Nazi Gemany annexed Danzig in September 1939. Soon after, the regime established Stutthof, initially a civilian internment camp, east of Danzig. In January 1942, Stutthof became a regular concentration camp. These ID cards and oral histories describe the experiences of people imprisoned in the Stutthof camp.
Judith was one of three children born to a Yiddish-speaking Jewish family living on a farm near the Lithuanian town of Jonava. Judith's mother had an extensive Jewish education and taught her daughters at home. Her son, Abe, attended a Jewish religious school in Jonava. Judith's father worked in the logging industry.
1933-39: In the fall of 1938, six months after her father died, Judith and her mother moved to Kovno, the capital of Lithuania. She was 9 years old. Kovno at that time had a large Jewish community--approximately one third of the capital's total population. Her mother worked as a seamstress, and they moved to Kovno so that she could find work and so that they could be closer to Judith's older brother and sister who were already working there.
1940-45: The Soviet Union occupied Lithuania in 1940; Germany invaded a year later. In 1943, when Judith was 14, her family was deported to the Stutthof concentration camp. On arrival they were forced to stand at attention; a heavyset female guard walked by with a whip, saying, "No one leaves alive. You're all doomed." Then we were taken to be examined. A woman in line in front of Judith had some teeth ripped out and blood flowed from her mouth. When Judith's turn came a guard put her hand inside her crotch, searching for hidden valuables.
Judith and her sister escaped during a forced march out of Stutthof in the winter of 1944. Later, posing as Christians, they escaped to Denmark where they were liberated in 1945.
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Mina, born Mina Friedman, was the youngest of four daughters born to a Jewish family in the Lithuanian town of Jonava. At the age of 18, Mina married Osser Beker, a lumber dealer. The couple settled in Jonava where Mina worked as a seamstress. The Bekers had two sons and two daughters, but their oldest son died in a childhood accident.
1933-39: Mina's son Abe attended a Jewish religious school in Jonava. But since Mina had received an extensive Jewish education, she decided to teach her daughters at home. Mina also taught Jewish studies to local women and children, using a Yiddish translation of the Bible. In 1937 her husband died while away on a business trip. Almost a year later, Mina moved the family to Kovno, where they resided at #20 Luksus Gatve.
1940-44: On June 22, 1941, Germany invaded Lithuania, and reached Kovno two days later. In July the Bekers were confined to the city's ghetto where they remained for two years. In 1943 the family was sent outside Kovno to the Ninth Fort, a Nazi execution site. The Bekers were held for several days and then returned to the ghetto. They were told they had been sent back because there were not enough bullets to kill all the prisoners. A week later, Mina and her daughters were sent to a Nazi camp at Stutthof.
Mina was gassed at Stutthof on the Baltic coast in late 1944 or early 1945.
Item ViewHenny was born into an upper-middle-class Jewish family in Kovno, Lithuania. She and her brother attended private schools. In June 1940 the Soviets occupied Lithuania, but little seemed to change until the German invasion in June 1941. The Germans sealed off a ghetto in Kovno in August 1941. Henny and her family were forced to move into the ghetto. Henny married in the ghetto in November 1943; her dowry was a pound of sugar. She survived several roundups during which some of her friends and family were deported. Henny was herself deported to the Stutthof concentration camp in 1944, when the Germans liquidated the Kovno ghetto. She was placed in a forced-labor group. The Germans forced Henny and other prisoners on a death march as Soviet troops advanced. After Soviet troops liberated Henny in 1945, she eventually reunited with her husband and moved to the United States.
Item ViewAfter the Germans invaded Poland in 1939, Dora's family fled to Vilna, Lithuania. When the Germans occupied Vilna, Dora's father was shot and the rest of the family was confined in the Vilna ghetto. Dora, her sister, and her mother were deported to the Kaiserwald camp in Latvia and then to the Stutthof concentration camp near Danzig. Her mother and sister perished in Stutthof. Dora herself was shot immediately before liberation, but she survived.
Item ViewUpon her father's death, Judith and her family moved to Kovno. Soon, they were confined to the ghetto, which the Germans formed in 1941. Judith, her mother and sister were deported to Stutthof, where her mother died. Judith and her sister escaped from a death march out of Stutthof. They posed as non-Jews, found farm work and eventual refuge in Denmark. Their brother survived Dachau.
Item ViewLeo was arrested on the first day of the war, and assigned to forced labor in a shipyard, then on a farm. In 1940, like other Jews, he was deported to Stutthof. There, he upholstered furniture for the SS. The following year, he was sent to Auschwitz, where he cleaned the streets and dug ditches. As the Allies neared, Leo was evacuated to a series of camps. On a death march from Flossenbürg, the Nazis dispersed, allowing Leo and other prisoners to get away. He was liberated by US forces in April 1945.
Item ViewMiriam was one of ten children born to a poor, religious Jewish family in Terava, Czechoslovakia. When Hungary took over the area in 1939, almost half the town's Jewish population was deported and sent to labor camps. Later, Miriam and her mother were forced into a ghetto. They were deported to the Auschwitz camp in 1944. After about three months, they were sent to the Stutthof camp. Toward the end of the war, Miriam and her mother were forced on a death march. They and others on the death march were abandoned in a barn until liberation by Soviet forces. Miriam's mother died in the barn. After the war, Miriam met and married her husband in a displaced persons camp. The two moved first to Israel and later to the United States.
Item ViewThe Germans occupied Riga in 1941, and confined the Jews to a ghetto. In late 1941, at least 25,000 Jews from the ghetto were massacred at the Rumbula forest, near Riga. Steven and his brother were sent to a small ghetto for able-bodied men. In 1943 Steven was deported to the Kaiserwald camp and sent to a nearby work camp. In 1944 he was transferred to Stutthof and forced to work in a shipbuilding firm. In 1945, Steven and his brother survived a death march and were liberated by Soviet forces.
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