Kestenberg Archive

JH was born into an assimilated Jewish family in Poznan. Father worked as a representative of a civil engineering firm. When JH was 10 years old, his father died of a stroke. When the war broke out, JH, his mother and sister, who was six years older than JH, moved to Lodz in August, 1939. He was in the Lodz ghetto between February 1940 until July 1944. Soon after the ghetto was closed, his mother died. In the ghetto JH worked in a leather workshop and then as a messenger. He was deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau in July 1944 and spent 10 weeks there. He remembers Yom Kippur in Birkenau. After this he was sent Braunschweig to work in an car factory. In Birkenau he was separated from his sister on arrival. He spent 20 weeks there between November 1944 and February 1945. He was then sent to Braunschweig between February 1945-March 1945 and then sent to Ravensbruk where he stayed between March 1945-April, 1945. Then was sent to Wobbelin, near Ludwigslust and was there for 1 week and 4 days. (April 1945-2 may, 1945). He was liberated on May 2nd by the American 82nd Airborne division, and sent to Thereseinstadt DP camp. He returned to Lodz and found one aunt alive, and from there was brought over to England on 14th August, 1945. Received a PhD in mathematics in 1955.