Bella and Benjamin Herson papers
Extent and Medium
folders
11
Creator(s)
- Bella Herson Ph.D.
- Benjamin Herson
Biographical History
Benjamin Herszson, was born on July 4, 1910, in Łódź, Poland, the only son of Menek Mendel and Roma Rys Herszson. Mendel built frames. Benjamin had a brother Henryk. Benjamin graduated from Warsaw University with a law degree and worked as a specialist in loading commercial ships in the Gdynia port. On September 1, 1939, Nazi Germany invaded Poland. Benjamin was mobilized into the Polish Army as a lieutenant. He was soon captured as a prisoner of war. He was put on a train for transport to a POW camp. While the train was passing through Łódź, Benjamin threw a piece of paper out of the window, notifying his mother that he was taken prisoner. Someone found the note and took it to his family, who were preparing to leave Poland for Vilna (later Vilnius, Lithuania), with plans to continue to Japan. His mother Roma decided to stay in Łódź to await news from Benjamin. Her sister Marysia and her elderly father stayed with her. They were deported and murdered in Auschwitz in 1944. His father Mendel and his brother Henryk, with his wife Helena, left for Vilna. Mendel remained in Vilna, which was under Soviet control. Henryk and Helena continued to Kobe, Japan. Germany invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941. Mendel went into hiding, but perished sometime in 1943. Benjamin and about eighty Jewish officers were held in Woldenberg POW camp for officers. The camp was liberated by the Red Army. Benjamin returned to Łódź, where he found no surviving family members. He met Bella Sztajnhorn, who was from Zdunska Wola. They decided to leave Poland together and traveled to Constanza, Romania, where they married. They sailed from Lyon, France, on th SS Campana and settled in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Benjamin operated a successful meatpacking factory and Bella completed her Ph.D. in history. Benjamin, 77, passed away in 1987.
Bella Herson was born Bella Sztajnhorn in 1924 in Zduńska Wola, Poland. Her mother died when she was young, her older brothers, Heniek and Miciek, fled to the Soviet Union shortly before the war, and her father, Josef, was shot and killed when he refused to move into the Łódź ghetto in March 1940. Bella and her sister Róza survived the Łódź ghetto where Bella worked in the Marysin orphanage and then the Schwachstrom factory. They were transferred to Auschwitz in August 1944 and Birnbäumel, a sub camp of Gross‐Rosen, in October 1944 before escaping during the camp’s evacuation in January 1945. Following liberation, they returned to Łódź where Bella met Benjamin Herszon. Benjamin and Bella were married in Romania, relocated to São Paulo, Brazil, and changed their name to Herson
Archival History
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Acquisition
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of Bella Herson
Funding Note: The cataloging of this collection has been supported by a grant from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany.
Bella Herson donated the Bella and Benjamin Herson papers to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 1999 and 2006. The accession previously cataloged as 2006.418.1 has been incorporated into this collection.
Scope and Content
The Bella and Benjamin Herson papers consist of correspondence, a memoir, photographs, printed materials, prisoner of war materials, and reference materials documenting Bella and Benjamin Herson, the Herszon, Sztajnhorn, and Rys families, Bella’s experiences in the Łódź ghetto, Auschwitz, and Birnbäumel, and Benjamin’s imprisonment in prisoner of war camps Oflag XI A ‐ Osterode and Oflag II C ‐ Woldenberg. Correspondence primarily consists of postcards among the Sztajnhorn family in Zduńska Wola, Bialystok, Łódź, and Kuznica (near Grodno), which are accompanied by English translations provided by the donor. The postcards describe the loss of the family business and the family’s reduced circumstances. This series also includes a postcard from Mendel Herszon (under the pseudonym Jozef Bohdziewicz) in Vilna to Bohdan Bobiatynski containing a message for Benjamin Herszon in Oflag II C, postcards from Roma Herszon in the Łódź ghetto to Henryk and Helena Herson in Kobe and to Benjamin Herson in Oflag II C, and a postcard from Rozia Rys to Sal Rys in New York. Tattooed Souls is Bella Herson’s own English translation of her Portuguese memoir. It describes the start of the war, the death of her father, the Łódź ghetto and her work at the Marysin orphanage and Schwachstrom factory, her train ride to Auschwitz, how a bombing alert saved her from tattooing, her transfer to Birnbäumel, escape, liberation, return to Łódź, and meeting her husband. Photographs depict Benjamin Herson in the Polish military and in prisoner of war camps, his aunt and uncle, his mother’s Rys relatives, and his parent’s memorial stone. The collection also includes an article about Bella’s Herson’s biography of her husband, two pieces of prisoner of war camp money and a food coupon from Oflag XI A and Oflag II C, and photocopies of Stutthof records about Rosa Rosenblum’s death there in 1944.
System of Arrangement
The Bella and Benjamin Herson papers are arranged as six series: I. Correspondence, approximately 1907-1945, II. Memoir, approximately 2006, III. Photographs, approximately 1920-1947, IV. Printed materials, approximately 2001, V. Prisoner of war materials, approximately 1940-1945, VI. Reference materials, approximately 2006
Conditions Governing Reproduction
Copyright Holder: Bella Herson Ph.D.
People
- Benjamin Herson
- Bella Herson Ph.D.
Corporate Bodies
- Oflag II C (Concentration camp)
- Auschwitz (Concentration camp)
- Oflag XI A (Concentration camp)
- Birnbäumel (Concentration camp)
Subjects
- World War, 1939-1945--Prisoners and prisons, German.
- Łódź (Poland)
- Jewish ghettos--Poland--Łódź.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)--Personal narratives.
- Jews--Poland--Zduńska Wola.
- Zduńska Wola (Poland)
- Concentration camp inmates--Poland--Oświęcim.
Genre
- Document
- Photographs.