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| Looking at the DP-2 card of Feliks Milsztajn that was issued just 5 days after the liberation of Begen-Belsen, one is amazed about the two languages that Milsztajn mentioned at (14) Languages spoken in Order of Fluency, he mentioned Polish and Dutch. It is likely that another orphan from Piotrków, Yidele Henechowicz communicated with Dutch children using their language. |
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| DP-2 card of Luba Tryszynska that spoke at least 6 languages, among others Yiddish. Hermina Kranzová spoke five: Slovakian, Hungarian, Polish, Russian, and German. |
Learning foreign languages in the concentration camps during WWII.
When visiting Israel I used to meet a fantastic man, Yaacov Raphael. He was the father of my friend Yoash Raphael, a professor at ENT at Ann Arborgh University. Yaacov was shoving me Israel. He seems to know every inch of that country. We often discussed the Holocaust, one of the subjects that he never discussed with his four children. Why I am discussing him now? Because he spoke all European languages, including Polish. His first two languages were Hungarian and Roumanian, thereafter German which he learned when studying in Vienna. Howcome Polish, I asked. His short answer was: Auschwitz.
Now back to my Kinderheim children from Bergen-Belsen and Kinderheim there that was started in January 1945. Half of the children there were from Holland and half were from Eastern Europe, predominantly from Poland.
Luba Tryszynska, a Polish-Jewish woman responsible for Kinderheim spoke at least 6 languages, among others Yiddish. Hermina Kranzová, Lubas right hand, spoke five: Slovakian, Hungarian, Polish, Russian, and German.
Dutch, Polish, German Hungarian, and Yiddish were dominating languages among children in Barack 211, Kinderheim in Bergen-Belsen. Before the Nazis sought to exterminate Jews, the Jewish population across Europe and elsewhere was estimated at 17 million, of which actually up to 13 million spoke Yiddish. Of the six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust, 85 percent were Yiddish speakers. Therefore, to start with, I thought that Yiddish was the common language in the Kinderheim. However, it was not the case. Polish and Dutch were dominating.
It is likely that some of the children from Poland learned quickly Dutch although they were exposed to that language only for 3-4 months, until the liberation on April, 15, 1945. Dutch children spoke Dutch and German. A few Hungarian and Romanian children used most likely German and Yiddish to communicate with others and after a while also used the language that dominated in Kinderheim, Polish.
It is likely that during the days children gathered according to language and age. Older children, half orphans, had often a "group of Polish mothers" to talk to. Full orphans are likely to mix with Dutch children and learn their language.
According to Hetty Verolme (Esther Werkendam), one of the elder Dutch girls there, the Polish and Dutch groups during the day spent their time at two different locations within the hut. Esther Werkendam - Hetty Verolme wrote to me: Then a whole lot of Polish girls arrived but they did not mix with the Dutch Children. They always stayed in the dining room and we stayed in the dormitory".
Looking at the DP-2 card of Feliks Milsztajn that was issued just 5 days after the liberation of Begen-Belsen, one is amazed that two languages that Milsztajn mentioned at (14) Languages spoken in Order of Fluency, he mentioned Polish and Dutch. It is likely that another orphan from Piotrków, Yidele Henechowicz communicated with Dutch children using their language.
