Vita Båtar och Vita bussar - Det är viktigt att vända på deras Inresekort.

Janaszewicz Paulina från Piotrków Trybunalski kom till Sverige från Lübeck med den sista UNRRA Vita Båten - Barnbåten som avslutade hela aktionen som påbörjades direkt efter Midsommaren 1945.

Sourmani Sara kom med Vita båtar den 15 juli 1945. Hon hade befriats i Bergen-Belsen. Dog i i Sverige tre månade efter ankomsten.

Vamos Vera kom med sk Spöktåg till Padborg och därefter till Sverige.

Wajngot Estera från Lodz i Polen kom med UNRRA Vita Båtar.

 

Mothers and children separated before and after the Bergen-Belsen Liberation on April 15, 1945.

Kinderheim at Bergen-Belsen was run by two former Auschwitz prisoners, Luba Tryszynska and Hermina Krantzova. There are several books and articles about how The Angel of Bergen Belsen, Luba, sheltered and saved the Dutch "Diamond children" at Bergen-Belsen. Often omitted are, however, additional Polish Hungarian, Slovakian, and other Jewish children who were also brought to the Kinderheim.  It is known that on January 5, 1945, 21 boys were brought to Kinderheim from the Buchenwald concentration camp and Ravensbrück. Many of the non-diamond children were deported at the beginning of December 1944 from Piotrkow Trybunalski in Poland. The picture is from the movie taken by the British at the liberation of the camp on April 15, 1945, showing Luba carrying one of the youngest children. The rest of the children are a mixture of Dutch, Polish, and Slovakian children.

On December 5, 1944, according to a German list 57 children (under 16 years old) from barracks 17 that in two days became parentless were sat on a truck and driven across over Bergen-Belsen camp to the Women's camp. There, at night they were abandoned close to the Barrack 211. Among the children was Gerrit Cohensius, 13 years old. Most of the children torn from their families were much younger than Gerrit, many of them born 1942-1943. The youngest one, a boy Philip was just 13 months and born in the Westerbork transit camp.


On December 5, 1944, according to the German list above 57 children (1 - 16 years old) from barracks 17 were sat on a truck and driven across over Bergen-Belsen camp from Star Camp to the Women camp. There, at night they were abandoned close to the Barrack 211. 

Diamond women. When the front approached, the women that were taken from Bergen-Belsen to the factory in Beendorf were put in April 1945 on the train heading to Hamburg, a train that was a kind of a spoke train. Finally, these women came to Padborg in Denmark and from there further to Sweden in May 1945, just before the end of the war. Of the original 108 women, 65 arrived in Sweden and three more died there. Swedish registration cards of women in Robertshöjd II among them Cohensius mother. Most of the "Diamond women left Robertshöjd on July 21 and 28, 1945, and returned to Holland.

The fate of the children in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp varied and depended on several factors. One of the most important factors was which group of persecuted people they belonged to. Others were, where and when they had been caught, how old they were, and when they arrived. 

Often the fate of children who had been deported on their own or accompanied by their mothers or relatives differed in comparison with the children who lived in the camp without any relatives.

The last weeks before the liberation of Bergen-Belsen were essential for the survival of both children and grownups. The prisoners were left without water and food and numerous died in epidemics. Children who were at Barrack 211 had much bigger chances to survive than children without any caregivers.

Children who were at Barrack 211? Actually a mixture of three groups. Dutch children without parents, Polish boys brought from Buchenwald, and Polish children with mothers brought from Ravensbrück. Polish children in these two groups were originally from Piotrków Trybunalski ghetto, see below.

Dutch Children

57 Diamond children (or less), were the children of Dutch Jews who were skillful diamond workers deported first to Westerbork detention camp and thereafter on December 5th, 1944, to Bergen-Belsen. They lived as families in the Bergen-Belsen exchange camp. Families were taken apart when it became clear that Germany would not set up (at the end of the war) any diamond industries. First, the fathers were sent away from Bergen-Belsen to Sachsenhausen, and shortly thereafter the mothers to Beendorf in early December 1944. 

