During Operation Bagration a Red Army campaign fought between 22 June and 19 August 1944 in the Eastern Front, 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 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.
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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.
Brought to Sweden by UNRRAs White Boats - Luba Tryszynska (middle) with two other Holocaust survivors. On the left 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. |
The children 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 that were murdered there. She was later moved together with 8 other women to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp to take care there of the parentless children. Luba and 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 reason for that. One of the reasons was the possibility to find children of their own, matching age, and another, supported actively by the mothers was the food. According to one of the children there was alway mor food on the parentless children side of the barrack. Food was 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 the parentless children was actually two groups of children. First group, let´s call it East European children, were composed of children from Poland, Tjeckoslovakia and Hungary. The second group, were the children deported from Holland and this group of the children came to be known after WWII as the Diamond Children.
Dutch children were after the liberation sent back to Holland.
When Dutch children left Bergen-Belsen, repatriation to Holland, there were left two East european groups 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 Mirkas cousin Teodor were send 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 was calling her Ängel från Bergen-Belsen.
Like a number of other women that stayed with children in Barrack 211, Luba went to Sweden, where she stayed with a children for one year time and later married a fellow Polish Jew, also the 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 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 her barrack. “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.”
To start with, 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.
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. |
Stern Miriam (Mirka) was 2 year old when WWII started. She was in the Piotrków Ghetto and worked at Bugaj factory. |
Stern Miriams mother Nacha was 32 year old when WWII started. She was in the Piotrków Ghetto and worked at Bugaj factory. She came to Sweden on the same boat as Miriam (Mirka). |
Mlynarska Henia was 5 year old when WWII started. She was in Warsaw ghetto until Spring 1941 and thereafter in the Piotrków Ghetto. |
Lusia Zajaczkowska. Photo most probably done for the Swedish Främlings passport allowing leaving the country. Many Polish Jews were also geting Polish passports.
Lusia Zajaczkowska. |
Maria Zajaczkowska. |
Finkler Kaja was 4 year old when WWII started. She was in Warsaw ghetto until Spring 1941 and thereafter in the Piotrków Ghetto. |
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. |
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. |
In the Kinderheim in the 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.
Mala Helfgott (Tribich) said that she was admitted to Kinderheim thanks to her little cousin Hania that was born 1936. Mala was born 1931 so she was 14 when in Bergen-Belsen. |
Although officially Ada Bimko was responsible for the Kinderheim it il 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.
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 send 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.
Luba Tryszynska and children from Barrack 211 just after liberation. The boy on the far right reminds of Hetty Verolme´s youngest brother. |
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 |
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. |
So actually young boys and girls from the Piotrków Ghetto, that were separated during imprisonment and send to to Buchenwald, boys and Ravensbrück, girls, reunited just before the end of the war at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp and the barrack 211.
Gross sisters from Bratislava born 1933 and 1935 |
When the children ward in the Raundhaus was ending its presence Robert Collis had been contacted by Swedish doctor Hans Arnoldsson. Arnoldsson was a chief of Swedish Transit Hospital in Lübeck and responsible for the White Boat mission, thus transporting former inmates of the concentration camps to Sweden. Hans Arnoldsson was earlier involved in Swedish Red Cross operation named later White buses.
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. |
Raundhaus in Bergen-Belsen. The biggest hall was for grown ups. The children 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 about that Swedish authorities and went by himself to Bergen-Belsen hospital to talk to British authorities about the case.
Swedish Transit Hospital in Lübeck. The patients from the Bergen-Belsen hospital use to arrive by ambulance train from Bergen-Belsen and after 2-4 days were further transported to the Lübeck port and White Boats there. |
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 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 port of Calais to Paris and thereafter to Lyon and finally as legal immigrants to Eretz Israel. |
So, the trip of S/S Kastelholm with code name Black ship, that started on July 25, 1945 was a short trip to port of Malmö. There were several empty cabins on that journey. On the list of passengers we can read that there were just 120 patients, 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-year-old when they came to their first concentration camp Auschwitz where they lost their mother upon arrival.
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 the July 24th, 1945. Both cards include the information about theirs 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 girls mother were gased upon arrival to Auschwitz (not mentioned). |
Katz (Kac) Hanka born 1939 was most probably brought from Plaszów to Ravensbrüyck and thereafter from there to Bergen-Belsen. |
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 British Mandate from France but their ship was caught by British and both girls (now 17) were imprisoned in the detention camp on Cyprus.
The trip of S/S Kastelholm with code name Black ship, that started on July 25, 1945 was a short trip to port of Malmö. There were several empty cabins on that journey. On the list of passengers we can read that there were just 120 patients, 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 the barrack 211 and the staff from there is still missing. |
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 the children and the accompanying persons got a stamp with entry day of July 26, 1945. |
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 year old and the second 14. Dutch nurse, Annie Bonsel followed the Kinderheim children all the way to Sweden. |
Reverse page of Inreseuppgift with the name of places and dates of move. |
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Hospital in Malmö - Nya Lungkliniken where children from the Kinderheim were admitted, on July 27, 1945, one day after arrival to Malmö by White boat S/S Kastelholm. |
From Kinderheim in Bergen-Belsen to the hospital in Malmö - Nya Lungkliniken. Here, Doctors card of Siwek Rozia. In red info that she should be thereafter transferred to the Wellanderhemmet. From Kinderheim in Bergen-Belsen through transit Centre in Lübeck to the hospital in Malmö by UNRRA-mission White Boats. From Kinderheim in Bergen-Belsen to the hospital in Malmö - Nya Lungkliniken. Here, Doctors card of Miko Tibor. |
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.
* Hachshara and Youth Aliyah in Sweden 1933-1948. Emil Glück, Judith Diamond, Yaël Glick