Born Survivors (52 page)

Anus Mundi
,
1500 Days in Auschwitz/Birkenau
, Wieslaw Kielar, Times Books, 1972

Beyond Violence: Jewish Survivors in Poland and Slovakia, 1944-48
, Prof Anna Cichopek-Gajraj, Cambridge University Press, 2014

Bomber Command
, Max Hastings, Pan, 1979

Defying Hitler
, Sebastian Haffner, Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 2002

Doctor 117641, A Holocaust Memoir
, Louis J. Michels MD, Yale University, 1989

Dresden
, Frederick Taylor, Bloomsbury, 2004

Five Chimneys
, Olga Lengyel, Academy Chicago, 1947

Forgotten Voices of the Holocaust
, Lyn Smith, Avebury Press, 2005

Fragments, Transcribing the Holocaust
, Francis Rapport with Anka Bergman, Terry Farago and Edith Salter, Hafan Books, 2013

Helga’s Diary
, Helga Weiss, Penguin, 2013

Holocaust Poetry
, Hilda Schiff, St. Martin’s Griffin, 1995

Holocaust, The Nazi persecution and murder of the Jews
, Peter Longerich, Oxford University Press, 2010

I Escaped from Auschwitz
, Rudolf Vrba, Robson Books Ltd, 2006

I Never Saw Another Butterfly
, Shocken Books, 1993

In the Shadow of Death: Living Outside the Gates of Mauthausen
, Gordon J. Horwitz, The Free Press, 1990

Jews are Coming Back
, David Bankier, Berghahn Books, 2005

KZ Freiberg
, Pascal Cziborra, Lorbeer Verlag, 2008

Kunst und Kultur im Konzentrationslager Mauthausen 1938–1945
, Die Austeller, 2013

Landscapes of Memory
, Ruth Kluger, Bloomsbury, 2003

Landscapes of the Metropolis of Death
, Otto Dov Kulka, Penguin, 2014

L’homme barbelé
, Beatrice Fontanel, Grasset & Fasquelle, 2009

Łódź Ghetto Album
, by Thomas Weber, Martin Parr, Timothy Prus, Chris Boot, 2005

Mauthausen, The History of a Death Camp
, Evelyn Le Chêne, Methuen, 1971

Mengele
, Gerald L. Posner & John Ware, First Cooper Square Press, 2000

Never Again, A History of the Holocaust
, Martin Gilbert, Harper Collins, 2000

On the Edge of Destruction: Jews of Poland between the Two World Wars
, Celia S. Heller, Wayne State University Press, 1993

Pearls of Childhood
, Vera Gissing, Pan Books, 1988

People in Auschwitz
, Hermann Langbein, The University of North Carolina Press, 2004

Poetry of the Second World War, An International Anthology
, edited by Desmond Graham, Pimlico, 1998

Prague in Danger: The Years of German Occupation, 1939–45
, Peter Demetz, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2009

Railways and the Holocaust: The Trains that Shamed the World
, Robin Jones, Mortons Media, 2013

Shoah
, Claude Lanzmann, Da Capo Press, 1995

Singing for Survival: Songs of the Łódź Ghetto, 1940–45
, Gila Flam 1992

St. Georgen-Gusen-Mauthausen. Concentration Camp Mauthausen Reconsidered
, BoD, 2008

Survival, Holocaust Survivors Tell Their Story
, Quill, 2003

Survival
, produced by the Holocaust Centre

Survival in Auschwitz
, Primo Levi, Touchstone, 1996

The Cap or the Price of a Life
, Roman Frister, Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 1999

The Chronicle of the Łódź Ghetto
, 1941–44, edited by Lucjan Dobroszycki, Yale University Press, 1987

The Concentration Camp Mauthausen 1938–1945
, New Academic Press, 2013

The Diary of Dawid Sierakowiak: Five Notebooks from the Łódź Ghetto
, edited by Alan Adelson, Bloomsbury, 1997

The Emperor of Lies
, Steve Sem-Sandberg, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2011

The German Trauma, Experiences and Reflections 1938–2000
, Gitta Sereny, Penguin, 2000

The Holocaust: A History of the Jews of Europe During the Second World War
, Martin Gilbert, Holt Paperbacks, 1987

The Holocaust Sites of Europe: An Historical Guide
, Martin Winstone, I.B. Tauris, 2014

