Annual Report 2016 - Strategy and Milestones

Long after Lilia Ivanova had given up, she finally discovered who her father was. A short time later, the Ukrainian woman met relatives in France who were able to tell her about her parents. Having survived forced labor, war, and hardship, the Ukrainian Alexandra Istomina and Frenchman Leon Bardoux believed their story had come to a happy end when their baby was born on September 25, 1945. Alexandra Istomina had been deported to Germany in 1942 at the age of 19. Two years later she met the forced laborer Leon Bardoux in Duisburg. But their hopes for a happy life after the liberation were short lived. In the winter of 1945, Alexandra and her newborn, Lilia, were forcibly repatriated from France to the Soviet Union. Lilia lost both of her parents as a result: Her mother died in 1947 from the effects of the pneumonia she had contracted on the transport, and she never saw her father again.
It wasn’t until she was 65 that Lilia found out her father’s name from an uncle and started to search for traces of Leon Bardoux. Her inquiry to the ITS was successful. An extensive search in numerous French administrative offices and archives produced the relevant information: Leon Bardoux had died in 1989 in Amiens. The search also turned up the location of his grave and – by asking who was responsible for tending to it – provided the first clue to Lilia’s French relatives.
Lilia found a large family through the ITS, including her half-sister from Leon Bardoux’s later marriage. They first became acquainted by telephone and email before Lilia finally traveled to France with her family. Her granddaughter describes the first meeting with half-sister Dominique as follows: “She ran towards us, and we saw tears of joy in her eyes. She hugged my grandmother. This moment was indescribable.” Lilia heard a lot about her parents’ great love and about her father, and she was able to visit his grave. She also received her birth certificate in Lille. (Léon and Alexandra as a couple in 1945, photo: private)

Joost de Snoo was named after his father, whom he can barely remember. He was three when his father was arrested in August 1944 and deported via the Amersfoort police transit camp to Neuengamme concentration camp. When his father was arrested, the Gestapo took his wallet which held family photos. Joost de Snoo died in Neuengamme in January 1945. 71 years later, in May 2016, the ITS handed the wallet to his son. Before then, he had never seen any photos of his parents together. “I’m very happy that I made this journey and picked up the documents. I did it for the father I never knew.” (Anna Meier-Osiński, Head of the Tracing Investigations into Nazi Victims Branch, showing documents from the ITS archive, photo: ITS)

She lives in Germany, he lives in Israel: The daughter and son of a Holocaust survivor found each other through the ITS. Born in 1920 in Romania, Nathan Ulinski was taken to an American displaced persons (DP) camp in the Voith settlement in Heidenheim in 1947 with his two sisters and his mother. That’s where he met and fell in love with Ruth, a German woman. They kept their relationship a secret and had a son, Gerhard, in 1948, followed by a daughter in early 1949 – Ursula. But before Ruth gave birth to their daughter, Nathan emigrated to Israel and lost contact with Germany. “He was her one true love”, Ursula says. “That was the only thing my mother ever revealed to us about him.” After her mother died, Ursula started to look for their father, and she turned to the ITS in 2014 for help. On Ursula’s birth certificate, her father’s name was written as Ulinczki. The more conventional Romanian spelling is Ulinski, however. The ITS searched for this corrected name and also contacted the Israeli aid organization Magen David Adom. It turned out that Nathan Ulinski had died in 1986, but he had also had another son in 1956. In September 2015, Ursula phoned her half-brother Eli in Israel for the first time. “That was one of those moments you never forget.” Since then, the siblings have spoken weekly, with their children often taking part in the conversations. The two finally met in June 2016. “Getting to know my brother Eli is a wonderful gift that I never expected to receive.” Eli was happy too. Until then, he had known almost nothing about his father’s life before emigrating. “My father was a very warm man, but also gravely ill. He didn’t want to talk about the past.” (Ruth as a young woman, photo: private)

