Overview
- Date
-
approximately 1940
- Credit Line
- United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of Bella Herson
- Contributor
-
Subject:
Benjamin Herson
- Biography
-
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.
Physical Details
- Classification
-
Identifying Artifacts
- Category
-
Badges
- Object Type
-
Prisoner badges (ushmm)
- Physical Description
- Identification tag ssued to Benjamin Herson (Beniamin Herszson); prisoner's number "744" and name of camp is engraved; black and white image of identification photograph of Benjamin Herszson who is holding sign with his prisoner's number and camp number; the tag and the photograph are inserted in yellow plastic sleeve with navy blue string is attached through hole.
- Materials
- overall : metal, gelatin silver print, paper, plastic
Rights & Restrictions
- Conditions on Access
- No restrictions on access
- Conditions on Use
- No restrictions on use
Administrative Notes
- Legal Status
- Permanent Collection
- Provenance
- The identification tag was donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 1999 by Bella Herson, the wife of Benjamin Herson.
- Record last modified:
- 2024-01-29 12:55:01
- This page:
- https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn28606
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Also in Bella and Benjamin Herson collection
The Bella and Benjamin Herson papers consist of correspondence, a memoir, photographs, printed materials, prisoner of war materials, a plaque, an identification tag, and reference materials documenting Bella and Benjamin Herson, the Herszon, Sztajnhorn, and Rys families, Bella's experiences in the Łódź ghetto, Auschwitz, and Birmbäumel, and Benjamin's imprisonment in prisoner of war camps Oflag XI A - Osterode and Oflag II C - Woldenberg.
Date: 1907-2006
Plaque
Object
Bella and Benjamin Herson papers
Document
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.
