Marek James | Children of Bullenhuser Damm Association | Children of Bullenhuser Damm Association

Marek James

Marek James was born on March 17, 1939, in Radom, Poland.

When Marek was murdered at Bullenhuser Damm, he was just six years old.

Marek James and his father Adam, 1940. This photograph of Marek James and his father was taken in Radom in 1940. It was in the possession of Alfred Lipson, who published the newspaper Voice of Radom in the USA and Canada, because the James family had been his neighbours in Radom and he had stayed in touch with them in the USA. © Private collection, James family and Alfred Lipson.

The James family was deported to Auschwitz in the summer of 1944 via the Pionki forced labour camp near Radom.

Marek had the number B-1159 tattooed on his arm and was quartered in the children's barracks without his parents.

Marek's parents survived the camp.

After the end of the war, they lived in Southern Germany, where they had another son whom they also named Marek in 1947.
They emigrated to the United States in 1949.

The second Marek James, who now calls himself Mark, lives in California and is married with two sons.

In 2010 two more relatives of Marek James got in touch with the association:
his second cousin Helena Ben David from Toronto, Canada, and his cousin Guy Shahar Yames from Israel.

All of them come to Hamburg regularly for the commemoration ceremony on April 20.

Family reunion after 66 years:

Shelly and Helena Ben David (from New York, NY, USA, and Toronto, Canada), Sandra and Mark James (from San Diego, CA, USA) and Daphna and Guy Shahar James with their youngest son Yuri (from Israel) in the rose garden at Bullenhuser Damm, 2011.

The Marek-James-Strasse, a street in Hamburg-Burgwedel, is named after Marek.