| Original caption: “These Jewish children are on their way to Palestine after having been released from the Buchenwald Concentration Camp. The girl on the left is from Poland, the boy in the center from Latvia, and the girl on right from Hungary.” 3 young Jewish Displaced Persons look out of the window of their train holding a homemade Zionist flag as they depart from Buchenwald on the 1st leg of their journey to what was then Palestine. In 1948 the flag would become the national symbol of Israel. Yetty (Yocheved) Halpern Beigel (May 31, 1927 – prior to 2014), left; Martha Weber (1924 – alive in 1975), right; and an unidentified Jewish youth from Latvia. Yetty was imprisoned in Bergen Belsen. In April 1945, she was placed on a transport enroute to Theresienstadt, along with more that 2000 other prisoners. As the end of the war neared, their captors abandoned the train, and the survivors were liberated by the U.S. Army near Magdeburg, Germany. Yetty was sent to the U.S. Military Hospital at Buchenwald to recuperate, where she met Magda Weber. They later immigrated to Palestine. Yetti Halpern was born in Cieszyn, Poland. She was the youngest of 9 children. She was incarcerated in the Bochnia ghetto, where she worked as a seamstress. During this period Gisela Halpern Katz, Yetti’s oldest sister, whose husband lived in Palestine, received an immigration certificate. Gisela claimed Yetti as her daughter and the 2 were transferred to Bergen Belsen, to the “foreigner’s camp.” After the liberation Yetti was sent to a hospital in Buchenwald and from there was taken to France and later to Palestine. Martha Weber was born in Povirad, Hungary. In the May 1945 census of Jews, for which the government forced her father Morton Weber (???? – ????) to pay 600 pengő, about 600 American dollars, per person to register everyone, she was listed as a student. She was sent to Auschwitz and on November 22, 1944, Wilischthal, a sub camp of Flossenbürg. Weber thanked the Hungarian doctor at Wilischthal, who risked her life arguing with the Schutzstaffel (SS) for better conditions, pointing out that less beatings would result in more productivity for the slave labor. On Christmas Eve 1945, she listened to an Italian soprano sing “Ave Maria” only to be beaten, and her teeth knocked out so she couldn’t sing any more. Packed into train cars, Weber was taken to Theresienstadt on April 15, 1945, without food for a week. She was liberated at Theresienstadt on May 8, 1945. | |
| Image Filename | wwii0557.jpg |
| Image Size | 711.07 KB |
| Image Dimensions | 2366 x 2856 |
| Photographer | James E. Myers |
| Photographer Title | United States Army Signal Corps |
| Caption Author | Written or Adapted by Jason McDonald |
| Date Photographed | June 5, 1945 |
| Location | Konzentrationslager Buchenwald |
| City | Weimar |
| State or Province | Thuringia |
| Country | Germany |
| Archive | National Archives and Records Administration |
| Record Number | NWDNS-111-SC-207907 |
| Status | Caption ©2026 MFA Productions LLC Please Do Not Duplicate or Distribute Without Permission; Image in the Public Domain |
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