Bullenhuser Damm

Featured here are the stories of people

who were affected by the murders committed at Bullenhuser Damm. The identities of the murdered children, their background and the fate of their families remained unknown for a long time. This is still true to this day for four of the children and the Soviet prisoners. In the early post-war years, only the identities of the prisoners who had looked after the children were known, thanks to the accounts given by surviving prisoners who had worked with these carers in the infirmary.

Clicking a picture displays that person’s short biography.

Jacqueline Morgenstern

In 1941 the Morgenstern family from France were forced to hand over their hair salon in Paris to a gentile. They later fled to Marseilles where they were arrested, taken to an internment camp for Jews in Drancy and then deported to Auschwitz on May 20, 1944. Jacqueline’s mother Suzanne Morgenstern was murdered there. On November 28, 1944 Jacqueline was taken to the Neuengamme concentration camp. She was 12 when she was killed in Bullenhuser Damm.

You can read more about Jacqueline Morgenstern in the Open Archives.

Ruchla Zylberberg

After the German Wermacht occupied Poland in 1939, Ruchla’s father Nison Zylberberg fled to the Soviet Union with the intention of getting his family to join him later. However, after Germany attacked the Soviet Union in 1941, this was no longer possible. The Jewish girls Ruchla and her sister Ester were deported to Auschwitz with their mother Fajga. Ruchla’s mother and sister were murdered there and she was taken to Neuengamme on November 28, 1944. Ruchla was 8 when she was murdered in Bullenhuser Damm.

You can read more about Ruchla Zylberberg in the Open Archives.

Anton Hölzel

Anton Hölzel was a member of the Communist Party and worked as a driver and a waiter in a café. On September 10, 1941 he was arrested by the German Security Police in The Hague for possession of a banned newspaper. He was deported to Neuengamme. On June 6, 1944 he was assigned to work at the Neuengamme infirmary and had to look after the 20 children. He was murdered in the night of April 20, 1945 together with the children.

You can read more about Anton Hölzel in the Open Archives.

Gabriel Florence

Professor Gabriel Florence was arrested by the “Gestapo” shortly after he had joined Comité Médical de la Résistance, an organization of doctors in the resistance, in late 1943. He was fist taken to the Montluc prison close to Lyon and on June 7, 1944 transferred to the Neuengamme concentration camp, where he was assigned to the infirmary. He tried to kill off the tuberculosis bacteria by boiling the suspension before children were injected with it. He was murdered in the night of April 20, 1945 together with the 20 children in Bullenhuser Damm.

You can read more about Gabriel Florence in the Open Archives.

Rose Grumelin-Witonska

“The last time I saw my children was in November 1944 in Auschwitz. I was separated from them and taken to the women’s camp [...]”

After her liberation, Rucza Witońska, Roman and Eleonore’s mother, looked for her children in Radom, Auschwitz and other places. In 1946 she found out that the SS transferred 20 Jewish children from Auschwitz to Neuengamme. It was not before 1981 that she learned what exactly happened to her children in Hamburg. Roman was 6 and Eleonore 5 years old when they were murdered in Bullenhuser Damm on April 20, 1945.

“There are traces of our existence. And that is very important. If there were no names, it would be forgotten… just like that.”

You can read more about the Witoński siblings in the Open Archives.

Soviet Prisoners

In the night of April 20, between 24 and 30 Soviet prisoners were murderer in Bullenhuser Damm. Six of them were brought to Bullenhuser Damm from Neuengamme together with the children and their caretakers, while the rest came from the Spaldinstraße satellite camp. Their identities and reason they were murdered are unclear.

You can read more about the Soviet prisoners in the Open Archives.

Eduard Hornemann

In 1943 Jewish employees of the Philips company in the Netherlands, where Eduard’s father worked, were taken to the Vught concentration camp. Elisabeth Hornemann followed her husband with their sons Eduard and Alexander. On June 3, 1944 the family was transferred from Vught to Auschwitz. The brothers were taken to Neuengamme on November 28, 1944. Eduard was 12 and his brother Alexander 8 when they were murdered at Bullenhuser Damm. Their parents didn’t survive either.

You can read more about Eduard Hornemann in the Open Archives.

Lelka Birnbaum

The name Birnbaum for one of the children of Bullenhuser Damm was found on a list published in 1945 by a Danish physician Dr. Henry Meyer, a former prisoner. Her full name “Lelka Birnbaum.” is also noted on a cover sheet of an x-ray. The only things known about her is that she came from Poland and was 12 when she was murdered in Bullenhuser Damm on April 20, 1945.

You can read more about the children from Bullenhuser Damm in the Open Archives.

Sergio de Simone

Sergio’s father Edoardo de Simone was deported to Dortmund for forced labor. His Jewish wife Gizella and their son Sergio moved from Naples to Fiume in 1943, where they were arrested together with seven other family members on March 21, 1944. On April 4, 1944 the family was deported to Auschwitz. Sergio had to work there as an errand boy until he was taken to the Neuengamme concentration camp for medical experiments. Sergio de Simone was 7 when he was murdered in Bullenhuser Damm.

You can read more about Sergio de Simone in the Open Archives