Going Through Fire without getting burnt

This is a memoir of two Holocaust survivors.

Danka grew up in a Hassidic household in Lvov, Poland, twice jumped off moving trains on transports to Belzec extermination camp, then sought refuge as a novice nun in a Ukraine convent. After liberation by the Russians, she joined the Aliyah Bet Movement as a Hashomer Hatzair leader, traveling from Krakow to Munich, Marseilles to travel by illegal boat to the Promised Land in 1946 where she was interned by the British in Atlit, a displaced person’s camp near Haifa. There she met Heniek (Henry).

Henry grew up in a traditional Jewish home in Pabianice, Poland. In 1939 the Nazis invaded Poland. He survived the Ghettos of Pabianice and Lodz and the death and slave labor concentration camps in Auschwitz-Birkenau, then Ravensbrück, Ravensbrück and Wobblin, enduring winter marches and prolonged train transports. He was liberated by the Americans. He too traveled back home then via train through Czechoslovakia, Hungary, to Italy. From there he too traveled by illegal boat as part of the Aliyah Bet Movement to arrive in Haifa where he was arrested by the British and interned into Atlit in 1946, soon to meet Danka who arrived in the following month.

So began a courtship and a journey to re-establish a normal life and family, first in Israel 1946–1955 then in Melbourne, Australia, arriving by boat in Port Melbourne in 1955. The 30th March marks Danka and Henry’s 65th Wedding Anniversary. They have three sons, eight grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. It is a story of hope and triumph over adversity.