More from the Survivors
Margot Fink
1925: Margot was born
1938: Margot and her young brother Max were sent to their Uncles in the Netherlands
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Her parents were deported to Zbaszyn
1943: the entire family was captured and Margot was placed in a group that worked in a factory of the Philips company
June 1944: her group was sent to Auschwitz and onto reichenbach camp where they worked for Telefunken
February 1945: the women’s camp taken on a death march toward Czechoslovakia
May 1, 1945: Liberated in Denmark - transferred to Sweden
“Margot returned to the Netherlands to reunite with her uncle and his young daughter, who had survived; there she learned her parents and younger brother and aunt had been murdered. One year later, she immigrated to the Land of Israel.”
(Yad Vashem)
Abraham Lewent
Video credit: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Esther and Lila Bromberg:
Image Cresit: Yad Vashem
Esther was living in the Warsaw ghetto with her husband Max Bromberg and their young daughter Lila Bromberg. Before the war and before they were confined to the ghetto, Max worked as a linguist and Esther as a secretary but now they worked as hairdressers.
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Yet as the living conditions worsened Max worked to smuggle his wife and daughter out of the ghetto, in an attempt to save their lives.
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Esther and Max wrapped their daughter in blankets before throwing her over the fence to a Pole they had bribed into catching her. Then using false documents, Esther snuck out herself. She took very few items with her, one of the few being the powder compact Max gave her as an engagement gift and the hairbrush he had given his daughter.
For a short time, he was able to communicate with his wife and daughter, sending them letters while he was trapped in the ghetto and they were on the outside.
In his last letter he wrote:
"I have one request – stay alive. Perhaps we will meet again sometime. Perhaps, although I very much doubt it. Don't cry my little one. I kiss you a thousand times. If you have a little time during the day, sit Lilka on your lap and tell her that her father loves her more than life itself."
Max was murdered while Esther and Lila survived. The compact and hairbrush mementos from a loving husband and father who wanted to survive but was not granted his last wish.
"I wish we could meet one more time… after that I would be able die and not be sorry about my life."
(Yad Vashem)
Lila Bromberg's hairbrush given to her by her father Max Bromberg.
Image credit. Yad Vashem