Biography
Hans Finke (now John Fink) was born in Berlin on August 12, 1920. He was raised by his father Julius, a merchant, and his stepmother Ella. His younger sister Ursula was born on June 30, 1923. The Finkes remained in Berlin after the Nazi takeover and through much of the war. In March, 1943, however, Hans was arrested and deported to Auschwitz, where he was put to work at the Buna factory in Monowitz. He spent almost two years there before the camp was evacuated in January, 1945 and he was transferred to Sachsenhausen. The following month he was moved to Flossenbuerg and from there to Bergen-Belsen, where he was liberated by the British on April 15. Both his parents perished during the war, but he found his sister Ursula, who had survived in Berlin. In 1943, Ursula had gone underground to evade deportation. However, a Jewish collaborator who was working for the Gestapo, recognized her in the Berlin railway station. Desperate to escape arrest, Ursula threw herself in front of an on-coming train. She survived the ordeal, but her leg was severed. Ursula was then arrested by the Gestapo and confined to the Jewish hospital in Berlin, where whe was shackled to a bed until the end of the war. After the liberation, Hans lived in the Bergen-Belsen DP camp until July, 1947. He then went to work for the JDC in the Blankenese children's home near Hamburg. There he met and married a fellow relief worker, Alice Redlich, and immigrated to the United States in August, 1949.
Alice Fink (born Alice Redlich) is the daughter of Georg and Ella (Messer) Redlich. She was born on August 12, 1920 in Berlin, where her father was a salesman. Her younger brother, Heinz Alfred, was born on June 9, 1923. After completing high school, Alice took a one-year training course (1937-38) to become an infant nurse. She then left Germany for England to attend nursing school and receive her certification. The rest of her family remained in Berlin. On October 26, 1942, her father was arrested and deported to Auschwitz, where he perished. Alice's brother was picked up in January 1943, and her mother, on March 8, 1943. They, too, were deported to their death in Auschwitz. Alice's grandmother, Emma Messer, was sent to Theresienstadt in December 1942. She also perished. After the war, in September 1946, Alice worked with Team 110 of the Jewish Relief Unit as a staff nurse. She was sent to the Bergen-Belsen displaced persons camp, where she met another relief worker, Hans Finke. Hans, who also hailed from Berlin, was a Jewish survivor of Auschwitz. They married in Bergen-Belsen on June 20, 1948, and the following year, in August 1949, they immigrated to the United States and settled in Chicago.