The Last Album: Eyes from the Ashes of Auschwitz-Birkenau
, Ann Weiss, W.W. Norton & Co, 2001

The Last Goodbye
, Edith Hofman, Memoirs Publishing, 2012

The Liberators, America’s Witnesses to the Holocaust
, Michael Hirsh, Bantam Books 2010

The Righteous
, Martin Gilbert, Doubleday, 2002

The Terezín Diary of Gonda Redlich
, edited by Saul. S. Friedman, University Press of Kentucky, 2008

The Terezín Ghetto
, Ludmilla Chladková, Pamatnik Terezín, 2005

The Tin Ring
, Zdenka Fantlová, Northumbria Press, 2010

The Trains of the Holocaust
, Hedi Enghelberg, Engpublishing, 2014

The Visible Part, Photographs of Mauthausen concentration camp
, Mandelbaum, Vienna, 2005

To the Bitter End, The Diaries of Victor Klemperer
, Trafalgar Square, 1999

Triumph of Hope
, Ruth Elias, Wiley & Sons, 1998

Wir Waren zum Tode Bestimmt
, Michael Düsing, Forum Verlag Leipzig, 2002

Witnesses to the Holocaust
, Martin Berenbaum, Harper Collins, 1997

Other archive sources:

Memorial and Museum Auschwitz-Birkenau – (
http://en.auschwitz.org
)

Terezín Memorial
(
http://www.pamatnik-terezin.cz
)

KZ-Memorial Flossenbürg
– (
www.gedenkstaette-flossenbuerg.de
)

Mauthausen Memorial Museum
– (
http://www.mauthausenmemorial.at/
)

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (
http://www.ushmm.org
)

Yad Vashem
(
http://www.yadvashem.org
)

Jewish Virtual Library
– (
www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org
)

The Foundation for Commemorating the Victims of Slave Labour in Auschwitz – (
www.fcsla.org
)

Janusz Korczak Communication Centre
(
www.korczak.com
)

The Museum of Jewish Heritage (
www.jewishgen.org
)

Information Portal to European Sites of Remembrance (
www.memorialmuseums.com
)

The 11th Armored Division
(
www.11tharmoreddivision.com
)

The Jewish Museum in Prague (
www.jewishmuseum.cz
)

Holocaust Educational Trust
(
www.het.org.uk
)

The National Holocaust Centre and Museum (
www.holocaustcentre.net
)

The Educational Website Holocaust CZ
(
http://www2.holocaust.cz/en/main
)

The Imperial War Museum
(
www.iwm.org.uk
)

Acknowledgements

When researching events long past in which few of the participants are still living, we writers owe an enormous debt of gratitude to those who chose to record their own experiences, as well as the ones who thought to chronicle their stories before it was too late. I am no exception, and without the remarkable generosity of both the people who lived through these extraordinary times and the diligent historians who sought them out, then this book would never have been possible.

With humility and gratitude, I specifically acknowledge the courage and tenacity of Priska, Rachel and Anka – the three mothers whose indomitable will to live form the central narrative of this book. Sadly, I was never able to meet them in person, but after spending so long in their company, I feel as if I have. I’ve been further blessed in having unlimited access to the personal testimonies that they shared with their families, oral and written, and in the numerous filmed, recorded and documented statements they gave to numerous researchers over the years. Throughout them all, their hope shines through.

Much of my research would never have been possible without the generous assistance of their three ‘babies’ – Hana, Mark and
Eva – who I am proud to say have made me their honorary sister. Their kindness, patience, graciousness and co-operation in filling in the gaps made this book far richer than it might otherwise have been. I only hope I can do justice to their incredible stories. I am also grateful to their immediate families who have extended me the same courtesy, including Mary and Charlie Olsky, Shirley Speyer, Mark Moran, Tommy Bergen, Julie Z. Rosenberg, David and Miki Feder, and Professor Malcolm A. Clarke.

When I came across the story of babies born to the Holocaust by chance in 2013, Eva Clarke was my first point of contact. Back then, I thought that she might have been the only baby who had survived her mother’s particular Holocaust journey. The moment she told me of the existence of Hana and Mark and how they’d since become ‘siblings of the heart,’ I knew that I had to incorporate the stories of all three into one epic volume spanning more than a century. And so
Born Survivors
was conceived.

