Samuel and Luba Krzepicki, née Majorzyk, originally from Poland, lived in (Duisburg-) Hamborn since 1920. Hilde, their only child, was born there on 21 May 1928. Samuel Krzepicki was a labourer, who later earned his living as a pedlar for his small family.
Hilde Krzepicki was nine years old when she arrived in Brussels on 22 February 1939 as Kindertransport child no. 422, where a relative of her mother’s lived, Mr. Majorczyk, who was a tailor by profession. He agreed to take little Hilde into his family and to provide financially for her.
In September 1939, the Comité d’Assistance aux Enfants Juifs Réfugiés (Assistance Committee for Jewish Refugee Children, CAEJR) received a letter from Mr. Majorczyk. In this letter he wrote about falling ill and having to have an operation. He was therefore no longer in a position to provide for his niece on his own. The committee replied that all its financial means had been exhausted and that it was impossible for them to help the family. Hilde Krzepicki then decided to take an unusu- al step. She wrote a letter to the committee in which she described how she and the Majorczyk family were suffering from hunger.
The letter was successful: from now on, the family received a monthly financial subsidy from the CAEJR. When Hilde’s parents in Hamborn heard about the precarious situation of the Majorczyk family and their daughter, they contacted the Youth Welfare Office of the Jewish Community of Duisburg. This in turn contacted the CAEJR and asked for information. The committee assured the Jewish Community of Duisburg that it had made a great effort to ensure the welfare of the child and had granted a financial subsidy. Hilde was healthy, in good hands with her relatives and feeling happy.
In immediate reply to your esteemed letter of 7 December 1939, we would like to inform you that we have already taken care of little Hilde's condition and well-being beforehand and have taken the necessary steps to ensure that the girl does not miss anything, as far as it is within our power. The girl is doing well, she is healthy and in good hands with her family, so neither you nor her parents need to worry.
The Comité.
Brussels, 14 December 1939: Letter from the Comité d’Assistance aux Enfants Juifs Réfugiés (Assistance Committee to Jewish Refugee Children, CAEJR) to the Welfare Office of the Duisburg Jewish Community © Martin-Buber-Institute, ULB (Université libre de Bruxelles)
However, the financial situation of the Majorczyk family remained precarious. The committee therefore tried to find a way out of the situation and wanted to arrange a passage to Palestine for Hilde. Hilde’s parents, however, rejected this in a letter dated 6 May 1940, because they were still hoping to emigrate to the United States with their daughter. Four days later the German troops marched into Belgium. In December 1940 Hilde returned to her parents in Hamborn.
Samuel, Luba and Hilde Krzepicki were deported to the Riga ghetto on 11 December 1941 with a collective transport from the administrative district of Düsseldorf.
While Samuel Krzepicki had presumably already died in the ghetto, Luba and Hilde Krzepicki reached the Stutthof concentration camp near Danzig on 8 August 1944, after the SS had “evacuated” the ghetto. Any traces of them were lost there. AP
Portrait of Hilde Krzepicki: © Belgian State Archives