a Dutch nurse, Annie Bonsel, came there with Robert Collis and Han Hogerzeil as part of the Red Cross team.
When the children's ward in the Raundhaus was ending its presence, Robert Collis had been contacted by Swedish doctor Hans Arnoldsson. Arnoldsson was the chief of Swedish Transit Hospital in Lübeck and was responsible for the White Boat mission, thus transporting former inmates of the concentration camps to Sweden. Hans Arnoldsson was earlier involved in a Swedish Red Cross operation named later White buses.
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| Hertha, a deaf girl from Barrack 211 in Bergen-Belsen came by White Boat S/S Kastelholm to Malmö in Sweden. When the war started, the parents of two girls Hertha and Renee Gross paid a (gentile) couple to hide their daughters and to protect them. When the parents were deported and couldn't pay the couple, the girls were released. Thereafter, they were caught and learned that their parents had been deported to Auschwitz. Hertha and Renee were sent to Bergen-Belsen and Kinderheim there. In Sweden Hertha attended Manilla school at Djurgården in Stockholm, a school for the deaf, while her hearing sister Renée went to school in Helsingborg. After two long years, their American relatives were able to get them to the United States in 1948. |
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| Raundhaus in Bergen-Belsen. The biggest hall was for grown-ups. The children's ward run by dr. Collis was in smaller rooms. |
At the end of White Boat mission, Arnoldsson became disappointed when mostly healthy subjects came by ambulance train from Bergen-Belsen. He informed the Swedish authorities and went by himself to Bergen-Belsen hospital to talk to British authorities about the case.
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| Swedish Transit Hospital in Lübeck. The patients from the Bergen-Belsen hospital used to arrive by ambulance train from Bergen-Belsen, and after 2-4 days, they were further transported to the Lübeck port and White Boats there. |
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| L-number: 7734 on the Swedish Entry card (Inreseuppgift-kortet) of Sala Mastbaum. The back of the card was used for the Swedish police records and information about the place of stay of the immigrants, see the back of the card on the right. Sala Mastbaum left Sweden just 1 year after arrival. Probably she was in the group of children and youngsters that went to the port of Calais to Paris and thereafter to Lyon and finally as legal immigrants to Eretz Israel. |
However, the transport logistics at the end om the White Boat mission were not the best. According to the chief doctor at the UNRRA Transit Center and the Swedish Transit Hospital, Hans Arnoldsson, numerous persons were not suitable for the transport. They were dying. There was another group, fully healthy former inmates, that were not fitting the aim of the mission.
So, the trip of S/S Kastelholm with code name Black ship, which started on July 25, 1945, was a short trip to the port of Malmö. There were several empty cabins on that journey. On the list of passengers, we can read that there were just 120 passengers, normally 200 plus.
So, the trip of S/S Kastelholm with code name Black ship, which started on July 25, 1945, was a short trip to the port of Malmö. There were several empty cabins on that journey. On the list of passengers, we can read that there were just 120 passengers, normally 200 plus.
Among the patients that arrived on the White Boat Kastelholm to Sweden were two of Mengele´s twins with tattoos A-6026 and A-6027. They were just twelve years old when they came to their first concentration camp, Auschwitz, where they lost their mother upon arrival.
At the Lübeck Transit Hospital, the sisters (now 15) were given Entry cards to Sweden with numbers L: 7798 and L: 7900. Also, new DP-2 cards were issued there on July 24th, 1945. Both cards include the information about their own and their parents' fate during the Holocaust. At the lower part of Eva Weiss DP-2 card, there is information that they were taken in July 1944 to Auschwitz, thereafter there is information about Ravensbrück and Belsen. Here, the information about death transports/marches between the camps is missing. "Father soldier in Serbia" - most of the Jewish men in Hungary and Tjekoslovakia were recruited to forced labor in the framework of the "labor battalions" of the Hungarian Army. Hungary was an ally of Nazi Germany, and its army fought alongside Germany.
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| At the Lübeck Transit Hospital Weiss sisters (now 15) were given Entry cards to Sweden with numbers L: 7798 and L: 7900. Also, new DP-2 cards were issued there on July 24th, 1945. Both cards include the information about their own and their parents' fate during the Holocaust. At the lower part of Eva Weiss DP-2 card, there is information that they were taken in July 1944 to Auschwitz, thereafter there is information about Ravensbrück and Belsen. Here, the information about death transports/marches between the camps is missing. "Father soldier in Serbia" - most of the Jewish men in Hungary and Tjekoslovakia were recruited to forced labor in the framework of the "labor battalions" of the Hungarian Army. Hungary was an ally of Nazi Germany, and its army fought alongside Germany. Younger brother and the girl's mother were gassed upon arrival at Auschwitz (not mentioned). |
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| Katz (Kac) Hanka born 1939 was most probably brought from Plaszów to Ravensbrüyck and thereafter from there to Bergen-Belsen. |
Upon arrival in Malmö, Southern Sweden, one of the girls was sent to the hospital in Landskrona, and the second one to the orphanage for Jewish children. It was for the first time since they arrived in the cattle wagon at Auschwitz that they were apart.
