UNRRA embroidered patch worn by a survivor and DP camp relief worker

Identifier
irn523758
Language of Description
English
Alt. Identifiers
  • 2005.579.6
Level of Description
Item
Languages
  • English
Source
EHRI Partner

Extent and Medium

overall: Height: 1.750 inches (4.445 cm) | Width: 1.625 inches (4.128 cm) | Diameter: 1.620 inches (4.115 cm)

Creator(s)

Biographical History

Hans Finke was born on August 12, 1920, in Berlin, Germany. His father, Julius Finke (1882-1943), was a merchant from Petrzkowitz, Poland (Pietrzkowice, Poland); his mother died when he was an infant. His father married Ella in 1922. Hans’s half-sister, Ursula, was born on June 30, 1923. They were not a strictly observant Jewish family though they attended a liberal synagogue and participated in the Jewish community. Julius owned a dry goods store outside of Berlin, but in 1923 he lost the store due to poor economic conditions. The family moved to Berlin where Julius and Ella worked various jobs and rented out rooms. Hans attended public school and went to Hebrew school once a week. On January 30, 1933, Hitler was elected Chancellor of Germany. By summer, increasingly anti-Semitic policies severely restricted the civil rights and actions of German Jews. Hans left the German public school and attended a Jewish school. In 1934, he left school and began a four year apprenticeship as an electrician with a Jewish contractor. After the Nuremberg Laws were instituted in 1935, establishing legal persecution of Jews along racial lines, Hans' Jewish boss fled Germany. Hans found a job with a small company, and in 1938, took his journeyman’s exam, but as a Jew, he did not receive his results or his certification. The same year, his family was forcibly removed from their home and relocated to a flat in one of the poorest sections of Berlin. The overcrowded building was under constant Nazi guard. His parents were forced into factory work and his sister worked as a seamstress. Hans began working for the Alfred Skaruppe Co., a private contracting firm owned by non-Nazis, and he worked for the Air Ministry from 1938-1941. Food was scarce and Jews were unable to purchase many goods. On weekends, Hans would remove his Star of David armband, an action punishable by death, and walk to the country. A sympathetic farmer provided him with 100 pound sacks of potatoes, which he would carry home. By 1941, Jews could no longer work for privately owned businesses. Hans lost his job and was assigned to work for Siemens, an electrical company. At the end of February 1943, he was admitted to a Jewish hospital with appendicitis. While there, he heard that his parents were arrested during a mass round up on February 29 and transported to Auschwitz concentration camp in German-occupied Poland. The family’s apartment was sealed and Ursula went into hiding with a Jewish Palestinian couple. On March 8, the Gestapo stormed the hospital, and arrested staff and patients, including Hans. Hans was part of the 36 East transport that left Berlin on March 12, 1943. They were marched to the railroad station and loaded into cattle cars, arriving the next day in Buna-Monowitz concentration camp, the largest subcamp of Auschwitz. Hans was beaten, stripped, shaved, and washed in kerosene. The following morning they were given uniforms and tattooed with identification numbers. The camp had little food and no sanitation and Hans, still recovering from surgery, was forced to carry cement and iron bars. After six weeks, tradesmen were ordered to report and Hans was sent to construct a factory for I.G. Farben Co. On September 13, the United States bombed the construction site as Hans and his fellow workers hid in the basement. The next day they discovered that the plant had been destroyed. The Germans ordered them to begin rebuilding. In early 1945, Russian forces were approaching the camp and, on January 17, the prisoners were told to take extra blankets and rations and were forced to march to Gleiwitz, Germany (now Gliwice, Poland). Many prisoners were killed and SS guards deserted their posts. The transport group stayed in Gleiwitz for a few days before being marched to the train station and loaded into open freight cars without food or water. When the train would stop, prisoners would jump to the ground and start eating snow to appease their thirst and hunger. During stops at civilian platforms, the sick and dying were tossed out of the cars and shot by the guards. In Czechoslovakia, civilians threw food into the train cars for the prisoners. The transport traveled through many areas looking for a place to unload, but all of the camps were overcrowded. They reached Berlin on January 28, and the inmates were unloaded at Sachsenhausen concentration camp. On February 2, they were transported to Flossenberg concentration camp, and on March 10, they arrived at Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Hans was put to work as an electrician. His position allowed him access to the guards’ quarters and he took this opportunity to steal provisions. He even ate the food left out for their dogs. By April, typhus was rampant, there was no food, and order in the camp was breaking down. By April 13, the Germans were gone. The British Army of the Rhine (2nd) liberated Bergen-Belsen on April 15, 1945. Hans weighed eighty pounds at liberation. Hans helped the British restore power to Bergen-Belsen, now a displaced persons camp, and in October he returned to Berlin to find his sister. Ursula lived in hiding throughout the war, but was recognized by a Jew working for the Gestapo while standing on a train platform. To avoid arrest, she jumped in front of a train, shattering her leg. She was arrested and kept shackled to a bed in the Jewish hospital for eight months, until liberation. Hans also was given his journeyman’s electrician exam results and certificate. He returned to Bergen-Belsen and worked for the British Army until 1947, and then for the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, in the Warburg-Children’s Home. He met Alice Redlich, a German Jewish nurse, who had come from England to work for the Jewish Committee for Relief Abroad. They married in Bergen-Belsen on June 20, 1948. With Alice pregnant with their first child, the couple immigrated to the United States on August 26, 1949. They settled in Chicago where John had relatives. Soon after, the first of their four children was born. Hans changed his name to John. They changed their surname to Fink and became citizens in 1955. John became known in the local Jewish community as a tireless crusader for Holocaust related concerns. He died on December 20, 2000, at the age of 81.

