Preface
For many years, I was familiar only with the action called the "White Buses" and with the view that the "White Buses saved the Jews from the concentration camps". However, in the early nineties, I met Halina Neujahr, a Holocaust survivor and Professor at KTH Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Stockholm, who told me that she came to Sweden on one of the White Boats. I tried to correct her and said, "You mean on the White Buses?". In answer to my question, she told me the entire story about her life during World War II, starting with September 1, 1939. Until 1943, she was imprisoned in the Warsaw Ghetto, and later, after the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in April 1943, she was a prisoner and a slave worker in numerous concentration camps, among others in Majdanek, where her mother was murdered upon arrival. In the end, Halina Neujahr was liberated on April 15, 1945 in Bergen-Belsen. Halina came to Sweden on board the Swedish White Boat, hospital ship HMS Prins Carl, which left the Port of Lübeck in Germany in late June 1945. Her sister, Sara Neujahr, also an inmate of Bergen-Belsen, died at the Swedish Transit Hospital only one day before embarking in Lübeck and is buried there.
For many years, I was familiar only with the action called the "White Buses" and with the view that the "White Buses saved the Jews from the concentration camps". However, in the early nineties, I met Halina Neujahr, a Holocaust survivor and Professor at KTH Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Stockholm, who told me that she came to Sweden on one of the White Boats. I tried to correct her and said, "You mean on the White Buses?". In answer to my question, she told me the entire story about her life during World War II, starting with September 1, 1939. Until 1943, she was imprisoned in the Warsaw Ghetto, and later, after the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in April 1943, she was a prisoner and a slave worker in numerous concentration camps, among others in Majdanek, where her mother was murdered upon arrival. In the end, Halina Neujahr was liberated on April 15, 1945 in Bergen-Belsen. Halina came to Sweden on board the Swedish White Boat, hospital ship HMS Prins Carl, which left the Port of Lübeck in Germany in late June 1945. Her sister, Sara Neujahr, also an inmate of Bergen-Belsen, died at the Swedish Transit Hospital only one day before embarking in Lübeck and is buried there.
Despite close and frequent contacts with Halina and other survivors who came to Sweden from the camps, there was not a single mention of the fact that there were hundreds of Holocaust victims buried in Sweden in 1945-1946. And none of the existing survivors' organizations or the Jewish Congregation in Stockholm, at least in the 1990s, had it on their agenda to pay tribute to their "sisters and brothers" from the ghettos and concentration camps who were buried in Stockholm. This even though they were liberated, transported to Sweden and were hospitalized at the same time. In Stockholm, only the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, the biggest act of Jewish resistance in German-occupied Poland was yearly remembered by the memorial services and academies organized by the Association of Polish Jews in Stockholm.
My first contact with the story of the Holocaust victims who came with the White Boats and died in Stockholm was upon the request of Aleksy, a Holocaust survivor now living in Israel. He found the name of his cousin's daughter on the list that I left at the archive section of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) in 1994. He wanted to know her place of burial and to have a photograph of her grave. I called the Jewish Congregation in Stockholm about her but I got a very fuzzy answer that there was a ‘graveyard J’ at the Northern Cemetery and that the young girl I was looking for might be buried there. With such vague information, I went to the cemetery. All the grave tombs were invisible as they were almost fully overgrown by grass. After some days of cleaning the surfaces of some 70 to 80 gravestones, I finally found the girl's grave. Her name was Frymeta Ajnhorn, 15 years old. She was not buried in grave field J, but in one of the three rows of grave field K. Frymeta´s first name and last name were misspelled. In a similar way the names, dates of birth, and country of origin of other Holocaust victims buried next to her were wrong. The very first Holocaust victims who died in Stockholm are buried in these three rows. Several of them died in July and August 1945, just a few days after arrival in Stockholm on board the White Boat S/S Kastelholm.
My first contact with the story of the Holocaust victims who came with the White Boats and died in Stockholm was upon the request of Aleksy, a Holocaust survivor now living in Israel. He found the name of his cousin's daughter on the list that I left at the archive section of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) in 1994. He wanted to know her place of burial and to have a photograph of her grave. I called the Jewish Congregation in Stockholm about her but I got a very fuzzy answer that there was a ‘graveyard J’ at the Northern Cemetery and that the young girl I was looking for might be buried there. With such vague information, I went to the cemetery. All the grave tombs were invisible as they were almost fully overgrown by grass. After some days of cleaning the surfaces of some 70 to 80 gravestones, I finally found the girl's grave. Her name was Frymeta Ajnhorn, 15 years old. She was not buried in grave field J, but in one of the three rows of grave field K. Frymeta´s first name and last name were misspelled. In a similar way the names, dates of birth, and country of origin of other Holocaust victims buried next to her were wrong. The very first Holocaust victims who died in Stockholm are buried in these three rows. Several of them died in July and August 1945, just a few days after arrival in Stockholm on board the White Boat S/S Kastelholm.
