Ida PETERMANN was born in Salzburg on March 15, 1939 (the Salzburg registration documents say »supposedly«, so the date is questionable).1

She was a child of unknown heritage who puzzled the Nazi authorities – they noted that she was »believed to be a Jew or a Gypsy« (probably an indication that she had a dark coloring).

She was admitted to the City Children’s Home Mülln (formerly run by the Sisters of Mercy) on March 29, 1940, when she was one year old. On the back side of her police registration card is a deregistration notation »January 15, 1944 Auschwitz in Poland«.

On the day before her deregistration from Salzburg a four year old Ida PETERMANN was registered in the extermination camp Auschwitz-Birkenau as number Z-9751.

It isn’t known if her death was from gas, hunger, disease, or the experiments of Dr. Josef Mengele.

1 According to the Auschwitz databank Ida Petermann was born on April 29, 1939 in Karlsbad [then in Germany’s recently annexed Sudetenland, now in the Czech Republic].

Unless this entry refers to a different 4 year old Ida Petermann who just happened to enter Auschwitz-Birkenau at about the same time as Salzburg’s Ida Petermann (while Salzburg’s Ida Petermann went unrecorded), that would seem to be an error.

Sources

  • City Archive Salzburg
  • Auschwitz-Birkenau Victims Database (Memorial Book Sinti and Roma in the Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration Camp)
Author: Gert Kerschbaumer
Translation: Stan Nadel

Stumbling Stone
Laid 06.07.2011 at Salzburg, Bärengässchen 6

All stumbling stones at Bärengässchen 6