Lelka Birnbaum, H. Wassermann, Roman Zeller
Eighty years after the Shoah, there are still three children about whom we hardly know anything:
Lelka Birnbaum, H. Wassermann, and Roman Zeller.
Unfortunately, there are no known private photographs of Lelka Birnbaum, H. Wassermann, and Roman Zeller.
The only photographs we have of them are those taken by the SS during the 'medical' experiments.
We have deliberately chosen not to reproduce them.
A list was discovered after the war containing the children’s surnames, including the name of a girl from Poland: “L. Birnbaum”.
Her full name, Lelka Birnbaum, was found on the cover of an X-ray for the 'medical' experiments carried out by Dr. Kurt Heissmeyer.
She was murdered at the age of twelve.
The street Lelka-Birnbaum-Weg in Hamburg-Burgwedel and a day care centre in Hamburg-St.Pauli are named after Lelka.
H. Wassermann was eight years old when she was murdered.
To this day, we know nothing more about her.
The Wassermannpark, a park in Hamburg-Burgwedel, has commemorated H. Wassermann since 2003.
Little is known about the 12-year-old boy R. Zeller from Poland.
Dr. Kurt Heissmeyer wrote the initials “R. Z.” on a note containing experiment data for the child. His first name was probably Roman.
At the Roman-Zeller-Platz in Hamburg-Burgwedel, a square named after Roman, a public commemoration ceremony for the twenty children is held every year on April 20.
In 2001, in memory of the children, a monument by the Russian artist Leonid Mogilevski was erected in the square.