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Home > Virtual Museum > CHGS Exhibitions > Fragments : Albelt Smiel Vieder

Albelt Smiel Vieder

Arrived at Auschwitz 10.12.43. No news of the child since.

Albeit Smiel Vieder, age 4, Paris, France, 1943.

Back of photo of Albeit Smiel Vider The message on the back of the photo reads: Blond hair, blue eyes.  Born in 1939, deported from Drancy 7.12.43 for Auschwitz.  Arrived at Auschwitz 10.12.43.  No news of the child since.  Father's address 73 Rue Monge, Paris, 5e France.

Deportation record from to Auschwitz. "Memorial to the Jews Deported from France 1942-1944" by Serge Klarsfeld.

Story of the Artifact

This photograph was used after the war, by a Jewish father in France, in an attempt to locate his four-year old son, Albeit Smiel Vieder.  It is likely that many copies of this photo were circulated in France.

This little boy was never reunited with his father.  Auschwitz deportation records list Smel Vieder as having been deported on Convoy 64 on December 7, 1943 along with Abraham and Fajga Vieder, ages 42 and 43 respectively. It is unclear whether Abraham and Fajga were Smiel's parents or his grandparents.

Upon arrival at Auschwitz, 267 men and 72 women on Convoy 64 were "selected" and received prisoner numbers.  The remaining 657 people, including 106 children under age 12, were immediately gassed.

Giselle Warren, a Polish survivor who was in France after the war, brought this photograph to Vancouver. Giselle Warren is now deceased.  It is not known how this photo came into her possession or whether she knew the Vieder family.

Background

In the chaotic post-war period, lists of names and thousands of photographs were distributed across Europe by relief organizations and individual survivors, in the heart-wrenching attempt to locate and reunite missing family members.  Some of these relief organizations, included the United Nations Relief & Rehabilitation Agency, the Red Cross, the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee and ORT. Team of relief workers combed Europe looking for displaced children.  Names and photographs were distributed in displaced persons camps and as far away as Shanghai.