Population Movements at the end of the War
At the end of World War II (WWII), namely in the last three months from February to April 1945, there were big movements of population from East and West into the interior of the Third Reich. Germans were not only evacuating concentration camp inmates but also German civilians and military troops that were leaving areas such as Curlands and Pommern. At the end of WWII, at least eleven million people had been displaced from their home countries. About seven million of them ended up later in Allied-occupied Germany. These included former prisoners of war, slave laborers, and both non-Jewish and Jewish concentration camp survivors. Already in the Spring of 1945, all the European governments, Allied armies, and the Germans knew that these enormous numbers of displaced persons would sooner or later cause big problems in liberated Europe. All involved parties were trying to find a solution as early as the Spring of 1945. Discussions dealt both with the liberation and what to do at the end of WWII. All solutions to the problem were welcomed. The inmates of Nazi concentration camps, labor camps, and prisoner-of-war camps were just three groups among those millions. A special organization, the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) was created at a 44-nation conference at the White House on November 9, 1943. Its mission was to provide economic assistance to European nations and to repatriate and assist the refugees who would come under Allied control after the end of WWII. UNRRA was therefore positive to all the actions that would alleviate the situation with the concentration camp inmates both before and after the war ended.
At the end of World War II (WWII), namely in the last three months from February to April 1945, there were big movements of population from East and West into the interior of the Third Reich. Germans were not only evacuating concentration camp inmates but also German civilians and military troops that were leaving areas such as Curlands and Pommern. At the end of WWII, at least eleven million people had been displaced from their home countries. About seven million of them ended up later in Allied-occupied Germany. These included former prisoners of war, slave laborers, and both non-Jewish and Jewish concentration camp survivors. Already in the Spring of 1945, all the European governments, Allied armies, and the Germans knew that these enormous numbers of displaced persons would sooner or later cause big problems in liberated Europe. All involved parties were trying to find a solution as early as the Spring of 1945. Discussions dealt both with the liberation and what to do at the end of WWII. All solutions to the problem were welcomed. The inmates of Nazi concentration camps, labor camps, and prisoner-of-war camps were just three groups among those millions. A special organization, the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) was created at a 44-nation conference at the White House on November 9, 1943. Its mission was to provide economic assistance to European nations and to repatriate and assist the refugees who would come under Allied control after the end of WWII. UNRRA was therefore positive to all the actions that would alleviate the situation with the concentration camp inmates both before and after the war ended.
WASSERMAN WROBLEWSKI
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| April 17, 1945. Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Women inmates prepare a meal, peeling potatoes while the naked corpses lie abandoned in the background. The woman on the left in the picture has been identified as Alice Lok. Alice was deported from her home city Sárvár to Auschwitz in 1944. At one time she was selected for the gas chamber, but survived because of a malfunction. As Allied forces approached the camp, Alice and other inmates were evacuated to the Guben labor camp. Alice, her sister, and another girl escaped during a forced march from the camp but were found and sent on to Bergen-Belsen. Alice's sister, Edith was taken to a Red Cross hospital, but Alice never saw her again. Alice's father survived the Holocaust thanks to the documents issued by the Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg. Alice came to Sweden on the White Boat M/S Kronprinsessan Ingrid that left Lübeck on July 10, 1945. In the picture Alice is wearing a pair of good solid boots, highly unusual among the survivors. This is explained in an interview recorded with her by USMHH, as follows: "And they gave us some food. The...the...the...the Allies. They gave us some canned hash. And I told Edith, "Eat my portion. You need the strength." And Edith ate. I don't know how much. She couldn't eat much too either. But she became violently, violently ill. So my attempt to find a place...to find clothes (sniffling) was not so very successful. But I found a storage place where the German uniforms were; and I...I found a lot of boots." In the picture, there is another woman in the background. She seems to search for relatives or friends among the bodies. The bodies were buried in communal pits that were marked with the date of burial and, if known, the number of bodies each contained. A total of 15,000 prisoners were buried at Belsen after liberation. My uncle, Lutek-Lajb Wójcikiewicz, whom I never met, is buried in the mass grave in Bergen-Belsen. He was a "Muselmann", the word was used to refer to a concentration camp prisoner who was reduced to no more than a shadow by starvation, exhaustion, and hopelessness, a person that was actually dead while alive and the death process was impossible to stop. The same type of fully exhausted children and grownups were found on the streets of ghettos. |
Stockholm, Sweden 2020.