Only 4 men out of 175 survived the hard labor in Sachsenchausen. When the front approached, the women from the factory in Beendorf were put in April 1945 on the train heading to Hamburg, a train that was a kind of a spoke train. Finally, these women came to Padborg in Denmark and from there further to Sweden in May 1945, just before the end of the war. Of the original 108 women, 65 arrived in Sweden and three more died there. The reunion between the mothers and children took time, however, most of the Dutch women got quickly information about the fate of their children. Most of the Dutch children in Kinderheim were at the age 14-15. It is known that two of them, Kallus Rudolf and Emma went together with "Polish children" from Kinderheim to Sweden onboard White Boat S/S Kastelholm. At the beginning of February 1946 children went from Stockholm to the Netherlands where they reunited with the oldest brother Otto (Menachem). All three siblings traveled later to Israel, where they grew up in the home of Auschwitz survivors Leni and Leo in Beth Aliya. Neither of their parents survived the Holocaust.

Polish Children

Two groups of children were Polish children, boys, and girls, from the Piotrków ghetto. There are data about the transport of 21 boys from Buchenwald to Bergen-Belsen. When they arrived the Dutch children were already at the Kinderheim. Girls (originally from the Piotrków ghetto) came almost at the same time from the Ravsnsbrück. Numerous girls came with their mothers. 

Originally Polish children were on the deportation train that left Piotrków Ghetto. The train consisted of cattle wagons with males and females. In the wagons with male Jews, there were boys with fathers and uncles and in the female wagons, there were women with children, mainly girls. At one railway station, the train stopped and was divided and cattle wagons with females were heading to Rawensbrúck while those with men went to Buchenwald concentration camp.

Brothers, sisters, and cousins among Kinderheim children.

Rubinlicht 2 girls

Rosenblatt and Goldhersz - two sisters that had three boys, Sevek, son of Bela Goldhersz and Jozef and Richard sons of Bela Goldhersz (cousins of Sewek).

Rosenblatt brothers

When the day of deportation came in December 1944 Rosenblatt brothers went to two different concentration camps. Jozef, the older one, 13 years old (born 1931) went with his father Moszek to Buchenwald while his brother, Ryszard 8 years old went with his mother to Ravensbrück concentration camp.  On January 5th, 1945, one month after that the brothers were torn apart at the Piotrków Trybunalski railway station they were reunited in Bergen-Belsen. Józef came from Bergen-Belsen together with a group of 21 boys from Bergen-Belsen while Ryszard came with their mother and other women and children who were previously sent to the concentration camp Ravensbrück.

When the day of deportation came in December 1944 Rosenblatt brothers went to two different concentration camps. Jozef, the older 13 years (born 1931) went with his father Moszek to Buchenwald while his brother, Ryszard 8 years old went with his mother to Ravensbrück concentration camp. Dabrowski Moniek 12 years old (born 1932) went with his father Szoel. Jakubowicz Stefan was born in 1937 and his brother Jakubowicz Jerzy in 1930. They went together with their father Mojzesz. Both boys survived the Holocaust and were liberated in Buchenwald.

Jozef, the older one of Rosenblatt brothers, 13 years old (born 1931), went with his father Moszek to Buchenwald while his brother, Ryszard 8 years old went with his mother to Ravensbrück concentration camp. On January 5th, 1945, one month after that the brothers were torn apart at the Piotrków Trybunalski railway station they were reunited in Bergen-Belsen. Here registration card of Jozef from Buchenwald with a registration stamp from Bergen-Belsen, January 7the, 1945.

Fajner sisters

Fajner sisters, Estera and Rachela, and their mother Ita were all the time together since they were deported from the Piotrków ghetto in December 1944. After their mother, Ita died just one after the liberation of Bergen-Belsen in May 1945, Estera, 10 years older than Rachela took over the role of mother. Sisters came to Sweden with White Boat SS Kastelholm and were placed in Bjerred, where Luba T and Hermina were. Other children with mothers were placed at Sundsgården at Råå.

Other children in Kinderheim

In Sweden and also before at Bergen-Belsen hospital separation due to

The Holocaust survivors, depending on their state of health, were placed in various facilities, ranging from boarding schools for children and detention camps for grownups to specialist hospitals in different cities. Many survivors had tuberculosis and were placed in special TBC hospitals. Therefore, in many cases, mothers were separated from their children and placed far away from each other.

Twins that were together during the entire war were torn apart as it was revealed that one of them has hearing problems. She was placed in Manilla school in Stockholm while sister was at boarding school in Southern Sweden.

(photo credit: courtesy of Roman Wasserman Wroblewski)

Learning foreign languages in the concentration camps during WWII.

 

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.

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.

Piotrków Trybunalski, Kinderheim and Sundsgården - Brothers, sisters and cousins.

