The Records
Shown whole, with what each one proves
Every document here is reproduced uncropped, with its repository and reference, so that anyone can go and check it.
Helen’s birth record, 1929
ChildHelena, girl, Jewish. No surname is entered.
MotherLandó-ová Rozi, at home, age 25
FatherNamed only in the remarks: Hellman Zacharias, resident of Bohdan, age 29, acknowledging the child as his own
SignedBy the father, in his own hand
What this record shows
Her father is not in the parents column. He is in the margin, as a man attesting that the child is his, and then his name in his own hand. Because the marriage was religious only, the state entered her under her mother’s surname, and so the child has no surname on the page at all.
That single clerical fact is why she could not be found under Helman for eighty years. To trace her, you have to look under Landó.
Buchenwald, 2 June 1944
More to come
The registration forms, the Terezín cards, the Budapest survivor registrations, the deportation lists under both surnames, and the cemetery stones will be added here as each is prepared with its citation.
