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Before the war: Piri Katz was born in Tibiva, Czechoslovakia, in 1930. She was the 7th of her parent’s 11 children.
During the Holocaust: After the Nazis invasion, her family was moved into the Munkács ghetto. Weeks later, they were deported to Auschwitz. With the approaching Allied army, Piri escaped the gas chambers, and she was transported to Geislingen. In April 1945, she was deported again to Dachau, where she was liberated that same month.
After the Holocaust: After the war, Piri reunited with her surviving siblings: only three survived. She was then taken to a DP camp in Germany before coming to the United States in 1949. She married, and she has four daughters and eight grandchildren.
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Before the War: Rachel (Ruzena) Slomovicova, later Levy, was born in April 1930 in a village, Bhutz, in the Carpathian Mountains in Czechoslovakia.
During the Holocaust: Rachel’s family was able to evade the first Nazi round-up of Jews in their village with the help of the local Romanians. In 1945, she, her mother, older brother and three younger siblings were arrested and placed in a ghetto. Shortly after, the family was sent to Auschwitz. Besides her older brother, her family perished in the gas chambers upon arrival. Before liberation by the British army in 1945 in Bergen-Belsen, she was sent on a death march from Auschwitz. Rachel was 14 at the time of liberation.
After the Holocaust: Rachel reunited with her older brother Chaskiel, and they were brought to Ireland, then England, as part of the orphaned refugee children group known as “The Boys.” She had two children and became a dressmaker. She has not and will not return to Auschwitz.
A picture of the Ruzena family before the war. Only Rachel and her older brother, Chaskiel survived the Holocaust.
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Before the war: Renée Feller, née Szobel was born in Rachov, Czechoslovakia in 1930. She had one brother who was three years younger than her. Her mother died when she was 6 years old.
During the Holocaust: In 1944, Renée was interned in a ghetto in Mateszakla. At 13, Renée was deported to Auschwitz, only surviving selection by lying about her age. Her brother did not survive and was sent to the gas chambers. After a few months, she was selected to work at Geislingen. With the Allies approaching, Renée was placed on a train; she was in Czechoslovakia when the U.S. army liberated her.
After the Holocaust: After the war, Renée immigrated to New York, where she currently lives. She had three daughters, and at 70, she became an ordained rabbi.
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Before the War: Rosette Greenbaum née Krimolowski was born to Polish nationals in Paris, France in September 1930.
During the Holocaust: Rosette’s parents were deported from Paris in 1942, and she and her younger sister Fleurette were sent to a children’s home, Le Centre de Saint-Mandé, set up by the UGIF (General Union of Israelites of France). Shortly before the liberation of Paris, the twenty children and their caretakers were moved from the orphanage to the Drancy internment camp. Rosette was 13 when she and her sister were deported to Auschwitz on July 31, 1944. Her sister was sent to the gas chamber upon arrival. Rosette worked in an ammunition factory in the camp. In October 1944, she was sent on a death march to another camp in Czechoslovakia. She was liberated on May 9, 1945.
After the Holocaust: After liberation, Rosette returned to France. She was the only survivor of Auschwitz from the Saint-Mandé house. Rosette now lives in London.
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Before the war: Rosie Shtauber was born in Hungary on April 10, 1924, to a religious Orthodox family.
During the Holocaust: Rosie was taken to the Oradea ghetto in Romania and was there for six months. From the ghetto, she was deported to Auschwitz, the Kraków-Płaszów concentration camp, then back to Auschwitz and finally to the Ober-Altstadt labor camp, where she was liberated in May 1945.
After the Holocaust: She moved to Israel in 1948 with her husband, a fellow survivor Mordechai. They had 4 children and over 50 grandchildren and great grandchildren.
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Before the War: Rosa Guttman, née Dretler was born in April 1929 in Rozavlea, Romania. She was raised with two sisters.
During the Holocaust: In March 1944, Rosa is sent to the Sighet ghetto before being deported to Auschwitz the following month. Upon arrival, she lost her mother in the crowd. She and her sister Gita were selected for work in a field, then digging roads and trenches. After five months, she was transferred to Ravensbrük then to Malchow where she labored in the Bromberg Dynamit Nobel AG Factory, a munitions factory underground. Her sisters also survived the Holocaust.
After the Holocaust: After the war, Rosa lived in Germany before moving to the United States in 1951. She now resides in Israel.
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Before the war: Ruth Eizik was born in 1928 in Czechoslovakia.
During the Holocaust: Ruth arrived at Auschwitz with her mother and little sister at just 16 years old. Her older brother and sister had already been murdered in the camp. After a while in Auschwitz, she was taken on a train to Germany to a factory. When the Allies bombed the area, she was sent to the Dachau concentration camp.
After the Holocaust: When the war ended, Ruth managed to get to Belgium and received help from the Jewish community. There, she met her future husband, a Holocaust survivor, and they decided to move to Israel. Today, Ruth has two kids, five grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.
