Photos and Documents

My Childhood 1925-1938  Life Changes 1938-1940  |  Confined to the Ghetto 1940-1944  |  In Different Camps 1944-1945  |  Liberated 1945  |  (Complete biography)

Jakob Ringart | Photos and Documents

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Jakob Ringart 2010.

The Ringart family a Friday evening in the beginning of the 1930s. Sitting at the table from the left: Boleslaw 11 years old, father Isaj, Jakob 8 years old, Aron 16 years old and mother Sara.

In this picture Jakob is together with his brother Boleslaw and his mother. He is 14 years old. The photo was taken in front of a hotel in the Tatra-mountains on their last real vacation in the summer of 1939.

Jakob: ”In order to visit my brother I got a pass for the German city of Bergen valid July 10-11, 1945. The pass was issued by the American military authorities in the camp of Fallingbostel (Follingbostel).”

Jakob: ”This pass was issued for July 12-13, 1945, by the British Military Authority in Fallingbostel (Follingbostel), affirming that I could return to Bergen-Belsen in order to continue my search for relatives.”

Jakob: ”Here you see the first document I received in Germany after the war. We who survived–people of different nationalities–received so-called D.P. Index Cards. It was issued by the Allies in Western Europe after the war.” (Displaced Persons (D.P.), that is what the former concentration camp prisoners and refugees were called, who did not have anywhere to go and had to live in so-called DP camps.)

Jakob: ”This is my ’Field Medical Card’ (doctor’s certificate) issued on June 10, 1945. I had a card hanging around my neck when I boarded the boat from Lübeck to Trelleborg. It says I had pneumonia and that I am ‘male adult’ number 8594.”

Jakob: ”Here you see my first Swedish certificate. I had to fill it out myself during the boat trip to Trelleborg. The number 8594 located to the right also appears on my Field Medical Card.”

This is a photo taken during Jakob's first months in Sweden.

Jakob: ”In the end of 1946, when I applied for scholarships to continue my studies, I asked chief physician C. V. Sædén at Jonas Selggren’s Sanatorium for a letter of recommendation. He had gotten to know me while I was treated for tuberculosis.”

Jakob: ”I asked the search service in Arolsen 1962 if their registers contained any information about my father’s and my mother’s name. In a letter, they answered that that there are no information about my parents potential captivity, at the same time they notified that they are not entitled to confirm the death of my parents.” (International Tracing Service (ITS) was established on the initiative of the Allies in 1943, as a branch of the British Red Cross in order to search for and register missing persons. The ITS later moved to Bad Arolsen in Germany. Here the victims of the Nazis and their families could search for information about the destiny of their relatives.)