ID patch stenciled 139905 worn by a Polish Jewish concentration camp inmate

ID patch stenciled 139905 worn by a Polish Jewish concentration camp inmate 

ID patch stenciled 139905 worn by a Polish Jewish concentration camp inmate 

overall: Height: 1.125 inches (2.858 cm) | Width: 3.750 inches (9.525 cm) 

Prisoner identification patch with the number 139905 worn by 21 year old Shmuel Czyzyk when he was imprisoned in Dora Mittelbau slave labor camp, and its subcamp, Rottleberode, from January-April 1945. Shmuel, his parents, and three siblings were living in Łódź when Poland was occupied by Nazi Germany in September 1939. His father and brother left for eastern Poland but were caught by the Germans and interned in the Deblin ghetto. The rest of the family was sent from Łódź, and the family was held together in Deblin. In 1942, while Shmuel was at work, his parents and brother were deported to concentration camps. As Soviet forces advanced in June 1944, Shmuel was sent to Czechostowa slave labor camp, then the slave labor camp Kielce-HASAG. As Soviet forces neared that camp, Shmuel was sent to Buchenwald, then in January 1945, to Dora where he worked at Rottleberode building spaces within a mountain for a rocket factory. Forced on a death march as Allied forces advanced, Shmuel was liberated by Soviet forces. He traveled to Poland and found that all his family had been killed. He returned to Germany where he was hospitalized in Leipheim displaced persons camp. When an aunt was located in Chicago to sponsor his visa, Shmuel emigrated to the United States in June 1949.