The American John Bendetson had actually wanted to conduct research for friends and acquaintances in the ITS archive. But then he unexpectedly found a copy of his birth certificate and photos of his parents from 1951.
The Nazis had deported Jan Bendetson from Warsaw to Fulda as a forced laborer in 1940. “I didn’t know anything about it. My father hardly ever spoke about that period of time,” his son says. The next trace doesn’t appear until the end of 1944. It leads to a Wehrmacht POW camp, Stalag IVb, in Mühlberg an der Elbe. Prior to this, Jan Bendetson had participated in the Warsaw Uprising as an underground fighter with the Polish Home Army. “A Wehrmacht soldier once held a pistol to his head. But his comrades kept him from pulling the trigger. That’s the only experience my father every mentioned,” Bendetson says.
The Polish resistance fighter survived the war and captivity. He wanted to emigrate to the USA instead of returning to his home country. He registered as a displaced person (DP) with the Allies and then looked for work with the US Army. In 1946 he had a minor accident in a jeep, and he was taken to the hospital where he met his future wife, a nurse. Jan completed his architectural studies in Darmstadt. The two then married and had their son John in 1951. His birth was registered by the registry office in Bad Nauheim. In 1956 the young family finally emigrated to the USA, where they made a home for themselves in Connecticut.
The various stations of their postwar life and efforts to emigrate are documented extensively in the DP files of the ITS archive. “The abundance of documentation is surprising,” Bendetson said of his visit. “And the search efforts by the ITS go far beyond what I had expected.” (John Bendetson, August 2016, photo: ITS)

Jean-Marie Vinclair’s family never told him about his great-uncle Raymond Vinclair, who was murdered by the Nazis in July 1944. Now he is shooting a film about Raymond’s fate – and has carried out research in the ITS archive for it.
It was a call from the historian Volker Issmer from Osnabrück that got the ball rolling. “This story found its way to me,” Jean-Marie Vinclair says. “I have to tell it.” His great-uncle Raymond Vinclair had been a forced laborer for the Reich railway in Osnabrück during World War II. The Frenchman had helped POWs escape, but he was discovered and arrested by the Nazis. He was initially incarcerated in the Berlin-Plötzensee prison and then executed by guillotine in the Brandenburg-Görden jail. According to the execution report, his death took “eight seconds” – and this is also the title of the documentary film. Jean-Marie Vinclair sought and found information in various German and French archives, including the ITS, which holds documents pertaining to Raymond Vinclair’s arrest and murder.
Jean-Marie Vinclair also found out during his visit that a relative had asked for and received information after the war. But this relative said nothing to his other family members, who were uneasy about Raymond Vinclair’s left-wing views. “The research changed me,” the filmmaker acknowledges. “It’s important to me to lay a new foundation for the history of my family. Every family has questions to ask history. That’s what’s universal about the film.”
The farewell letter that his great-uncle wrote to his parents shortly before he was executed also plays an important role for him. “The film will be a kind of poetic reply to his letter, and a response to the fates of the many victims,” the filmmaker says. “I often ask myself what I would have done in his place. Reality is far more complex than good and evil.” He believes the film is also a way of recognizing and paying tribute to resistance. (Nathalie Letierce-Liebig, staff member, with Jean-Marie and Eve Vinclair visiting the Central Name Index, photo: ITS)

Father Engelmar Unzeitig died from typhoid fever in March 1945 in Dachau concentration camp after caring for other prisoners who had fallen ill. In June 2016, the ITS was able to return his pocket watch and two religious medals to two of his fellow brothers from the Congregation of the Missionaries of Mariannhill. Pope Francis had officially declared Father Engelmar Unzeitig to be a martyr of the Catholic Church in January 2016. Given the name Hubert Unzeitig at birth, Father Engelmar was arrested by the Nazis in April 1941 and sent to Dachau in June of the same year. He had spoken out publicly on behalf of persecuted Jews. (Original documents and the personal effects of Father Engelmar, photo: ITS)

