American Joint Distribution Committee (AJDC) in the Bergen-Belsen DP camp - Special card for tracing missing persons after WWII.

Ruta and Tusia (Ellen) Rubinlicht.

Three cards of Rubinlicht family that survived the Holocaust and were brought from Bergen-Belsen to Sweden by UNRRA White Boat Mission. 

Three cards of the Rubinlicht family that survived the Holocaust and were brought from Bergen-Belsen to Sweden by the UNRRA White Boat Mission. At the top of the Card, the source of a particular piece of information about a person’s location can be – but is not always – noted in the upper left of the card. This might be precise information about a specific list, as in this case Sweden and list number 5. At the bottom line, there is information that all three persons arrived after June 26, 1945. June 26, 1945, was the official date when the White Boat mission started and at that time all five White Boats were in the port of Lübeck ready to take former inmates of Bergen-Belsen to Sweden. That was probably the way to define this group as there were several other groups of former inmates that arrive in Denmark and later to Sweden by trains and by Red Cross expedition White buses.

The employees of the Location Service of the American Joint Distribution Committee (AJDC) in the Bergen-Belsen DP camp created a special card for tracing missing persons. They used this card to note information they had gathered on Holocaust survivors. The AJDC was an aid organization founded in the USA in 1914. After the end of World War II, it supported official organizations such as UNRRA.

The card helped them process tracing inquiries more quickly. Some of the information on the cards is very precise, but in other cases only rough information was available. The cards all look very similar; there are just small differences in the typeface used. Most of the cards were created during 1947-1948. Most probably the DP-2 cards issued by UNNRA were used by AJDC as the source.

DP-2 cards of three persons of Rubinlicht's family that survived the Holocaust and were brought from Bergen-Belsen to Sweden by the UNRRA White Boat Mission. In the card of Anna Rubinlicht, we can follow the entire story of the family. Sisters that were sent to the death camp Treblinka in 1942, Annas husband's and her and her two daughters that were sent from Piotrków Ghetto to Ravnsbrück concentration camp in late 1944 and thereafter transported to Bergen-Belsen.

Most of the AJDC cards were created during 1947-1948. Most probably the DP-2 cards issued by UNNRA were used as the source. Here we have also information that Rubinlicht wanted to go to Eretz Israel and Tel-Aviv.

Most of the cards were created during 1947-1948. Most probably the DP-2 cards issued by UNNRA were used as the source. Here on the right is the ship list of the White Boat, S/S Kastelholm that brought Rubinlichts to Malmö. Later they left for the USA.

Rubinlicht parents worked, forced labor, at Huta Hortensja, one of two the Piotrków glass factories. Father, Pinkus Rubinlicht, like many others, was paying off whom he could to keep his family together. Judenrat members and probably Germans as well. During the Great Action in Piotrków Ghetto in October 1942 the Rubinlicht parents were relatively safe as workers of the glass factory, however, the children, Tusia and Ruta, were sent outside of the ghetto. During the Action in October 1942, the rest of their extended family in Piotrków was sent to their death in the Treblinka extermination camp.
After the Action in October 1942 Jews in Piotrków lived in a very limited area called Small Ghetto. However, at the end of July 1943, the Small ghetto was liquidated and Piotrków was declared “free of Jews” with information about it at the railway station. Although Piotrków was declared “free of Jews”, 1,720 Jews could stay in factories: 1 000 at the Bugaj wood factory, and the rest at two glass factories. 500 other Jews from the Small Ghetto were deported to labor camps in Blizyn, Pionki, and Starachowice.

Two years later, during, November and December 1944, the final deportations of Jews from glass factories Kara and Hortensja and wood factory Bugaj, were planned. On November 24, 1944, the first of the final transportation came. Pinkus Rubinlicht got his name on the list to go to Mauthausen in German-annexed Austria. However, he was first registered in Buchenwald on December 24, 1944. Later he was transferred to Mittelblau Dora. Mittelbau-Dora was located near Nordhausen in Thuringia, Germany. To start with it was established in the late summer of 1943 as a subcamp of Buchenwald concentration camp, supplying slave labor and later including evacuated survivors of eastern extermination camps. It is possible that  Pinkus Rubinlicht that was registered as a watchmaker was involved in the manufacturing of the V-2 rocket. He perished in the Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp on March 27, 1945. The cause of his death was written in German Grippe. That means the flu. However, we have to remember that the camp records of the registered inmates often use to state false causes of death. It is known that the official cause of death of the inmates that were shot was registered in many cases as cardiac arrest. Other causes often used were bilateral pneumonia and septic pharyngitis.

The wrong year of birth should be 1935. Registration card from Sundsgården, the place where most of the children and mothers from "Kinderheim" came to after arrival to Sweden. Arrival day July 26, 1945.

Rubinlicht family that survived the Holocaust and were brought from Bergen-Belsen to Sweden by UNRRA White Boat Mission. Here Rubinlicht Anna, first on the right with daughters Ruta (born 1935) and Tusia (born 1939), in the middle. The child on the left is Anetka Niechcicka with her mother. Anetka was born in September 1942 in Piotrków Trybunalski Ghetto. The photo taken during the first Winther in Sweden (1945-1946). Probably at Visingsö.

