Names Not Numbers

Ralph Perlberger

Amsterdam, Holland

Westerbork Concentration Camp

Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp

1931

Ralph Perlberger

Amsterdam, Holland

1931

Ralph was born in 1931 in Amsterdam, Netherlands. His early life was marked by the rising tensions of World War II. On May 9, 1940, Ralph’s father, Oscar, arrived in New York, leaving Ralph, his mother, and brothers behind in Europe.

In September 1941, Ralph, his mother, and his brothers were taken prisoner in Amsterdam and sent to the Westerbork concentration camp in the south of the Netherlands.

Between 1941 and 1943, they were excused from being sent to extermination camps. However, they were scheduled to be deported to Auschwitz, but a close family friend, Dutch art dealer Piet de Boer, intervened.

He bribed the Secretary of the Italian Consulate, Dr. Vittorio Mugioli, to call Herr Aus der Funten of the Nazi security service (SD-the Sicherheitsdienst) to delay their transport while arranging for them to be placed on the Philips list.

In January 1944, the commandant of Westerbork decided it was time for Ralph’s family to be transported to Bergen-Belsen.

Fortunately, the Jewish Agency in London managed to get the family on the Palestine Exchange Holland List. On February 1, 1944, Ralph and his family were sent to Bergen-Belsen. They were placed in the "Sternlager" section, which was designated for "exchange Jews." In this section, prisoners were seen as valuable for potential exchanges.

The family was allowed to keep their clothes, marked with yellow Stars of David, and were not forced to wear prisoner uniforms.

On April 10, 1945, just a week before liberation, the Nazis decided to transfer the entire "Sternlager" section on three train transports to exchange them for German prisoners of war. Ralph's family was part of the third transport, which became known as "The Lost Transport" after it seemed to disappear.

While the other two transports were liberated by American forces in Theresienstadt, Ralph's train continued east in search of intact rail lines. By this time, the war had effectively ended, but they remained in German hands.

On April 23, 1945, Ralph and the other survivors of the transport were finally liberated by the Russian army.

They were resettled in the tiny East German village of Troebitz, where they remained for about two months before being allowed to leave.

In June 1945, while still in Troebitz, Ralph contracted typhoid fever and was hospitalized. Shortly after, the British began transferring survivors to the Leipzig Repatriation Center in Germany. By fall of 1945, Ralph, his mother, and his brothers had moved to Paris to seek U.S. entry visas.

After receiving their visas in Paris, they faced a long waitlist for a flight to New York. To pass the time, the family moved to Portugal. Finally, in February 1946, Ralph’s family arrived in New York, where they were reunited with his father.

Names Not Numbers

Ralph Perlberger

Ralph Perlberger

The End