Piotrków Trybunalski, Kinderheim, and Sundsgården are the places in the history of several Jewish children that survived the Holocaust. Piotrków Trybunalski means here Piotrków Ghetto, Kinderheim means barrack number 211 in the concentration camp Bergen-Belsen and finally Sundsgården is the place where the group of children stayed as the very first place in Sweden in July 1945. 

Brothers, sisters, and cousins describe that besides siblings in the group, there were also several cousins.  Numerous children survived with their mothers and with aunts, both on the mother's and father's side.

When studying the DP-2 cards issued in Lübeck I found several such relations in this group.

From Kraków to Piotrków Trybunalski Ghetto and to Warszawa - Julek and Hania.

Thanks to Stefania Sępołowska, Hania Fiszgrund (Helenka Falkowska according to her new aryan documents) is placed in the "Nasz Dom" children's home run by Maryna Falska in Bielany. Nasz Dom was earlier run by Maryna Falska and Janusz Korczak. Hanna stayed there for 2.5 years. Due to her pronounced Semitic appearance, she does not go to school, which raises of course suspicions among the children and staff of the Nasz Dom Orphanage.

When World War II broke out, Salo Fiszgrund made it as many other Jews to the other side of the German/USSR border and thought that, as a Bund member, would be welcome there. He was wrong, Russians arrested him and took him to Minsk prison. He was, however, released in the Summer of 1942 by the Germans when Barbarossa started.

So suddenly, the father of the Fiszgrund family, Salo Fiszgrund was in a Russian prison, and his wife Malka stayed alone with two children, Julek and Hania, in Krakow occupied by Germans. Julek was born in 1923 and Hania in 1929.

The German army occupied Krakow in the first week of September 1939. Krakow was by Germans designated as the capital of the General Government. The German authorities initiated immediate measures aimed at isolating, exploiting, and persecuting the Jews of the city.

Since October 1939, the German occupation authorities required Jews in the city of Krakow and the surrounding areas to report for forced labor and also since December 1939 to carry a white armband with a blue Star of David. In May 1940, the Germans began to expel Jews from Krakow to the neighboring countryside.

As the situation in Krakow and the speed and degree of the anti-Jewish measures were much more drastic than in other cities in the General Government, friends of Salo Fiszgrund, the imprisoned in Soviet member of the Bund party, decided to move his family to a small city, Piotrków Trybunalski where Bund had a strong position prior WWII and also in the Judenrat after the city was occupied by Germans.

There was a ghetto in Piotrków as well but persecution of Jews was not to be compared with the big cities like Warszawa or Kraków. So, Salo Fiszgrund's wife with two children, Julek and Hania, moved from Krakow to Piotrków Trybunalski. Actually, also their Polish home-made, Anielcia, moved together with them. Bund in Piotrków arranged for them a place to live and fixed the work for Julek in one of the Judenrat offices. Besides his work at Judenrat, Julek continued his education at the gymnasium level at the underground courses. Sometimes his little sister Hania joined them. When Piotrków's open ghetto became in 1941 a closed ghetto Anielcia left them and moved back to Kraków. The family was surviving thanks to the financial support of Bund from Warszawa.

When Germans arrested Zalma Tenenberg and eleven other members of Judenrat in mid-1941, the situation in the Piotrków ghetto drastically changed. Julek started new work at the Bugaj wood factory where military provisional houses, almost tents, were produced for Wehrmacht needs. During the summer/autumn of 1942, the family Fiszgrund got the info that Salo Fiszgrund was released from the prison in Minsk and is now in Warszawa. However, at that time started in Warszawas ghetto Great Action, the deportation to the death camp Treblinka. After that, it was clear that sooner or later the deportation program to the death camp would also reach the Piotrków ghetto. Julek wants to send away his mother and sister and arrange false documents. His mother refused, however, to leave the ghetto. Julek succeeded in sending his sister, little Hania 12 years old back to Kraków to Anielka, their´s former housemaid. Bolek (Bolesław Smyk), a Polish friend of Julek escorted her at the beginning of October 1942. When Bolek returned to eventually transport the children's mother the big deportation was over and 20 000 Jews from Piotrków were sent and murdered in Treblinka. On the first day of the deportation, Julek and his mother were taken to and separated there. Julek was trying to follow his mother to Treblinka but was stopped by a German soldier. After the selection a big group was sent to the Bugaj factory and Julek was among them. However, he was thereafter sent to the Kara window glass factory. Among Polish workers, he sees one day Bolek who tells him that the transfer of his sister was successful and that Hania is hidden now in the cellar in the building where Fiszgrunds and Anielka lived before WWII. Julek starts to think about the escape to Warszawa.