The German occupiers deported Julian Banaś from Poland to Germany for forced labor. He never returned to his wife and three children. His family knew nothing about his fate until his granddaughter sent an inquiry to the ITS.
When her father fell severely ill, Źaneta Kargól-Ożyńska felt a growing desire to find answers for him about his own father’s fate She also hoped to find her grandfather’s grave. She managed to do both things – with the help of the ITS. “We were overwhelmed by the lengths everyone went to answer our questions!”
The documents revealed that Julian Banaś was first forced to work for a farmer in Ergste, a suburb of the town of Schwerte. On October 18, 1941, he was arrested by the Gestapo and detained in the Steinwache prison in Dortmund, supposedly for having had forbidden relationships with Germans. A death certificate issued in 1946 mentions July 27, 1942, as his date of death. The decisive reference to his gravesite in Dortmund was found on the back of this certificate in the ITS archive.
Seeking more information about the murder, the ITS contacted Alfred Hintz, author of a book about Schwerte during the Nazi era, who had submitted an inquiry to the ITS a few years earlier. He knew of the tragic circumstances surrounding the death: Julian Banaś had been executed by the Gestapo in the Ergste forest. Źaneta Kargól-Ożyńska also learned that a commemorative initiative had placed a “Stolperstein” (a small commemorative brass plaque) in front of the Schwerte town hall in honor of her grandfather in 2010.
Źaneta Kargól-Ożyńska came to Germany early in August 2016 with her husband and daughter to visit the grave and light a candle. She also visited the ITS. When looking at the original documents, she was surprised to find her grandfather’s signature. The ink had been too faint to be seen in the scans that had been sent to her previously. She was moved to see her grandfather’s handwriting. (Malgorzata Przybyla from ITS shows the guests from Poland the documents retracing Julian Banaś’s fate, photo: ITS)

Sixteen members of the Lagergemeinschaft Ravensbrück/Freundeskreis (Ravensbrück Camp Community/Circle of Friends) visited the ITS in September 2016. This first visit culminated in the presentation of copies of documents to the descendants of concentration camp prisoners.
When Bärbel Schindler-Saefkow looks through lists in the ITS archive that were drawn up by Nazi bureaucrats about deportation, imprisonment, and murder, the names become stories. “Marianne Gundermann! She was a well-known women’s rights activist in the circle of illegal party groups. I wish someone would write down her story." The historian and daughter of Anton Saefkow, a resistance fighter who was executed, and Aenne Saefkow, who was imprisoned in Ravensbrück, has spent her life researching the resistance groups in her parents’ circle and fighting for the commemoration of the “women of Ravensbrück.”
She was impressed by the large number of documents about her father. “I’ve never seen ninety percent of the papers, although I’ve always looked for documents.” She stressed the value of the ITS holdings for the Lagergemeinschaft as well. “Now we have new names!” She was also pleased to find more information about the founders of the “camp community.” “The Lagergemeinschaft was built up by strong figures such as Erika Buchmann, women who saw to it that Ravensbrück – the terrible Ravensbrück – became something beautiful through solidarity. Today, we as a Lagergemeinschaft want to talk about people like her.” (Members of the Lagergemeinschaft Ravensbrück / Freundeskreis (Ravensbrück Camp Community / Circle of Friends) visited the ITS, photo: Waldeckische Landeszeitung / Armin Haß)

