Group portrait of Jewish children under the care of the OSE (Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants) at the Hotel Bompard internment camp.
Overview
- Caption
- Group portrait of Jewish children under the care of the OSE (Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants) at the Hotel Bompard internment camp.
Siegfried Weissmann is pictured standing fourth from the right in the second row. Theodore Brenig is standing fourth from the left. Bernhard Guenter Katz is seated in the front, second from the left. - Date
-
August 1942
- Locale
- Marseilles, [Bouches-du-Rhone] France
- Variant Locale
- Marseille
- Photo Credit
- United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Fred Weissmann
- Event History
- Bompard, Levant and Terminus du Port were three hotels located in the city of Marseilles, which were utilized as transit camps for foreign-born women and children beginning in the late spring of 1940. Many of the residents were women whose husbands were incarcerated at Les Milles, the largest of the transit camps, located 90 km. north of Marseilles. Those interned in the hotels and at Les Milles were primarily Jewish refugees who had made arrangements to emigrate, but who had not yet received the required funds and/or documentation to do so. Conditions in the hotel internment camps were never comfortable and deteriorated dramatically as the war progressed. At Bompard 250 inmates lived in 25 rooms of a two-story building. At Levant, where the OSE [Oeuvre de secours aux enfants] established a children's center, some 100 children shared the facility with 80 women. The Terminus du Port housed as many as 500 refugees. The internees suffered from malnutrition, poor hygiene, vermin, insufficient clothing, lack of heat, and limited electricity. Though life in the hotels was difficult, the refugees lived under a far more lenient regime than those confined to closed internment camps. Of greatest importance was their ability to leave the hotels on a daily basis. They also received much needed assistance from several relief organizations, including the Red Cross, American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), the Unitarian Service Committee, HICEM, and the OSE. The Jewish residents of the Marseilles hotel internment camps who were unable to emigrate or make other arrangements were rounded-up in early August 1942 and taken to Les Milles. A few weeks later the first deportation convoys left the camp for Auschwitz.
[Source: Ryan, Donna Frances. Vichy and the Jews: The Example of Marseille, 1939-1944, PhD dissertation, Georgetown University, 1984.]
Rights & Restrictions
- Photo Source
-
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Copyright: United States Holocaust Memorial MuseumProvenance: Fred Weissmann
Keywords & Subjects
- Keyword
- ASSISTANCE COMMITTEES BOMPARD (HOTEL) CHILDREN (4-12 YEARS) CHILDREN/YOUTH CONCENTRATION CAMPS GROUP PORTRAITS INTERNMENT CAMPS JEWS (GERMAN) OSE (OEUVRE DE SECOURS AUX ENFANTS) PRISONERS REFUGEES (JEWISH) TRANSIT CAMPS YOUTH (13-20 YEARS)
- Photo Designation
-
TRANSIT CAMPS/INTERNMENT CAMPS -- France -- Bompard (Hotel)
Administrative Notes
- Biography
- Fred Weissmann (born Siegfried Weissmann) is the son of Leo and Sophie Weissmann. He was born December 10, 1927 in Cologne, Germany, where his father worked as a tailor. Siegfried had one sister, Ingeborg. In 1938 the family fled to Antwerp, where they remained until September 1940. A few months after the German invasion they were sent to France and placed in the Brens internment camp. From there, the Weissmanns were transferred to Rivesaltes in February 1941. As they were awaiting deportation to Drancy in November 1941, Siegfried managed to attach himself to a group of children who were under the care of the OSE (Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants). He was sent to a religious home in Brout-Vernet, from which he ran away in January 1942. Siegfried's next contact with the OSE occurred after he was arrested and jailed in Lyon for stealing a bicycle. The OSE arranged for his release and placed him in the Pere Donnard cloister in Lyon. When one of the priests learned that Siegfried was Jewish, the OSE quickly moved him to the home of the Thizy family in Pomey (Rhone). Siegfried lived with them from February 1943 until February 1945. After the war he lived in OSE children's homes in Collonge au Mont d'or and Fontenay aux Roses. His father, who had escaped to the United States via Morocco in 1941, managed to locate him soon after the war and arrange for his transport to New York. On April 27, 1946 Siegfried departed from Cherbourg on the SS Robert Howe. His mother and sister perished during the war.
- Record last modified:
- 2004-07-26 00:00:00
- This page:
- https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/pa1094844