Bolek, Boleslaw) Smyk*, the third name from the top, worked at the glass factory as a free worker. Here he meets Julek Fiszgrund (ghetto worker) again and tells him that the transfer of his sister to Kraków was successful and that Hania is hidden now in the cellar of the building where Fiszgrunds and Anielka lived before WWII. Suorce: APPT, Huta Szkła  "Kara" w Piotrkowie.

Meanwhile, Aniela Krzysztonek, a former housemaid of the Fiszgrund family, works in Kraków, having previously been with them in Piotrków. When Bolek arrives with little Hanna, she hides Hania in the basement using all the money she earns. However, after being exposed, they both set out on a train journey that lasts for several weeks. They finally arrive in Warsaw. At the railway station, Polish szmalcowniks catch them and lead them to the Polish Blue Police station. The beaten Aniela and the frazzled Hania are finally released. New Polish szmalcowniks met them on the street. This time the new ones were dressed elegantly, in boots with uppers. But the new ones were all about money. They followed Aniela and Hania to the Zoliborz area. New szmalcowniks reappeared at night after information from the hotel where they were staying. They robbed and beat them! Hanna and Aniela run away. Hanna had the address of her father's liaison officer in Warsaw, Krystyna Mucznik. She finds her father and lives locked in his room on Senatorska Street for some time. The place is dangerous, father is active in the underground.

Thanks to Stefania Sępołowska, Hania Fiszgrund (Helenka Falkowska according to her new documents) is placed in the "Nasz Dom" children's home run by Maryna Falska in Bielany. Nasz Dom was earlier run by Maryna Falska and Janusz Korczak. Hania stayed there for 2.5 years. Due to her pronounced Semitic appearance, she does not go to school, which raises of course suspicions. But the staff knows its origin and hides her during frequent German checks. Another hidden Jewish girl, Irena Jakubowicz, as well as a Jewish boy, Rysiek Próchnik normally attends a Polish school. Hania is being taught by Irena Dębska, an accountant in our house, but the girl in stress and depression can't think of much. There is no news about her mother, Aniela, or her brother Julek. She also worries about her father, who sometimes visits her. At one visit, she sees that someone is following her father, she is terrified that her father (pretending to be an uncle) will come in 2 weeks. Throughout his stay in our home, he does not go outside. He loves the night in our house. She believes that no one can recognize that she is Jewish in the great hall for girls... One of the tutors, Cesia Kosobucka, would often sit by Hania's bed at night to cheer her up. When the Gestapo came to our house, she was locked in a separate room with the inscription Typhus on the door.

The older girls in Our Home are teasing Hania more and more. They make her show her hands and they say that only a Jewish woman can have such hands. One day, Maryna Falska comes to the bedroom of these older girls in the evening and says: You are killing your friend! She's not Jewish! Her late mother was French and therefore Hania/Helenka cannot go to school and this explains why she has such features and dark hair. When the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising broke out in April 1943, everyone knew about it in Warszawa and the neighborhood. Lunas and smoke were also seen from the orphanage Our house. One night, when Hanna goes to the Orphanage roof/terrace that connects the front part of the house with the back part, she sees Maryna Falska, the director of the orphanage dressed in black, standing there. He looks at the burning Ghetto and is loudly crying!

During the Warsaw Uprising in 1944, the building housed an insurgent hospital. Hania volunteered to help and wash the bandages of the wounded insurgents. After the capitulation, the order to evacuate came, Maryna Falska died of a heart attack. The children were first deported to Pruszków, outside Warszawa, and later to Sokolniki in the Łódź Voivodeship. They lived there in school buildings and suffered from hunger. The children used to go to the village to beg, but Hania was not allowed. She stayed in Sokolniki until the end of the war. Krystyna Mucznik, a Bund liaison, came to pick her up and took her to Warsaw to her home. Hania went thereafter from Warsaw to her brother Julek in Lodz. The brother, however, is building his future and he doesn't have much time for his sister who, despite great shortcomings, is starting the 1st grade of middle school. After a year, Hanna's father places her in a Jewish orphanage in Zakopane. After the pogrom there she moves back to Warsaw again. The main part of the children from the Jewish orphanage in Zakopane escape Poland with Lena Küchler**. They reach Israel after being in for two years in France.

After the war, Hania and Anielcia became a family. They emigrated together from Poland to Israel in 1969. Anielcia Krzysztonek died in Israel at an advanced age and is buried in the Catholic cemetery in Jaffa. Hanna Fiszgrund lives in Tel Aviv (September 2023). Julek stayed in Poland.