Pinkus Rubinlicht got his name on the list to go to Mauthausen in German-annexed Austria. He perished there in March 27, 1945, in the concentration camp. The cause of his death was written in German Grippe. That means the flu. However, the camp records of the registered inmates use to state false causes of death. It is known that the official cause of death of the inmates that were shot was in many cases cardiac arrest. Other causes often used were bilateral pneumonia and septic pharyngitis.

When larger groups of prisoners were put to death at the same time, also the dates of death were also falsified and were distributed over a period of 2 or 3 weeks, a dozen or so per day. The death certificates issued by concentration camps doctors for specific registered prisoners can serve as an example of the deliberate falsification of camp records and should be a warning to young researchers, who should use all imaginable caution in drawing conclusions from such a record.

Pinkus Rubinlicht's wife and his daughters were on the list of women and children to be sent during the first week of December 1944 to Ravensbrück in northeast Germany. On the same day when women were transported to Ravensbrück the men with boys were sent to Buchenwald concentration camp.
By the beginning of 1945, the Nazis were losing the War, and the both Red Army from the East and the 

Allied forces from the west were quickly moving towards Berlin. Therefore, the inmates of several camps including Auschwitz in the East and Ravensbrück in the West were moved to Bergen-Belsen. Deportations were performed by cattle train transports and by Death marches. Rubinlichts, mother Anna, and her two daughters were in January 1945 sent from Ravensbrück to Bergen-Belsen. They were liberated there on April 15th by the British army. Later they were moved to the Bergen-Belsen hospital and thereafter in late July 1945, they were moved to Malmö, Sweden by the UNRRAs White Boat mission. Their health was bad as described in Swedish medical cards. After recovery in Sweden, the Rubinlichts decided in early 1946 to go to Belgium (instead of Israel), where they were reunited with Uncle Berek (Pinkus brother), who had survived the War by the protection of a Catholic priest. In Belgium, they were waiting for an entry visa to the USA. First in 1951 that the Rubinlichts were able to immigrate to Chicago, sponsored by another uncle who had come to the United States many years earlier.

Piotrków Trybunalski was liberated by the Red Army on January 16, 1945.

Chase, grandchild of the Holocaust survivor, Rubinlich wrote to me:

Oh my God! You really have information on her during that point. Please share with me what you know. I should tell my grandmother this when I have a chance. All I know is that Anna and her two daughters spent quite some time in Sweden after being liberated from Bergen Belsen. My grandmother (Ruta-Rita) fondly remembers the kindness the Swedish showed to her, her mom (Anna), and her sister (Tusia-Ellen). 
Chase

Hi Chase,

To start with, the fate of Your grand-grandmother and her daughters was "typical" for them who survived the Actions in 1942 in Piotrków Trybunalski.  "Typical" for those who had not survived, was the deportation to Treblinka and death by suffocation in the gas chamber (that was also the fate of my grandparents Rozental from Warszawa).

Many of the 1942 survivors were working at three different factories in Piotrków - Bugaj, Kara, and Hortensja.  After the end of 1943 and the Piotrków (Petrikau) ghetto was liquidated, the entire families of Jewish workers in these factories lived within the factory area, also small children.

During the deportations at the end of 1944 also entire factories were emptied and Jews were sent to different camps. December 4th deportations were very special: male workers with sons were sent to Buchenwald while females with daughters were sent to Ravensbrück.

They traveled in cattle cars without food or water. Upon arrival in Ravensbrück and had to strip before their heads were shaved. Thereafter there were given the typical concentration camp clothing and clogs. Now we were really stripped of our personalities as well; we could not recognize one another. After about two and a half months in Ravensbrück, they were again put into cattle trucks and sent to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. That must be at the end of February 1945. The situation there was terrible due to overcrowding, sanitation, and food shortage. In Bergen-Belsen, however, existed Kinderheim - children’s barrack number 211. It was run by Luba Tryszynska and a team of Jewish ‘nurses’ that came from Auschwitz. All of them were also inmates. Inmates who tried to do everything in their power to obtain a little extra food for the children. In the same barrack, across the hall there, lived women with children. I think that your grand-grandmother Anna and her two daughters also lived there.

After the liberation, the entire barrack 211 was after approximately 3 weeks moved to the Children's ward at Bergen-Belsen Hospital.

Thereafter they moved on July 24th by ambulance train to the Swedish Transit hospital in Lübeck and from there to Sweden by the UNRRA mission's White Boats.

They arrived in Malmö in Sweden by the very last White Boat - S/S Kastelholm. I have their names on the ship list. In Sweden, they were placed at different hospitals. I will send You, more info later. However, You will find a lot of information about Piotrków and Kinderheim on my blog. Just use the search option.

Best,

Roman Wassermann Wroblewski

Chairman

Swedish Holocaust Memorial Association - SHMA.