The largest group of children under UNRRA’s care came from Poland and Hungary. They were survivors of German concentration camps and forced labour, as well as the children of female forced labourers, including six who had survived the Indersdorf barracks – a total of 613 young people who had managed to survive the Second World War and the Holocaust.
Greta Fischer, one of the volunteers of UNRRA Team 182, wrote down an account of her work at the Indersdorf convent. Thanks to her, we know what the centre’s activities were like and what challenges the children’s caregivers faced in order to help them return to a normal life.
1. Lene Walekirow recounts her experiences, US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington DC.
Lene Walekirow was deported to Germany with her father Alexander, a Soviet forced labourer. After the death of her father in Dachau concentration camp, she was forced to help in the children’s barracks in Indersdorf. At the convent, she told UNRRA social worker Helen Steiger about her heartbreaking experiences. She returned to Ukraine as an orphan in 1946. Since then, no trace of her has been found.
2. Greta Fischer, US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington DC.
3. Greta Fischer and Jean Henshaw, photo provided by former UNRRA employee Mary W. Taylor.
UNRRA social workers Greta Fischer (front) and Jean Henshaw with young children in their care at the Indersdorf convent.
4. Team 182, Heimatverein Indersdorf Archive
UNRRA Team 182 ran the International Children’s Centre Indersdorf from 7 July 1945 until the end of July 1946.
Pictured from left: Harry C. Parker, Greta Fischer, unknown, Helen Steiger, director Lillian D. Robbins, unknown, André Marx, Marion E. Hutton;
Second row from left: John Gower, Dr Gaston Gérard, unknown, Mary W. Taylor, unknown, and French drivers Gustave de Sile and Lucien Picou.