us-005578-irn522416-irn523759
type: RecordSet
archival history: The UNRRA badge was donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2005 by Alice Fink, the wife of John Fink.
biographical history: Hans Finke was born on August 12, 1920, in Berlin, Germany. His father, Julius Finke (1882-1943), was a merchant from Petrzkowitz, Poland (Pietrzkowice, Poland); his mother died when he was an infant. His father married Ella in 1922. Hans’s half-sister, Ursula, was born on June 30, 1923. They were not a strictly observant Jewish family though they attended a liberal synagogue and participated in the Jewish community. Julius owned a dry goods store outside of Berlin, but in 1923 he lost the store due to poor economic conditions. The family moved to Berlin where Julius and Ella worked various jobs and rented out rooms. Hans attended public school and went to Hebrew school once a week. On January 30, 1933, Hitler was elected Chancellor of Germany. By summer, increasingly anti-Semitic policies severely restricted the civil rights and actions of German Jews. Hans left the German public school and attended a Jewish school. In 1934, he left school and began a four year apprenticeship as an electrician with a Jewish contractor. After the Nuremberg Laws were instituted in 1935, establishing legal persecution of Jews along racial lines, Hans' Jewish boss fled Germany. Hans found a job with a small company, and in 1938, took his journeyman’s exam, but as a Jew, he did not receive his results or his certification. The same year, his family was forcibly removed from their home and relocated to a flat in one of the poorest sections of Berlin. The overcrowded building was under constant Nazi guard. His parents were forced into factory work and his sister worked as a seamstress. Hans began working for the Alfred Skaruppe Co., a private contracting firm owned by non-Nazis, and he worked for the Air Ministry from 1938-1941. Food was scarce and Jews were unable to purchase many goods. On weekends, Hans would remove his Star of David armband, an action punishable by death, and walk to the country. A sympathetic farmer provided him with 100 pound sacks of potatoes, which he would carry …
physical characteristics and technical requirements: Slightly worn, rectangular arched red felt bar patch on light brown mesh backing with five letters machine-embroidered in white thread across the front. front, embroidered, white thread : U.N.R.R.A [United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration]
conditions of access: No restrictions on access
conditions of use: No restrictions on use
date: 1946 March-1947 June, 1949 August 26
has or had holder: us-005578
has or had identifier: 1
has or had some members with language: eng
has record set type: Item
identifier: irn523759
is or was included in: us-005578-irn522416
record resource extent: overall: Height: 3.375 inches (8.573 cm) | Width: 1.000 inches (2.54 cm)
results or resulted from: 1
scope and content: UNRRA (United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration) arch patch worn by aid worker Hans Finke when he worked for UNRRA in 1946-47 as a store manager in a refugee center in postwar Germany. Hans was at Bergen-Belsen when it was liberated by the British Army on April 15, 1945. An electrician by trade, he began working for the British and then various aid groups after it became a displaced persons camp. Hans, his parents and his sister Ursula lived in Berlin during the rise of the Nazi dictatorship in 1933 with its aggressive anti-Jewish policies. Jews were required to wear the yellow stars in September 1941. In February 1943, Hans, 23, was a forced laborer for Siemens when he was hospitalized with appendicitis. On February 29, his parents were rounded up and deported to Auschwitz. On March 8, the Gestapo raided the hospital and arrested staff and patients. Hans was transported to Buna-Monowitz concentration camp, and later sent to Auschwitz, Sachsenhausen, Flossenberg, and Bergen-Belsen concentration camps. Hans was in Bergen-Belsen when it was liberated.in April 1945. His parents were murdered in Auschwitz, but his sister Ursula survived in hiding. Bergen-Belsen became a displaced persons camp and Hans began working for the British and then various aid groups. He met Alice Redlich, who had left Berlin for England in 1938 to continue her nurses's training. She volunteered with the Jewish Committee for Relief Abroad and, in September 1946, left for the Bergen-Belsen DP camp in Germany. Her family was murdered in Auschwitz concentration camp in 1943. Alice and Hans married on June 20, 1948, in the DP camp. The couple, with Alice pregnant with their first child, immigrated to the United States on August 29, 1949.
title: Red UNRRA patch worn by a former concentration camp inmate and DP aid worker