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Before the War: Ruth Melcer, neé Ryta Cukierman was born in 1935 in Tomaszów Mazowiecki, Poland.
During the Holocaust: Ruth was just four years old when the Nazis invaded Poland. The family, her parents, and younger brother were moved into the town’s ghetto and then sent to a labor camp in Bliżyn. Ruth’s brother was murdered in the labor camp while she was assigned to work with her parents. She and her parents were deported to Auschwitz in 1944. Ruth said she avoided the gas chamber with the help of a kapo who hid her under the beds. She was liberated from Auschwitz at the age of 9 in 1945, while her parents had been previously sent on a death march. They reunited in their hometown.
After the Holocaust: She and her family left Poland following the Kielce pogrom in Poland in July 1946 for Munich. Ruth has three children and six grandchildren. In 2015, she published “Ruth’s Cookbook,” a collection of over 70 family recipes.
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Before the war: Sara Sheindl Friedman was born in Ilinice, Czechoslovakia (present-day Ukraine), in June 1929. She had two sisters and two brothers.
During the Holocaust: Sara was 14 years old when she was deported to Auschwitz. Her mother and three youngest siblings were immediately sent to the gas chamber. She was then transferred to Langenbiellau and, after six months, to Peterswaldau. Both were sub-camps of Gross-Rosen.
After the Holocaust: After liberation, Sara traveled to Kowaszasz, Romania, where she had an aunt. She then learned that her older sister survived and was living in Bucharest. Eventually, they both moved to Antwerp, where Sara still lives. She married Josef Herczl in 1948 and has six children and 51 grandchildren.
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Before the war: Schlomo Yitzhak Ben-Abraham was born in Bratislava, Czechoslovakia.
During the Holocaust: At the outbreak of the war, Shclomo and his parents hid in the apartments of friends and acquaintances until they were caught and deported to Auschwitz in November 1944. With the evacuation of the camp in January, they were forced on a death march to Buchenwald, where they stayed until liberation on April 11, 1945.
After the Holocaust: After liberation, he returned to Czechoslovakia until he emigrated to Israel in 1952. He currently lives in Be’er Sheva.
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Before the War: Shraga and his family lived in a small village about 8-10km from Mukachevo, Czechoslovakia.
During the Holocaust: At the end of May 1944, Shraga and his family were deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau. His mother, two sisters and little brother were murdered immediately. He and his father were chosen for labor and then deported to different camps: Rellenborch, Flossenbürg, and Karbickel, then arrived in Bergen-Belsen, where his father died. He was the only survivor of his entire family at 15 years old. On April 15, 1945, the British liberated Bergen-Belsen.
After the Holocaust: In 1946, Shraga moved to Israel, got married and has 2 children.
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Before the war: Simon Gronowski was born in 1931 in Brussels, Belgium. He had one older sister, Ita, an exceptional student who played classical piano.
During the Holocaust: In March 1943, Simon, his sister and his mother were arrested and interned at the Mechelen transit camp. After a month, Simon and his mother were put on a train to Auschwitz. It was on this convoy that resistance fighters attacked and stopped the train, enabling Simon and other prisoners to jump from the train. He returned to Brussels and was reunited with his father, where they spent the rest of the war in hiding. Simon’s mother and sister were murdered in Auschwitz.
After the Holocaust: In July 1945, Simon’s father died from despair at the loss of his daughter and wife. Simon became a lawyer and a jazz pianist in memory of his sister’s love for the piano and is a grandfather. Simon currently resides in Ixelles, Belgium.
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Before the war: Tatiana Bucci Pertoldi was born in 1938 in Fiume, a town in northern Italy, now Croatia.
During the Holocaust: In 1944, the Nazis arrested Tatiana and her family and imprisoned them at Risiera di San Sabba, a transit concentration camp in northern Italy. Tatiana was just 6 years old when she and her 4-year-old sister, mother, aunt, grandmother and cousin were deported from Northern Italy to Auschwitz. They arrived on April 4, 1944, and the sisters were mistaken for twins, thus spared from the gas chamber. At first, they attributed their survival to Dr. Mengele’s interest, but now they see it was their mother’s resilience. The sisters spent 10 months in Auschwitz. Their mother, Mira, was transferred from Auschwitz to Germany for forced labor in a munitions factory. Their father, Giovanni, had been a prisoner of war in South Africa during the war.
After the Holocaust: After liberation, the sisters were sent to an orphanage, Lingfield House, in southern England. In December 1946, the girls were reunited with their parents in Italy. The sisters returned to Auschwitz for the first time in 1996. Tatiana now lives in Belgium with her husband and two sons.
Tatiana and her sister with their cousin before the war. Their young cousin, center, perished in the Holocaust while Tatiana and her sister miraculously survived.
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All content ⒸConference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany (Claims Conference)
