Kinderbaracke number 211 - Kinderheim - Mothers with children - Bergen-Belsen - UNRRAs White Boat Mission to Sweden.

From the Ghetto in Piotrków Trybunalski mother Bajla Goldhersz and her son Sevek were deported to Ravensbrück and thereafter to Bergen-Belsen.  At the same time Bajlas husband Herszgold Herszel was deported to Buchenwald. On the photo Bajla Goldhersz and her son Sevek Goldhersz on the way to Eretz Israel. Actually they travel on the same boat that as UNRRA White Boat brought them to Sweden in July 1945.

There are numerous testimonies by Bergen-Belsen Child Survivors. I was trying to find out how the Kinderbaracke number 211 was established and how it was functioning. It is known that most of the children arrived at the lat 1944 and the begining of 1945.
Bergen-Belsen camp was not an uniform camp with the same condition for the inmates. Besides POWs and slave workers it was used for neutrals and other ‘exchange Jews’. As the camp was insepcted by Red Cross it is likely it was the reason that the Kinderbaracke was established there. Kinderbaracke in hut number 211 was placed in the proximity of the camp close to the woods on other side of the wires.

Bergen-Belsen. April 1945. Children barrack and newly dug mass grave.

Who were the children and teenagers in Bergen-Belsen? There were actually two main groups of children, one East-europeen group 50 children from Poland, Slovakia and from Hungary and Dutch children of the same size. Dutch children were from Jewish families involved in diamond trade. They arrived as a group to Bergen-Belsen in December 1944. The fate of this group has been well described.

Where did they East-europeen group of 50 children come from, and how did they survive until 1944? The bitter truth is that there was little chance of survival for Jewish children in Nazi-occupied Europe. This explains why there were so few children at the concentration camps at the time of liberation. It is difficult to come up with exact numbers!
Most of the children and young people were at the camp at the time of liberation, however, numerous had arrived there with the massive influx of survivors of other camps in the last months of the war. They all had experienced the Nazi hell as children in ghettos and in camps. Many had matured early and had seen much, and their testimonies enable us to see these experiences through children’s eyes. They also demonstrate the unique and intense nature of the few weeks spent in Bergen-Belsen during those last weeks of the war.
Many of the children were veterans of ghettos, and concentration camps like Auschwitz, and also survived like twin sisters Weiss the death marches before they entered Bergen-Belsen. The children

Baksidan

Family Zajaczkowski Father: Jozef Mother: Maria Son: Lolek, Daughter: Lusia

Fake Mothers with Fake Children - Holocaust Daughterhood

As I wrote earlier, numerous new families were built in the camps and thereafter in the hospitals and DP camps. This situation actually continued later and I had during my childhood numerous uncles and anties. None of the were blood-related. In many cases there numerous fake cousins and as well mother-daughter relations were given as status to Allied authorities. "Holocaust daughterhood" is a fake state of being someone's daughter without blood relation.

Below is the story of Paulina and her Holocaust mother, Rywka-Regina Rundbaken. Regina was born in Lodz and moved to Piotrków Trybunalski (German: Petrikau) in September 1939. Her husband was in Polish Army in Africa and was killed in December 1941 in Tobruk. Regina escaped Piotrkow Ghetto in October 1942 together with Paulina and Regina's sister Rut. Paulina's father followed them later and reunited with them in Austria where they lived with forged papers as Polish workers.

DP-2 card of Paulina Janaszewicz (below) and her Holocaust mother, Regina Rundbaken (above).  This DP-2 card was issued in Lübeck, one day before departure to Sweden by White boat S/S Kastelholm.  At number 8 on this DP-2 card, there is the clear statement that Regina Rundbaken was traveling with her daughter Paulina.

DP-2 card of Paulina Janaszewicz and her Holocaust mother, Regina Rundbaken (above). This DP-2 card was issued in Lübeck on July 24, 1945, one day before departure to Sweden by White boat KS/S Kastelholm.


Other mothers and children:
Mother Fajner Janka with Fajner Tusia (Estera) och Fajner Rachela. Mother died after the liberation of the camp. All from Piotrków Trybunalski. Stayed in Sweden.
Bajla Goldhersz and her son Sevek Goldhersz left Sweden for Israel.

Not all mothers with children in Bergen-Belsen were accommodated in the Kinderheim. See the history of family Rubenlicht.

There is a book by Federica Clementi (2013) entitled Holocaust Mothers and Daughters: Family, History, and Trauma that focuses on the real mother-daughter bonds and experiences prior to, during, and after the Holocaust.

Numerous children from Kinderheim in KL Bergen-Belsen were transported first to Sweden in July 1945 during UNRRA White Boat Mission. After recovery, they left Sweden for France and thereafter Eretz Israel. The trip from France on S/S Kedmah to Haifa ended on April 3rd, 1948.