History of Sorts

The picture above is one of the most iconic images of the Holocaust, For decades it was believed that the girl in the picture was Jewish.

In December 1992, Dutch journalist Aad Wagenaar started to research her identity. By following the number on the outside of the wagon, number 10, 16 or 18, the description of the wagon, and the identity of a single suitcase that appears in the shot, he quickly discovered that the transport took place on 19 May 1944 and that it was a mixed transport of Dutch Romani and Jews. On 7 February 1994 at a trailer camp in Spijkenisse, Crasa Wagner, who had been on the transport with the girl, was able to remember and identified her as Settela(Anna Maria) Steinbach. A few of her siblings were born in my home town Geleen. Ironically one of my cousins is married to someone from the Steinbach family.

The picture is a still from a video taken on May ,19 1944. You can see Setella peak through the doors at about 2.16 minutes. Just prior to that you can see a lady, who is clearly ill, being wheeled on the platform towards the train, only het suitcase is taken off, The lady is then wheeled back, presumably to another section of the train.

The video is a good historical record of how the transport system worked. Aside from the lady being wheeled in there is another disturbing element, you can see that it’s not the Nazis closing the doors of the cattle cars, but Jewish Kapo’s. I don’t say this to judge, far from it, it was a job they had to do in order to survive themselves, I probably would have done the same.

source

Persecution Captured in Time

https://www.hmd.org.uk/resource/anna-maria-settela-steinbach/