Unknown girl - Help us to solve a mystery from May 1945
We don´t know her name, nor nationality, but maybe you know?
Michael Rund is the director of a museum in Sokolov, Czech Republic. Since 2012, he has been searching for the identity of the little girl in the photo. Maybe she was from France, maybe from Spain, maybe her name was Henriette . These are all possibilities that Mr. Rund has found for the photo. I would like to help him with his research.
"I'm guessing that the girl's parents, or just the mother, were Spanish, fled to France, where they joined the resistance, and were arrested. Towards the end of the war, they ended up in Mauthausen concentration camp in Germany, and then she was deported to Prague. This photo was taken in May 1945 in Prague. The girl is about 4-5 years old, so there's a chance she's still alive. The best thing for me would be to find out her fate, " says Michael Rund.
In recent years, Michael Rund has contacted historians and other researchers throughout the Czech Republic and abroad, but nothing is certain yet. It is not clear if the number on her coat is 155910 or 155916. If it is 155910 according to the Auschwitz Museum records, this number belonged to Jozef Groner, born June 28, 1943. It is not clear how the girl is related to Jozef.
If you have any tips on where to look: write to me at juditamaty@email.cz. Also look at more photos below this text for more details about her.
Michael Rund has already contacted - the search results are in the captions of the photos, see below:
Terezín Memorial
Jewish Museum Prague
Auschwitz Museum
Mauthausen memorial
Freedom Fighters Union
Bad Arolsen
Yad Vashem
Holocaust Museum Washington
Description on the back of the photo:
From a concentration camp / Spanish? A little girl going through quarantine in Prague on her way home
Charity Prague
May 1945 / Photo Antonín Bláha / member of Czech photography society
Czech Charity, Magazine for Social and Health Work. Volume I (1946), number 4. Author of the article Zdenka Široká. Caption "Czech Republic institutions must also take care of repatriates from other countries. The picture shows Henriette, the youngest deported Frenchwoman who was in the care of Charity after her liberation from the concentration camp"
Description: French girl, prisoner nr. 155916 during transfer through Prague in 1945. The same photo as the one taken by Czech photographer Antonín Bláha is also in the Mauthausen archive. The famous Spanish photographer Francisco Boix took the photo of the girl there. Interestingly, the girl is not wearing pants, but a skirt, but she has the same armband with the inscription (Lager Capo) on her arm. In 2009, researcher Dana Friedelová searched for the girl's identity at the Union of Anti-Fascist Fighters in Chrudim. From there, they sent the photo to Terezín, from where they received a message that they had the same photo, also without identification, with only a note that this girl had been repatriated to Prague.