Hania Fiszgrund

Hania Fiszgrund together with Lena Küchler's* children. The photo was taken in 1946 at Zakopane in Poland.

Hania Fiszgrund together with her daughter before leaving Poland in 1969.

* Bolek, Boleslaw) Smyk, adress was: 33 Ziem Wschodnich (it was changed during WWII from former "Piłsudskiego". Now it is called Wojska Polskiego.

** Lena Küchler, Kuechler - Silberman (in English-language publications: Lena Kuchler) was born in January 1910 in Wieliczka near Krakow. She attended a Hebrew-language gymnasium (academic secondary school) and graduated in Philosophy at the university in Krakow, majoring in Psychology and Education. Before the war, she was a teacher in a Jewish school in Bielsko and also taught in a teacher training seminary. During the war, with an assumed "Aryan" identity, she rescued orphans from the Warsaw ghetto and placed them in a Catholic institution. After the war, she gathered sick and orphaned Jewish children ages 3 to 15, initially in cooperation with the Central Jewish Committee in Krakow, and established a residential facility, school, and sanatorium for them in Zakopane and Rabka. These facilities operated in the spirit of Janusz Korczak's legacy.
In March 1946 she succeeded in getting her charges and staff out of Poland awash with antisemitism. They eventually reached France via Czechoslovakia, and from France emigrated to Israel in early 1949. The children went to Kvutzat Shiller and were adopted there.
Lena Kuechler–Silberman relocated to Tel Aviv, studied psychology in a seminary for kindergarten and schoolteachers, worked as an educational Superintendent, and later set up an educational psychology services center in Givatayim for kindergartens and schools. She retired in 1972.

Statistics today on Jimbao Today - 688288 readers.

 

Destination Sweden - Transporting Children from Bergen-Belsen during White Boat Mission 1945 - After July 1945 "nil" remaining persons at the Swedish Transit Hospital in Lübeck.

Absolutely last White Boats that left at the same time Lübeck harbor on July 25 were S/S Kastelholm and M/S Rönnskär. The day before, on July 24th left M/S Karskär.

I use to call the White Boat S/S Kastelholm and its last trip that was on July 25, 1945, for a "Children Boat". Children's Boat was the result of an agreement between Dr. Robert Collis and Dr. Hans Arnoldson. Dr Collis was the head of the Children's ward at the Emergency Hospital in Bergen-Belsen and Dr Arnoldson was the head of the Swedish Transit Hospital in Lübeck (Lübeck Transit Centre) and also responsible for the transport logistics of the UNRRA White Boats. These two decided on the day of transport of the children with the ambulance train from Bergen-Belsen to Lübeck and further transport to Sweden. 

Dr. Arnoldson sent the message (Signalmeddelande) to the Swedish Marine Forces* that S/S Kastelholm that arrived at Lüback Harbour early this week will wait for the children's transport until Wednesday, July 25.  The very last transports by ambulance train arriving in Lübeck on July 22-23-24 will carry respectively 500, 498, and 500 former inmates for further transports to Sweden. Dr. Arnoldson gives also an exact number of children and children with mothers that will arrive at Swedish Transit Hospital on July 24. Besides the number of children, there is also information about their health status.

The information in Signalmeddelande comes of course from Robert Collis who was head of child care at Bergen-Belsen Hospital. He stated that there will arrive 75 sick children and 95 healthy children would be accompanied by 26 sick mothers and 20 healthy ones. The foreign nursing staff mentioned by Dr Collis is a British nurse and a Dutch woman Han who was an interpreter and was assisting Dr. Collis from the start of the children's clinic at the Emergency Hospital in Bergen-Belsen.

After the last White boats left Lübeck on M/S Rönnskär and S/S Kastelholm in the official UNRRA report one can read "nil" in the column "Number of remaining" persons (in the Swedish Transit Hospital. Nil means the same as zero and it is usually used to say what the score is in matches in sports.

As was mentioned in the Signal message concerning UNRRA's White Boat S/S Kastelholm from 25 July 1945, all passengers are divided into sitting (Marked on the lists with S) and lying down (Marked on the lists with L). Sitting and lying actually referred more to their state of health as even those sitting got a place to sleep on the longer crossings. 

