Hansi

Birthdate: 30 Dec 1924

Place: Berlin, Germany

In 1939 Hansi and her family were evicted from their family home. They were forced to live in accommodation provided by the SS through the local Jewish Committee. Hansi was put to work in an ammunition factory from which she was arrested in February 1943 and taken straight to Auschwitz with hundreds of others in closed cattle wagons. She was the only one in her group who survived the ‘selection’ process on arrival.

Her 'job' in Auschwitz was to record data for the dental division. Towards the end of the war she survived a death march to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. She then managed to hold out under the terrible conditions there until the British arrived. After some time in a displaced persons camp she was reunited with her brother Fred and together they were able to emigrate to New Zealand on the invitation of distant relatives.

Hansi married a British sailor and they had three children. She never talked to her children nor later to her grandchildren about her experiences, claiming that the number tattooed on her arm served as a reminder about her telephone number.

Arrested And Deported

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