Several persons from the Kinderheim in Bergen-Belsen and thereafter the staff from the Bergen-Belsens hospital traveled with the east european children to Sweden.
Ada Bimko was born on August 26, 1912, in Sosnowiec, Poland. Prior WWII she studied dentistry in France. In 1935 she returned to Sosnowiec in Poland where she worked in a dental clinic. On August 2–3, 1943, she was deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau together with approximately five thousand Jews from the ghetto of Sosnowiec. Her parents, husband and five-and-a-half year old son were immediately sent to their death in the gas chambers. Ada survived the selection and worked for dr. Mengele. In October 1943, Ada Bimko, Luba and Hermina, together with five other Jewish women were sent, as a “medical team” to the concentration camp of Bergen-Belsen in Germany and take care of the children in the Kinderheim.
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.
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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.
Immediately upon liberation Ada worked alongside the British Army medical personnel while Luba and Hermina stayed with the children.
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.
Despite Verolme's age, she was tasked with supervising the small children there. She became known as 'Little Mother'.
After the war the Deutsch children were repatriated to Holland and reunited with what was left of their families. As many of these families had been in the diamond business and the children came to be known as the Diamond Children.
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Luba Tryszynska and children from Barrack 211 just after liberation. The boy on the far right reminds of Hetty Verolme´s youngest brother. |
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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
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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.
Hetty 1942
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Luba and Hermina decided accompany the rest of the children to Sweden. Ada Bimko stayed in Bergen-Belsen that become a huge Jewish DP-camp.
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.
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Gross sisters from Bratislava born 1933 and 1935 |
Luba Tryszynska and Hermina Kranzová followed each other from Auschwitz to Bergen-Belsen and thereafter to Sweden.
Dr Robert Collis with another Dublin paediatrician, Patrick McClancy, and surgeon Nigel Kinnear they went to the "Horror Camp" at Belsen. The stench of death was apparent 20 miles off, a memory that stayed with Han Hogerzeil (later Han Collis) all her life. When Han Hogerzeil, Dutch student, arrived with Bob Collis's British Red Cross and St John Ambulance Brigade field hospital, malnutrition was killing about 4,000 people a day. Soon after the British liberated the Bergen-Belsen camp in April 1945, a Dutch nurse, Annie Bonsel, came there with Robert Collis and Han Hogerzeil as part of the Red Cross team.
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.
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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. |
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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.
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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.
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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. |
However, the transport logistics at the end om the White Boat mission were not the best. According to chief doctor at the UNRRA Transit Center and the Swedish Transit Hospital, Hans Arnoldsson, numerous persons were not suitable for the transport. They were dying. There was another group, fully healthy former inmates that were not fitting the aim of the mission.
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 the 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.
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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).
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Katz (Kac) Hanka born 1939 was most probably brought from Plaszów to Ravensbrüyck and thereafter from there to Bergen-Belsen. |
Upon arrival to Malmö, Southern Sweden one of the girls was send to the hospital in Landskrona and the second one the orphanage for Jewish children. It was for the first time since they arrived in the cattle wagon to Auschwitz the were apart.
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.
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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.
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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.
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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. |
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Reverse page of Inreseuppgift with the name of places and dates of move. |
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When the White Boat S/S Kastelholm arrived in Malmö after one night at sea all the passengers have to be registered and disinfected and checked for lice. All these procedures were done on the day of arrival, July 26, 1945. Here S/SS Kastelholm arriving to Stockholm on the former trips.
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In Sweden
When the White Boat S/S Kastelholm arrived in Malmö after one night at sea all the passengers have to be registered and disinfected and checked for lice. All these procedures were done on the day of arrival, July 26, 1945. The sick children were transfered to Nya Lungkliniken i Malmö. Thereafter, 20 older girls and the mothers with small children were send together with Hermina, Bonsel and Ms Fernandes to Sundsgården close to Helsingborg. Luba, and the older girls were transferred to Bjärred (north of Malmö and the older boys from the group to house in Gåsebäck also close to Helsingborg. The children that were hospitalized at Nya Lungkliniken were thereafter moved to Welanderhemmet and sister May.
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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. |
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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.
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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.
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Picture Sundsgården - Lövsätra-Täby
From Sweden to France
Dr Robert Collis, head paediatrician in Bergen-Belsen Hospital directly after the liberation brought six ailing, mostly Jewish, orphans from Sweden to Ireland for adoption and institutional care. The children were brought to Sweden with White boat action in July 1945. Collis, with his wife at that time, Phyllis, adopted two of them. Robert Collis later remarried with Han "Han" was born Johanna Hogerzeil in Amsterdam. She knew five languages, including Yiddish and in she played a vital role in interviewing mostly Jewish children from nine countries, where possible identifying their origins. The information that was later found in childrens DP-2 cards.
From Sweden to France
The biggest group of Holocaust survivors who came to Sweden with White Boats at the end of WWII left Sweden on February 24 1947 on the boat S/S Ulua. Several children left on that occasion as they had older siblings that decided to go to Eretz Israel in this way.
Emil Glück wrote in his bok: "When finally the different transport had departed and only the youngest children remained, the leadership in Paris decided that around 100 of them were to be transferred to France and there educated before continuing to Israel. It was possible to find space for them on the ship (Kastelholm" that was departing for Calais.". It is likely that the group he is referring to is the group at Children's house at Chateau de la Serra in Villette D'Anthon.
It is possible that another group, final group of 150 youth that departed from Sweden to Israel at the end of 1948 also passed through the France to one of the ports at the South.
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.
There was another group of 130 adults and 30 youths that left Sweden in August 1946 left Sweden on the former White Boats S/S Kastelholm. The idea was that this group will be by land transferred to on of the ports at the Mediterranean Sea and threafter iligally to Eretz Israel. In April 1947 the group was trying to enter Eretz Israel but were instead send to the detention camp at Cyprus where the group from Sweden that tried to enter Israel in February 1947 on S/S Ulua was already imprisoned.
* Hachshara and Youth Aliyah in Sweden 1933-1948. Emil Glück, Judith Diamond, Yaël Glick