My mother was born, raised, and lived in Leipzig, Germany. In October 1938, at the age of 21, she was arrested by the Nazis and deported to Poland along with my grandmother and seventeen thousand other Polish Jews. At 23, Mom was housed in the Krakow Ghetto. At 24, sent to Międzyrzec Podlaska. When she was 26, Auschwitz became her hell. Then came Wilischthal Flossenbürg. In May 1945, Mom was finally liberated from Theresienstadt. She was 28 and alone. Her mother and first husband murdered by the Nazis. It had been seven years since her initial custody. Hashem only knows what abuses my mother suffered. The cryings I would sometimes hear while she slept described what she did not want her children to know.
