Beckman was born on 15 December 1929 in Rachov in the Carpathian Mountains, which was then the most easterly part of Czechoslovakia.
Beckman was a member of a group of Holocaust survivors known as the Boys, despite the fact the group consisted of over 200 girls.
The Boys were teenage and child-Holocaust survivors, who were brought to the UK after World War II for rest and rehabilitation.
Members of the Boys were held in Nazi labour and concentration camps and used as slave labourers. They had also survived World War II in hiding or as lone children.
um_loggedin]
Beckman’s parents were David and Malka. Her father was a shopkeeper. She had three sisters Julia (b. 1931), Malvina (b. 1932) and Lida (b. 1933).
In 1939, Rachov and the surrounding area was annexed by Hungary. The Nazis occupied Hungary in March 1944.
Deportation
On 16 April 1944, the Jews of Rachov, including the Beckman family, were gathered and moved into a school. After being kept in the school for eight days they were placed in freight trucks and moved to a ghetto in Mátészalka, in modern day Hungary. A month later she was deported to Auschwitz II-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp in occupied Poland.
Little is known about Beckman’s later experience except for that she was transferred to the Gross Rosen subcamp of Ober-Hohenelbe, which was part of the Trautenau ring of labour camps.
Her parents, David and Malvina and her three sisters died in Auschwitz.
Liberation
After World War II, Rachov became part of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic within the Soviet Union in 1945. Many Jews felt that there was no future for them under Stalinism and either did not return to their homes or decided to flee westwards. It is not known if Beckman tried to return home. She was living in the village of Veselé in northern Bohemia near Ustí nad Lebam when she heard of the children’s transport to the UK.
Ida Beckman’s Journey 1944-1948
A New Life
Beckmen arrived in the UK on 11 June 1946 with the fourth group of the Boys. She was cared for in the Jewish Shelter in the East End of London. She then spent time in the Cazenove Road hostel.
On arrival she said she hoped to go to America, however, she later emigrated to Israel.
She married in 1950 and had two children.
Beckman died in 2011.
[/um_loggedin]
About
History
Education
Quilts
FIlms
Photos
News Media & Events
Publications
Donate