I have been assisted in its long gestation by numerous individuals and organisations across eight countries, including survivors, family members, fellow authors, government officials, and untold dedicated people who work in historical archives. All of them have been remarkably open and generous with their time and their expertise. My special thanks goes to survivors Sally Wolkoff in Tennessee; Gerty Meltzer (née Taussig) in Arizona; Lisa Miková in Prague; Esther Bauer in Yonkers, Max R. Garcia in San Francisco, Werner Reich in New York, and Bronia Snow in Surrey, all of whom entrusted me with their sacred memories. I am also indebted to Jana Zimmer in California for the invaluable reflections of her late mother Klara Löffová; to Brian K. Petersohn in Chicago for the memories of his father LeRoy ‘Pete’ Petersohn; to Larry Kosiek in Illinois for recollections of his father Sgt. Albert J. Kosiek, and to Jean Gore for memories of her father Major Harold G. Stacy. Thanks to Stephanie Sullivan for access to the photographs of her father Paul E. Soldner, who was one of the liberators of Mauthausen, and to my friend John Tygier in London for sharing
some of the experiences of his family in Łódź, Treblinka and Russia.

The dedicated Mauthausen Memorial team who work under the Austrian Ministry of the Interior in Vienna have been exceptionally helpful and welcoming. I was grateful that the Ministry agreed to the launch of this book at the very site where the mothers and babies were liberated in May 1945 and were thus ‘born again’. Under the inspirational direction of Dr Barbara Glück, those who deserve special mention at the Memorial Project include Thomas Zaglmeier, who not only served as my personal guide to the camp on my first visit there but who has continued to keep the memory of the survivors alive with his steady, quiet commitment.

He and the educational team at the site have been ably assisted by Christian Angerer, Peter Egger and and Helga Amesberger of the Mauthausen Survivors Documentation Project, who have both been most generous with their time and material. I would also like to thank Professor Dr Albert Lichtblau of the University of Salzburg for his encouragement and assistance. In the Memorial headquarters in Vienna, I must thank Stephan Matyus, Jochen Wollner, Doris Warlitsch and Renate Paschinger. Robert Vorberg was not only the most helpful of all the historians and archivists I worked with, but was kind enough – with his colleague Christian Dürr – to proof-read and check the facts in the sections of the book relating to Mauthausen. And in Munich, I acknowledge Ulrich Fritz of the Bavarian Memorial Foundation, Project Concentration Camp sub-camps in Bavaria.

In Freiberg, Germany, one man has worked tirelessly to keep the stories of the women prisoners alive. Dr Michael Düsing has tracked down survivors and written a number of books on the subject, as well as engaging local children with memorial projects, and arranging a plaque in honour of those who lived and died there under the Nazi regime. In his determination to ensure that his home town never forgets the slave labour camps situated in its midst, he has been assisted diligently by Cornelia Hünert of Freiberg’s City Cultural Department. Both have gone out of their
way to help me in my research and were kind enough to give up a weekend and take me on a guided tour.

For research into what happened at Freiberg, Johannes Ibel, the Head of the Historical Department at the Flossenbürg Concentration Camp Memorial, has been more than patient with me. As has author and historian Pascal Cziborra of the Faculty of History, Philosophy and Theology at the University of Bielefeld, who kindly answered my endless lists of questions. Thanks too to Dr Peter Schulze in Hannover for his research on my behalf.

My first tour of Auschwitz was always going to be emotional but my excellent guide Anna Ren was so good at conveying the horrors with composure that it was somehow made bearable. I am also grateful for the time and patience of Wojciech Płosa, Ph.D., Head of the Archives, and Dr Piotr Setkiewicz, Ph.D., Head of the Research Department, who met me at the camp to answer my questions and help me source key photographs and search the database. Alicja Bialecka was also a lifeline. My trip to Poland was facilitated in every way possible by my exceptional driver, translator and guide Łukasz Jaros.

In the Czech Republic, special thanks to Julie Jenšovská and Radana Rutová at the Jewish Museum of Prague. In Terezín I am grateful to Aneta Plzáková of the Terezín Initiative Institute Tomáš Fedorovič, editor of historical artefacts, and Eva Němcová of the documentation department.

The people of Horní Bříza deserve special mention in this book, and the welcome I received in the town from Deputy Mayor Zdeněk Procházka and his daughter Michaela gave me a taste of the great kindness their forebears showed to the prisoners. I am also beholden to local historian Mrs Bozena Royova, and to Jaroslav Lang and Vaclav Stepanek for their moving testimonies, never before shared.