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Wedding dress with ruffle made for the marriage of 2 German Jewish DP camp aid workers

Object | Accession Number: 2005.579.2

White, full skirted gown worn by Alice Redlich, 28, at her wedding to Hans Finke, 28, at the Bergen-Belsen displaced persons camp on June 20, 1948. The dress was made by her sister-in-law Ursula, a seamstress. She made the dress in Berlin and brought it to Bergen Belsen during a visit to friends in Bavaria. The British Army liberated Bergen-Belsen on April 15, 1945, and it became a DP camp. Hans and Alice were aid workers when they met and married. Alice and her family were German Jews living in Berlin during the rise of the Nazi dictatorship with its aggressive anti-Jewish policies. Alice left for England in 1938 to continue her nurses's training. She volunteered with the Jewish Committee for Relief Abroad and, in September 1946, left for the Bergen-Belsen DP camp in Germany. Her mother, father, and brother were murdered in Auschwitz in 1943. Hans was also from Berlin. In February 1943, Hans was a slave laborer for Siemens when he was hospitalized with appendicitis. On February 29, his parents were deported to Auschwitz. On March 8, the Gestapo raided the hospital and arrested staff and patients. Hans was transported to Monowitz concentration camp, and later sent to Auschwitz, Sachsenhausen, Flossenberg, and Bergen-Belsen. His parents were murdered in Auschwitz, but his sister Ursula survived in hiding. On August 29, 1949, John and Alice, then pregnant with their first child, immigrated to the United States.

Date
use:  1948 June 20
Geography
use: DP-Camp Bergen-Belsen; Belsen (Bergen, Celle, Germany)
Classification
Clothing and Dress
Category
Women's clothing
Object Type
Wedding dresses (aat)
Credit Line
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of Alice Fink
 
Record last modified: 2023-08-24 15:13:00
This page: https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn523779