Displaced Persons Camp / Work camp and concentration camp difference

Of course, later known as the most important East German border crossing with West Germany. Always wanted to visit there, actually.

Exactly. Actually proved to be a sad logistical obstacle to my mother ever being able to visit her father's grave.

Marienborn before the war was an anonymous village where she happened to work with her family on the fields. My grandfather died a few weeks before the war ended and was buried in Marienborn.

Bad luck led to Marienborn (as you rightly say) becoming one of the main checkpoints on the West/East German border meaning it became very difficult for her to visit his grave until the Berlin wall came down.

She visited with her brother around 1995 but the cemetery was overgrown and all the markers she had remembered were obviously gone so she couldn't find his grave. Locals had told her that when the Russians arrived in 1945 they desecrated a lot of the graves so perhaps it's better for us not to know exactly what happened at that time :(

A couple of years ago an I decided out of the blue to try to rekindle some contact with an old school friend that I hadn't been in touch with for many years. He emailed me back telling me that he was in the middle of a cycle journey in Germany. He was riding solo along the old West-German border for a book he was writing and told me he was that he was about to arrive at a small German village called Marienborn-I nearly fell of my chair when he told me !

I'm very sorry to hear that. Marienborn was such a focal point during the Cold War that it must have tormented your mother every time it was mentioned - especially given the huge restrictions that were in place near the border. It would have been nearly impossible for her to get permission to go there, and the Russian brutes had absolutely no respect for the dead.

It's even more of a shame to think that had he been buried a short distance to the west, all would have been fine with the graveyard.

Thanks Delph. One of those historical quirks I guess.

@Yagutka Did your mother in law spend time in any other DP camps. It was very common for people to be moved around many many times. My mum said she was better fed whilst working under the Germans as a farm labourer then after the war in DP camps.

I believe there was a DP camp near Lueneburg, in a small town whose name currently escapes me. Celle, I think!

Reference #45 Janina and Stanislaw were our grandparents. They emigrated to Australian in 1950 on the HM Hersey. We are trying to research the polish family, if you have any information.

@RachelSmith
My grandparents Janina and Jan Sobczak came over on the same ship same time. There are amazing records on the australian archives website but you do have to pay for them. i live in sydney

kmusgrave1985@gmail.com

@KBorowski
Your story sounds a lot like my families. Also Trilke Werke & Hildesheim. I was born after the War but in Hildesheim. Unfortunately both my parents died already & were very close mouthed while they were alive.

Does anyone know whether I and other children were given German citizenship? We lived in Germany until the end of 1955. Thank you.

I know an older Jewish woman, easily in her late sixties, early-seventies by this time, who was born in Celle, Germany not far from Lueneburg in the North and grew up until the age of five or so in a Displaced Persons Camp (Sammellager fuer Fluechtlinge). She then came to the States, speaks no German whatsoever, and talks like a native New Yorker.

Good question. My brother was born in Barum, Germany (another DP camp). He was classified as "stateless" so he didn't have any nationality.

Unlikely, as German citizenship law is very restrictive. It's possible that you actually had it, but lost it through the failure to declare German nationality before you turned 21.

You'd probably qualify for some form of residency in Germany though, if you wanted it.

In order to qualify for citizenship today in the Federal Republic, official (written) proof must be furnished that BOTH parents were/are German nationals.
Several years ago, I asked a young man whose parents were from Spain, but who was born in Frankfurt (and who spoke only German, no Spanish!), whether he had to apply for German citizenship or whether it was granted automatically as it would be, for instance, here in the States. He replied that technically, he was not a German citizen because his mother and father were guest workers in Germany and therefore never became German citizens; he was still considered a Spanish national!

Perhaps not applicable in Bugaj'daughter's case owing to questions of statehood vs. statelessness, but it might be worth looking into.

@Bugaj'sdaughter. Are there 4 girls in your family.

@sstepun
Hello, I just came across this site and was wondering if you found any answers? If you have not I recently found a site (Arolsen Archives) which does show displaced persons and when they left for US, Canada UK etc, however, you don't provide details to determine if I found the right people.

Bad Arolsen is the chief repository of Holocaust documents as concerns DPs, both within Germany and throughout Europe.

It's worth checking their records from time to time as they keep updating available data. Last month I found one of my great grandfathers there. I didn't know he had been also sent to Germany. I came across his name looking for his son. Still no luck for three other ancestors sent to Germany.

@Pigon
Hi, hopefully you are still logged into this site. My grandparents were Stanislaw and Janina Pigon.

@Bugaj'sdaughter
My mother was born in Hildesheim in 1945. Her and her family came to Australia in 1950. I will check whether she was given a German birth certificate at birth.

Merged:

Displaced Persons Camp / Work camp and concentration camp difference

hello- my name is aniela from buffalo, ny . im the grandaughter of eleonora grabowska from opatow/kaminiec poland and henry fitek ( zagrody poland) they met as POWs in Fallingbostal. they married after the war. My baba worked on a farm to feed the soliders. my dziadzia was considered a polish army vetran in buffalo ny.

my uncle as far as I know was born at the camp ( as all paperwork indicates that when they were sponsored to come to America in 1949). im trying to piece together some missing pieces in my family tree. From DNA, it appears my mom and uncle do NOT have the same Father. My uncle was born in march of 1948. if anyone has info for myself and another person i have been in contact with who are trying to figure this out. please email

other surnames: im looking into are- Baj, Hochul, Szalda ( in buffalo), Krol, Rados, Grabowska, Fitek, Kaczor

@abajthant
Start with Arolsen Archives.

Right. As I indicated prior, Arolsen remains the leading archive of its kind anywhere.

@RachelSmith
my grandparents came on that ship too! janina and jan sobczak

My parents were independently brought to Trilkewelke (I'm not sure if the spelling & have not found it via search engines) where the met and married. We thought that our father was 20 years older than our mother. After he died we learned that he was actually 22 years older than her. Undoubtedly the change due to one of those exigencies during and/or after the 2nd World War. They were moved to a camp housed in former military barracks on the edge of Hildesheim, my birthplace. Much to learn!

I am searching for passengers list arriving to Liverpool on "Duchess of Bedford" on July 28, 1946. No such list on "polishresettlement....." Any help?

I've found this but am going round in circles trying to find the list on The National Archives. You may have to download it from Ancestry:

discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C9147074

Ive checked, National Archives Kew offer to viewing passengers list of Duchess of Bedford arriving to Liverpool on 1946, Jul 28. I live in Poland , coming to London for that only is not fisible for me.