(Times of Israel) Jenni Frazer - In Born Survivors, British author Wendy Holden tells the harrowing tale of three mothers who gave birth in the Nazi camps, and the children who, against all odds, survived. In April 1945, Priska, weighing only 70 pounds, delivered Hana on a table in a factory before she and 1,000 other women were deported to Auschwitz. Rachel gave birth to tiny Mark in an open coal wagon, halfway through a 17-day train journey to the Austrian concentration camp of Mauthausen with hardly any food or water. Anka gave birth to Eva on a cart full of dying women as all three mothers arrived at the camp's gates. Miraculously, the babies, and their mothers, survived. Holden discovered that Eva Clarke lived in Cambridge, England. "I contacted her to see if she would be interested in my telling her story. And Eva replied, "I've been waiting for you for 70 years," says Holden. The "babies," Eva, Mark Olsky and Hana Berer Moran, met for the first time at a ceremony in 2010 to mark the 65th anniversary of the liberation of Mauthausen by American forces. All three were eager to have their stories recorded. Her research led her to the small town of Horni Briza in the Czech Republic. A "death train" carrying hundreds of Jews, including the three young mothers, stopped there en route to Mauthausen on April 21, 1945. The stationmaster, Antonin Pavlicek, organized an astonishing humanitarian effort by the local townspeople, who brought food, drink, and even baby clothes when they heard the cries of newborns in the train wagons.
2016-01-01 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive