Children, Holocaust survivors from Bergen-Belsen, most of them orphans were after arrival to Malmö in July 1945, placed in Sundsgården. From there, they were moved to Bergsjö. Thereafter from Bergsjö, they were moved to Lövsätra and Voxna and they would be transferred to other places. Most of the children left for Eretz Israel
I am writing now about the Angel of Bergen-Belsen called Luba and also about her helpers, small Angels, Hermina from Slovakia and Hetty from Holland.
I will start with the history of two small angels, girls who helped Luba to run the Kinderheim during the most difficult time - in 1945, before the deportation.
I will start with the description of the Small Angels. Their history is actually the history of the Holocaust in Slovakia and in Holland.
Hermina Kranzová (Krancowá) was living with her parents and brothers in Spisske Podhardie, Slovakia. Slovakia was a Nazi country and Slovakians early started with the antisemitic rules and also with their own detention camps for Jews. When Germans started the industrial Holocaust, Slovakians simply moved the Jews from the detention camps to the border of Generalna Gubernia and the cattle train set to SS for further processing in Auschwitz. They also paid for every Jew that was taken over by the SS at the border. It was known what happened to the Jews in Auschwitz.
On the DP-2 card of Hermina Kranzová one can read about the fate of her family as well.
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| On the DP-2 card of Hermina Kranzová one can read about the fate of her family as well. |
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Esther - Hetty
It is known that several female inmates, among others, Luba Tryszynska, the woman in charge in the Kinderheim in Bergen-Belsen, was moved together with Hermina Krantzová and Ada Bimko from Auschwitz concentration camp to Bergen-Belsen. Luba Tryszynska was deported to Auschwitz in January 1943. She was separated from her husband Herschel and Luba’s 3-year-old son Isaac. Both husband and son were murdered in gas chambers. It is known that in the summer of 1944 Luba was transferred from Auschwitz to Bergen-Belsen so that it might be the beginning of the Kinderheim.
There were three main groups of children in the Kinderheim in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Approximately 50 Dutch children, according to the list 57, were described as children of diamond workers who were separated from their parents and sent to Kinderheim in Bergen-Belsen while their parents were sent to two other camps. 30-50 children were from Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Slovakia and Holland. There were also Yugoslavian children and German children registered later by UNRRA both as German and stateless.
Numerous children from the group from Poland were originally imprisoned in the Piotrków Ghetto which was actually the first ghetto created in occupied Poland.
Arrival and history of Dutch children - December 4-5, 1945
The story of Dutch children starts in December of 1944, exactly the date is not known. Probably December 4-5, 1944 as on that date their parents were deported from Bergen-Belsen to other camps. Women and men, parents of the Dutch children were separately sent to two different camps. According to testimonies, 54 (57) crying children were abandoned in a snowy field behind the Kinderheim barrack. That must be on December 5th, the day they were separated from their parents who were deported from Bergen-Belsen.
Dutch children's fate was described by one of the oldest Dutch children Esther Werkendam, later known as Hetty Verolme. She was assigned to the Dutch children's group as a helper. She was later described as a Little mother. Two of her younger brothers were also in this group. After the liberation, she said it she was for 14 months in Bergen-Belsen. That means that the day of the deportation from Westerbork on the pink registration cards, see photo, is right. It is known that later, she and her two brothers were separated from their parents and were thereafter further deported to two other camps."Diamantairs" was a comprehensive 213 group of people of Jewish diamond workers and traders, mainly from Amsterdam, who came to Bergen-Belsen together with their family members in mid-May 1944 from from Westerbork transit camp. Germans wanted to build their own diamond industry. However, when these plans crashed due to to lack of raw materials. Men of the Diamantairs group were sent on December 4, 1944, to Sachsenhausen concentration camp and women on December 5 to Helmstedt-Beendorf camp which was a satellite camp of Neuengame concentration camp. Their 57 children that remained in Bergen-Belsen were loaded on the truck and driven from hut number 17 in Stalag to barrack 211, called Kinderheim in Women's Camp.
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| Hetty Verolme and her brothers were sent from Westerbork transit camp to Bergen-Belsen. Most of the transports from Westerbork ended up in the death camps. 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". |
Hetty Verolme and her brothers were sent from Westerbork transit camp to Bergen-Belsen. Most of the transports from Westerbork ended up in the death camps. 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".