Archival History

The UNRRA badge was donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2005 by Alice Fink, the wife of John Fink.

Acquisition

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of Alice Fink

Scope and Content

Circular, red, UNRRA (United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration) patch worn by Hans Finke (later John Fink) when he worked for the organization as a store manager in a refugee center in Germany from 1946-47. Hans was a prisoner at Bergen-Belsen when it was liberated by the British Army on April 15, 1945. An electrician by trade, he began working for the British and then various aid groups after it became a displaced persons camp. Hans, his parents, and his sister, Ursula, lived in Berlin during the rise of the Nazi dictatorship in 1933 with its aggressive anti-Jewish policies. Jews were required to wear the yellow stars beginning in September 1941. In February 1943, Hans, 23, was a forced laborer for Siemens when he was hospitalized with appendicitis. On February 29, his parents were rounded up and deported to Auschwitz. On March 8, the Gestapo raided the hospital and arrested staff and patients. Hans was transported to Buna-Monowitz concentration camp, and later sent to Auschwitz, Sachsenhausen, Flossenberg, and Bergen-Belsen concentration camps. Hans was in Bergen-Belsen when it was liberated in April 1945. His parents were murdered in Auschwitz, but his sister Ursula survived in hiding. Bergen-Belsen became a displaced persons camp and Hans began working for various aid groups. He met Alice Redlich, who had left Berlin 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 family was murdered in Auschwitz in 1943. Alice and Hans married on June 20, 1948, in the DP camp. The couple, with Alice pregnant with their first child, immigrated to the United States on August 29, 1949.

Conditions Governing Access

No restrictions on access

Conditions Governing Reproduction

No restrictions on use

Physical Characteristics and Technical Requirements

Worn, circular, red, felt patch with white cloth backing with a grid-lined globe and five-letter acronym machine embroidered in discolored gold thread on the center front, with the border embroidered in red thread. It is slightly frayed.

front, embroidered, gold thread : UNRRA [United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration]

Corporate Bodies

Subjects

Genre

This description is derived directly from structured data provided to EHRI by a partner institution. This collection holding institution considers this description as an accurate reflection of the archival holdings to which it refers at the moment of data transfer.