After two years in Sweden, the Weiss (Weisz) sisters decided to go to Eretz Israel. They went first from Sweden to France. They tried thereafter to get into the British Mandate from France, but their ship was caught by the British, and both girls (now 17) were imprisoned in the detention camp on Cyprus.
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| The trip of S/S Kastelholm with code name Black ship, which started on July 25, 1945, was a short trip to the port of Malmö. There were several empty cabins on that journey. On the list of passengers, we can read that there were just 120 passengers, normally 200 plus. Kinderheim children from the Barrack 211 left Lübeck on the same White Boat as 130 other Holocaust survivors. However, the entire page with the names of the children from Barrack 211 and the staff from there is still missing. |
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| All the children from Bergen-Belsen Barrack 211 - Kinderheim and other young Holocaust survivors, who came to Sweden by White Boats in July 1945 got a green stamp in their Entry card (Inresekortet) with the day of arrival. The entire group of children and the accompanying persons got a stamp with the entry date of July 26, 1945. |
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| Three post-war documents concerning Kinderheim in Barrack 211 in Bergen-Belsen. On the left list of the children that got TBC shots by the nurse Annie Bonsel. Most probably at Children ward at the Raundhaus. In the middle list of Holocaust survivors on the UNRRA White Boat S/S Kastelholm from Lübeck to Malmö. On the right DP-2 cards with the names of two children - one just 2 years old and the second 14. Dutch nurse, Annie Bonsell followed the Kinderheim children all the way to Sweden. |
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| Reverse page of Inreseuppgift with the name of places and dates of move. |
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In Sweden
When the White Boat S/S Kastelholm arrived in Malmö after one night at sea, all the passengers had to be registered and disinfected, and checked for lice. All these procedures were done on the day of arrival, July 26, 1945. The sick children were transferred to Nya Lungkliniken i Malmö. Thereafter, 20 older girls and the mothers with small children were sent together with Hermina, Bonsel, and Ms Fernandes to Sundsgården close to Helsingborg. Luba and the older girls were transferred to Bjärred (north of Malmö and the older boys from the group were housed in Gåsebäck, also close to Helsingborg. The children who were hospitalized at Nya Lungkliniken were thereafter moved to Welanderhemmet and sister May.
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| Hospital in Malmö - Nya Lungkliniken, where children from the Kinderheim were admitted, on July 27, 1945, one day after arrival in Malmö by White boat S/S Kastelholm. |
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From Kinderheim in Bergen-Belsen to the hospital in Malmö - Nya Lungkliniken. Here, the doctor's card of Siwek Rozia. In red info that she should be thereafter transferred to the Wellanderhemmet. From Kinderheim in Bergen-Belsen through the transit Centre in Lübeck to the hospital in Malmö by UNRRA-mission White Boats.   |
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| Sundsgården - Lövsätra-Täby |
From Sweden to France
Dr Robert Collis, head paediatrician in Bergen-Belsen Hospital, directly after the liberation, brought six ailing, mostly Jewish, orphans from Sweden to Ireland for adoption and institutional care. The children were brought to Sweden with White Boat Action in July 1945. Collis, with his wife at that time, Phyllis, adopted two of them. Robert Collis later remarried Han. "Han" was born Johanna Hogerzeil in Amsterdam. She knew five languages, including Yiddish, and she played a vital role in interviewing mostly Jewish children from nine countries, where possible identifying their origins. The information that was later found on children's DP-2 cards.
From Sweden to France
The biggest group of Holocaust survivors who came to Sweden with White Boats at the end of WWII left Sweden on February 24, 1947 on the boat S/S Ulua. Several children left on that occasion as they had older siblings who decided to go to Eretz Israel in this way.
Emil Glück wrote in his book: "When finally the different transport had departed and only the youngest children remained, the leadership in Paris decided that around 100 of them were to be transferred to France and there educated before continuing to Israel. It was possible to find space for them on the ship (Kastelholm) that was departing for Calais.". The group he is referring to is likely the group at the Children's house at Chateau de la Serra in Villette D'Anthon.
It is possible that another group, final group of 150 youth that departed from Sweden to Israel at the end of 1948 also passed through the France to one of the ports at the South.
A roll call at a children's house at Chateau de la Serra in Villette D'Anthon for children Holocaust survivors in France. The sign at the entrance reads (in Yiddish)/ Popular national Jewish aid. The Israeli and French flags hang above the entrance and Theodor Herzel in the window on the first floor.
A roll call at a children's house at Chateau de la Serra in Villette D'Anthon for children Holocaust survivors in France. The sign at the entrance reads (in Yiddish)/ Popular national Jewish aid. The Israeli and French flags hang above the entrance and Theodor Herzel in the window on the first floor.
There was another group of 130 adults and 30 youths that left Sweden in August 1946 left Sweden on the former White Boats S/S Kastelholm. The idea was that this group will be by land transferred to on of the ports at the Mediterranean Sea and threafter iligally to Eretz Israel. In April 1947 the group was trying to enter Eretz Israel but were instead send to the detention camp at Cyprus where the group from Sweden that tried to enter Israel in February 1947 on S/S Ulua was already imprisoned.
* Hachshara and Youth Aliyah in Sweden 1933-1948. Emil Glück, Judith Diamond, Yaël Glick
