From Ghetto to Bergen-Belsen: One Survivor’s Story of Courage and Loss
This testimony follows a young Jewish girl from a loving, religious home in Poland whose life changed instantly when the Germans marched into her town in 1939. She grew up in a family of six children, helping in her parents’ small grocery store and celebrating Shabbat every Friday night. Her childhood was filled with warmth, tradition, and the everyday joys of growing up in a close-knit Jewish community.
The first sign of danger came early—antisemitism that escalated quickly once the German army entered her town. Soldiers shot into windows at random, and Jewish families were forced into a ghetto. From there, everything was taken: money, possessions, freedom, and eventually, lives.
Her mother, younger brother, and younger sister were deported during a liquidation of the ghetto. Her father, unable to bear the separation, went with them. None of them survived; they were sent to Auschwitz.
She was sent to a labor camp. From there began years of brutal forced labor: cold barracks, wooden shoes, hunger, exhaustion, and the constant threat of beatings or worse. She worked long days in factories, endured freezing temperatures, and lived on watered-down soup and a ration of bread. She fought to stay alive each day, believing she would eventually return home to her family.
As the Soviet army advanced, the Germans evacuated camps and forced prisoners on death marches through snow and forests. Many collapsed or were shot on the way. She survived only by sheer will and the faint hope of finding someone from her family again.
Eventually she was transported in sealed cattle cars to Bergen-Belsen. The conditions were indescribable—lice, starvation, no water, no toilets, no space. Many prisoners died standing up. She was beaten severely simply for looking to see if her siblings might be there.
Liberation came in 1945, but the suffering didn’t end immediately. Many survivors died from eating food their bodies could no longer process. She developed typhus and was moved to a hospital, where Swedish relief workers eventually arranged for her to be brought to Sweden to recover.
There, for the first time in years, she slept in a clean bed, received medical care, learned Swedish, and slowly regained her strength. She stayed in Sweden for more than seven years before beginning the next chapter of her life.
Her testimony is a stark reminder of what was lost—and of the resilience required to survive unimaginable cruelty. She shares her story so that future generations will understand what happened, and why it must never be forgotten.