UNRRA card issued to the Abraham family stating they had arrived in the Philippeville camp following their release from Bergen-Belsen and were now journying to Algiers for repatriation.

Photograph | Digitized | Photograph Number: 75433

Overview

Caption: UNRRA card issued to the Abraham family stating they had arrived in the Philippeville camp following their release from Bergen-Belsen and were now journying to Algiers for repatriation.
Date: 1945 August 30
Locale: Philippeville, [North Africa] Algeria
Photo Credit: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Hildegard Abraham

Photo Source: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Copyright: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Provenance: Hildegard Abraham

Keyword: DOCUMENTS DP CAMPS/CENTERS DPS (JEWISH) JEANNE D'ARC CAMP REPATRIATION UNRRA (UN RELIEF AND REHABILITATION ADMIN)
Photo Designation: DISPLACED PERSONS/RETURN TO LIFE -- DP Camps/Postwar Communities -- Morocco/Tunisia/Algeria

Biography: Hans Leo (later Henry) Abraham (the husband of the donor) is the son of Siegfried (b. Ehringshausen, July 19, 1899) and Gerda Abraham, nee Schwarzstein (b. Berlin, February 26, 1911). Hans was born on September 23, 1933. He and his parents came from Hamburg, Germany and fled in 1935 to Amsterdam. Siegfried had worked as a stock broker in Hamburg, but he could not remain in his profession after immigrating and became a certified electrician. His younger sister Ruth was born in Holland on September 24, 1938. After the German invasion of The Netherlands in May 1940 their lives became endangered again. Wealthy friends from Hamburg, who had left for Switzerland early on while it was still possible to take their assets out of the country, sent them Haitian passports in May 1942. As foreign nationals, they were deported first to Westerbork and then to Bergen-Belsen in 1944. The family was chosen to be part of a prisoner exchange in January 1945 in which they were taken first to Switzerland, and then to Algeria on August 31, 1945. They remained in the UNRRA camp at Jeanne d'Arc at Philippeville until the end of the war. The Abrahams immigrated to the United States in 1946.