Wendy van Eijnatten from the Netherlands traveled to Bad Arolsen in April 2016 to see original documents pertaining to her uncle and find out more about his short life. “Ever since I saw his photo, I’ve wanted to learn more about him,” she said. Jan van Boeckel, born on February 11, 1923, in the Dutch city of Breda, was a freedom fighter in Belgium and had joined the Front de l’Indépendance group in the Ardennes. In May 1944 he was arrested with other resistance fighters and sent to the Ebrach prison in Upper Franconia, Germany, as a “Night and Fog” prisoner. In February 1945 he was transported to the Flossenbürg concentration camp and then transferred to the Saal/Donau satellite camp. The prisoners there had to dig tunnels for an underground Messerschmitt aircraft factory under atrocious conditions. Jan van Boeckel died shortly before the end of the war on a death transport by rail to Dachau. Wendy van Eijnatten has spoken to eyewitnesses, carried out research in numerous archives, and is now writing a book about her search and the fate of her uncle. (Wendy van Eijnatten during her visit at the ITS, photo: ITS)

Eugenia Genowefa Mazuchowska survived forced labor and Nazi concentration camps, then emigrated to Sweden. She kept her experiences to herself. Jan Anderson contacted the ITS while searching for traces of his mother’s history. In addition to documents, the archive also held a ring belonging to her – one of the personal effects from the Neuengamme concentration camp. Jan Anderson received the ring in person. “This is a big day for me!” (Ring and historical photograph of Jan Anderson’s mother, photo: ITS)

Dagmar Lieblová was the only member of her family to survive the Theresienstadt ghetto and the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. In July 2016, the 87-year-old visited the Vöhl synagogue in North Hessen to read from her book Jemand hat sich verschrieben – und so habe ich überlebt (“There was a misprint – and so I survived”) as part of a series of events entitled “Auschwitz.” After the reading, Anna Meier-Osiński, Head of the Tracing Investigations into Nazi Victims Branch at the ITS, presented Dagmar Lieblová with copies of the documents preserved in the ITS archive relating to her fate, including an index card about the transport to Theresienstadt and Auschwitz, as well as numerous liberation lists showing her name. She managed to survive because her incorrectly written date of birth showed her to be 16 years old. She was therefore assigned to work in Auschwitz and escaped being gassed. The Nazis sent Dagmar Lieblová to three different satellite camps of Neuengamme, where she was forced to do clearance work in bombed-out Hamburg. She was then sent on a death march to Bergen-Belsen, where, suffering from tuberculosis, she was liberated by the British army. (Anna Meier-Osiński, Head of the Tracing Investigations into Nazi Victims Branch at the ITS, presented Dagmar Lieblová with copies of the documents preserved in the ITS archive on Dagmar’s fate, photo: ITS)

The Dutch policeman Johannes Wilhelmus Hendrikus Berens died shortly after the liberation at the age of 21 from the effects of forced labor and imprisonment. His sister was stunned to receive his wallet after so much time.
On October 11, 1944, Johannes Wilhelmus Hendrikus Berens was deported by the Nazis to Neuengamme concentration camp in Germany – “for labor deployment”, as the documents relating to prisoner number 56240 tersely stated. His sister, 87-year-old Johanna Aykens-Berens, explained what had happened: “He refused to participate in the search for and deportation of Jews who had hidden from the Germans.” Berens had started police training at the age of just sixteen to follow in his father’s footsteps.
He was forced to relinquish his wallet when he was admitted to the concentration camp. The wallet was one of the personal effects preserved in the ITS archive. When Johanna Aykens-Berens learned of the existence of the wallet, she and her son got in the car and drove to Bad Arolsen. “I wanted to pick it up in person. He was my brother, such a dear boy.” The wallet testifies to a fun-loving person, with its photos of girlfriends and schoolmates, letters from his mother, and membership cards for a sports club and a dance club. But his sister was most pleased about a photo of him as a child.
Until then she had only had a single photo of her brother, as their family home had been destroyed in the bombing of Rotterdam on May 14, 1940. “It’s good to have something you can see and touch,” said his nephew Janwillem Aykens when the wallet was presented. Johannes Wilhelmus Hendrikus Berens lived long enough to be liberated but subsequently died of tuberculosis on May 11, 1945. (Johanna Aykens-Berens and her son Janwillem Aykens from Amstelveen, Netherlands, photo: ITS)