 

The total number of "Lying down" on S/S Kastelholm on this day was 56 and were distributed as follows: 

Men - 3 pcs 

Women - 16 pcs 

Children under 2 years - 3 pcs

Children 2-7 years - 7 pcs

Children 7-10 years - 8 pcs

Boys over 10 years - 13 pcs 

Girls over 10 years 13 pcs

The total number of people seated on S/S Kastelholm on this day was 145 and were distributed as follows: Men - 20 pcs 

Women - 32 pcs 

Children under 2 years - 26 pcs 

Children 2-7 years - 19 pcs 

Children 7-10 years - 14 pcs 

Boys over 10 years - 7 pcs 

Girls over 10 years - 27 pcs 

Sitting caregivers (from Bergen-Belsen hospital) 5 pcs.

There were numerous children on the M/S Rönnskär

 that left on July 25, 1945, Kozieniecki).

There were actually children and children with mothers from Kinderheim and Piotrków on White Boats that left Lübeck at the beginning of the UNRRA mission. Mirka Stern with her mother and her cousin Theodor left Lübeck on the White Boats M/S Ingrid, heading to Gothenburg on July  7, 1947.  It is possible that they were not at the Dr Collis children's ward but at other sections of the Emergency hospital at Bergen-Belsen which had 13 600 beds. 

On the passenger list on M/S Karskär that left Lübeck as a single boat on July 24, there were several children on board as well. Litmanowicz

From the middle of July, Dr. Hans Arnoldson, the commandant of the Luebeck detachment knew exactly how many more patients from Bergen-Belsen will come.  As the goal of the mission was 10,000 patients he was looking for more patients from other DP camps than Bergen-Belsen. He found former inmates of the Stutthof concentration camp in the Neustad DP camp and after the examination and registration at the Swedish Transit Hospital on July 23, 1945, were sent to Sweden on M/S Rönnskär, leaving at the same time as S/S Kastelholm, July 25th.

As mentioned S/S Kastelholm made the last voyage from Lübeck on July 25th. Afterward, all four civilian ships were restored to their previous condition and returned to their owners at the beginning of August. 

*Swedish Marine Forces - actually Board of Naval Logistics. The Naval staff had the task of following the movements of the White Boats at sea, maintaining radio communication, and transmitting messages and logistical requests such as fuel, food, and staff. lt also had to take decisions relating to naval matters (e g whether the ships should be escorted by (German) minesweepers or not). 

Absolutely last White Boats that left Lübeck harbor on July 25 were S/S Kastelholm and M/S Rönnskär. The day before, on July 24th left M/S Karskär. I use to call the White Boat S/S Kastelholm and its last trip that was on July 25, 1945, for a "Children Boat". Children's Boat was the result of an agreement between Dr. Robert Collis and Dr. Hans Arnoldson. Dr Collis was the head of the Children's ward at the Emergency Hospital in Bergen-Belsen and Dr Arnoldson was the head of the Swedish Transit Hospital in Lübeck.

 When the last White Boats left Lübeck harbor on July 25, 1945, they transported according to this list 9 525 former inmates of the concentration camps. Most of them came from Bergen-Belsen.

Dr. Arnoldson sent the message (Signalmeddelande) to the Swedish Marine Forces that S/S Kastelholm that arrived at Lüback Harbour early this week will wait for the children's transport until Wednesday, July 25. The very last transports by ambulance train arriving in Lübeck on July 22-23-24 will carry respectively 500, 498, and 500 former inmates for further transports to Sweden. Dr. Arnoldson gives also an exact number of children and children with mothers that will arrive at Swedish Transit Hospital on July 24. Besides the number of children, there is also information about their health status.
The information in Signalmeddelande comes of course from Robert Collis who was head of child care at Bergen-Belsen Hospital. He stated that there will arrive 75 sick children and 95 healthy children would be accompanied by 26 sick mothers and 20 healthy ones. The foreign nursing staff mentioned by Dr Collis is a British nurse and a Dutch woman Han who was an interpreter and was assisting Dr. Collis from the start of the children's clinic at the Emergency Hospital in Bergen-Belsen.

As was mentioned in the Signal message concerning UNRRA's White Boat S/S Kastelholm from 25 July 1945, all passengers are divided into sitting (Marked on the lists with S) and lying down (Marked on the lists with L). On page 5 there are two angels from Kinderheim i Barrack number 211 in Bergen-Belsen concentration camp: Luba and Hermina, here listed as 7910 and 7909.

There were actually children and children with mothers from Kinderheim and Piotrków on White Boats that left Lübeck at the beginning of the UNRRA mission. Mirka Stern with her mother and her cousin Theodor Zajdman left Lübeck on the White Boats M/S Ingrid, heading to Gothenburg on July 7, 1947.