In January 2024, Stella Silberberg kindly permitted Kazerne Dossin to digitise and archive several documents, photos and textiles in this collection. On 27 June 2024, Stella and Bernard-Léon Silberberg added a uniform cap and biography of Benjamin Silberberg to this collection.
Benjamin Silberberg, born on 17 October 1924 in Longwy, France, was of Polish descent and held Polish nationality. His parents, Juda Leib Silberberg and Ruchla Bojm, were Polish immigrants. Originally from Lodz, Poland, Juda broke away from his rabbinic family and worked in a print shop in Berlin, where he escaped from quelling the Spartak uprising. He married Ruchla, a Russian Jewish refugee, and dreamed of becoming a pioneer in Birobidjan, the region of the USSR that Stalin had promised Jews. Benjamin, an athletics enthusiast and member of the communist Red Falcons, came to Belgium in the summer of 1925 with his mother and younger brother Joseph. His father had already arrived in 1924. The Silberberg family arrived in Charleroi, moved to Gilly, among other places, but settled in Anderlecht from summer 1938. Benjamin trained as an apprentice tailor in his teens. During World War II, the family fled to the Toulouse region of France when the work bans and censuses for Jews began. Judah was conscripted into the Polish in the Belgian army, and the family received help from the Red Cross. Together with his mother and brother, Benjamin was detained in Récébédou. He had to return alone with a family friend to Brussels, where once on the spot they learned that all their belongings had been stolen. In France, Benjamin was reunited with his mother and brother in the Rivesaltes internment camp. Later, his father joined them at the Caylus military camp. Benjamin helped his father work in Berbiguières in the coal mines in the Dordogne region. Benjamin and his father came into contact with Spanish republicans of the José Cosial resistance movement, where they helped make and distribute pamphlets against conscription and then secured the liberation of their relatives from the Rivesaltes camp. Three weeks later, on 26 August 1942, Benjamin, although a Frenchman, his brother and father were involved in the raid of foreign Jews in the southern zone ordered by police secretary-general René Bousquet. While his mother was saved from arrest by the mayor of Saint-Cyprien, Juda Silberberg refused to sign up with the Foreign Legion, which would have allowed him to leave the Saint-Pardoux-la-Rivière transit camp. They were then taken to the Drancy assembly camp. On 4 September 1942, they were then deported on Convoi 28 from Drancy to Auschwitz-Birkenau. Four days later, at dawn, the train arrived at its destination. Benjamin, not yet 20 years old, was given the number 178678 and assigned to work commands in Auschwitz's satellite camps, as a labourer in Sosnowitz and Sakrau and for a year on the construction of the factory in Laurahütte. He had a privileged position which provided extra food, which he shared with his father and brother. Benjamin was also hospitalised for a week, and a prison doctor allowed him to stay for a week for rest. Benjamin survived the death marches to Buchenwald concentration camp, in which his father died and his brother was also killed. US troops finally liberated him at Buchenwald camp on 11 April 1945. After liberation, Benjamin was repatriated and reunited with his mother. His plans to leave for Palestine were cancelled. In 1947, he settled in Saint-Gilles. On 18 January 1948, he married Féla Litmanowicz (born in Etterbeek on 2 December 1930), and together they had two children, Bernard-Léon (born 7 September 1950) and Stella (born 8 May 1957). Féla and her sister Denise went into hiding in Heverlee, in a convent, during the war. Their parents were deported from the Dossin Barracks with Transport XXIII and did not survive. On a flight to Israel, Benjamin heard a man telling a story of how when he was in Auschwitz-Birkenau as a prisoner, he once dropped his glasses during roll call and another man picked it back up for him when they had to march away. Benjamin recognized this story as he was the man who picked up the glasses. The person telling the story on the plane was Jacques Raffeld. Benjaming Silberberg and Jacques Raffeld continued to be in contact ever since.
Digital copy available as collection KD_01009 at Kazerne Dossin Research Centre
Silberberg, Benjamin. J'avais 20 ans. J'avais connu l'enfer. Mémoires d'un rescapé des camps nazis. Luxembourg: Saint Paul, 2009.
KD_00497 - Jacques Raffeld. Collection. + In 1995 Jacques Raffeld was interviewed by the Fondation Auschwitz in Brussels (YA/FA/094). The interview is accessible via the website of the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies (Yale University).
No further accruals are to be expected.
Contact Kazerne Dossin Research Centre: archives@kazernedossin.eu
40 digitised items (1 uniform jacket, 1 uniform hat, 2 identity cards, 11 photographs, 1 yellow star, 1 family tree)
This collection is highlighted by a prisoner uniform jacket from Auschwitz, stitched together by Benjamin Silberberg, a survivor of the camp, from original fabric swatches sourced from various Auschwitz camp uniforms collected when he went back to the camp after the war. Notably, one of these (unclear if original) swatches bears the prisoner number 133427, belonging to Jacques Chil Raffeld, a deportee from the Dossin barracks who endured internment at Auschwitz and Jaworzno before being repatriated to Belgium in 1945. Also included in the collection are three prints of Benjamin Silberberg's prisoner number, 178678, as well as his prisoner uniform hat with 178678 written on it. Additionally, the collection features two loose fabric remnants from Auschwitz prisoner uniforms, a Jewish star issued in Belgium found during a visit to Auschwitz, and various photographs depicting members of the Silberberg family and related individuals. Noteworthy among these photographs are Benjamin Silberberg, Ruchla Bojm, Juda Leib Silberberg, Denise Litmanowicz, Estera Chana Benczkowska, and Berek Szulem Litmanowicz, along with group images such as one capturing the family of Ruchla Bojm. Also included are two identification cards belonging to Berek Szulem Litmanowicz and Estera Chana Benczkowska from 1941. Moreover, the collection encompasses four photographs depicting Benjamin Silberberg Jacques Chil Raffeld in later years, including images from Holocaust memorial events. Lastly, the collection is enriched by a family tree tracing the lineage of Benjamin Silberberg and Féla Litmanowicz, providing genealogical insights.
Silberberg-Litmanowicz family. Collection