First Name | Juditha |
---|---|
Family Name | S. |
Date of Birth | 1921 |
Birthplace/Place of Residence | Viersen / moved from Köln |
Residence in „Heim Isenburg“ | 10/02/1938 - 09/06/1940 |
Departure to | Frankfurt am Main |
Profession | - |
Deportation/Escape | Survivor |
Date of Death/Place of Death | - |
Juditha S. is one of the few residents of “Heim Isenburg” who survived the imprisonment in Nazi concentration camps. She was 17 years old when she came to the Jewish Women's League home in Neu-Isenburg. She stayed there for almost two years before she left to Frankfurt am Main in early September 1940.
Juditha who had been born in Viersen was probably a Dutch citizen. During the Second World War, she was interned from May 1943 to June 1944 in the Herzogenbusch concentration camp in the Dutch city of Vught. On June 6, 1944, she was deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau where she remained until June 14. It is not known where she was in the second half of 1944. She did forced labor in one of the outposts of the Auschwitz concentration and extermination camp. From the beginning of 1945, Juditha endured an odyssey from one camp to another. For this reason, only the dates of her stay and locations are handed down. However, by her previous activities, it is possible to understand what Juditha was doing at the time (see Lehmensiek, Anning/Hart-Moxon, Kitty)
In January 1945, Juditha was first taken to the Lower Silesian Reichenbach (Dzierżoniów) because of the shifting of the front in the east of Auschwitz where she probably worked in the Telefunken factory. The prisoners from Auschwitz were held in the previously vacated Groß-Rosen concentration camp. This concentration camp was abandoned in February 1945, and Juditha had to go along with the other prisoners over the Owl Mountains on the death march to the West in the cold of the winter and completely inadequately equipped. Only a quarter of these persecuted people survived.
Juditha worked in the Lange Bilau outpost at the end of February and the Trautenau (Trutnov) camp in the foothills of the Czech giant mountain at the beginning of March. When the Trautenau camp was also evacuated, the prisoners were crammed together in a train wagon and transported to the local mountain of the city of Porta Westfalica. From mid-February 1945 onwards, the Dutch Philips Group employed about 1,000 female concentration camp prisoners, mostly Hungarian and Dutch Jews. The Philips Group had equipped the upper tunnel of the Jakobsberges with machines and production plants for the production of Wehrmacht communication devices (hammer mills). The women were used in the production of radio tubes and light bulbs (website of the Neuengamme concentration camp).
On April 1, 1945, the camp was cleared. This was followed by a daylong odyssey to the north. Juditha arrived in Beendorf among a group of prisoners on April 10.
On May 4, 1945, Juditha was liberated. She was obviously among a few thousand Jewish concentration camp prisoners from Northern German camps who were rescued by Lord Folke Bernadotte, nephew of King Gustav V after tough negotiations with Himmler. Juditha S. was brought to safety on May 4, 1945, by the Swedish Red Cross via Denmark to Sweden.
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