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Marta (last name unknown), perhaps Sara Bleich (#1966; Glancszpigel), and Elena Zuckermenn (#1735; Grunwald) after the war.
Helena Citron (Tsiporah Tehori) with her firstborn.
Like many of the surviving teenagers on the first transport, Bertha Berkowitz (#1048; Lautman) and Elena Zuckermenn (#1735; Grunwald) went back to high school after the war.
Margie Becker (#1019; Rosenberg) got married in a displaced persons camp in Braunau (“where Hitler was born, of all things,” she says).
These women survivors used to get together once a month in Melbourne, Australia. Left to right: Magda Blau (#2318; Hellinger), Jozefa Schnabelova, Marta Friedman (#1796; Tuckman); Minka Friedman (#1174; Weiss), Vera Reich (#1967), Miriam Leitner, and Magda Reich (the last two were from the second transport).
Ruzena Gräber Knieza (#1649) with her son in Prague. She remained friends with Edith after the war.
“We were together in Auschwitz. All six of us on the first transport.” From left to right, back row: Serena (perhaps Sternova), Roza (Lievermannova or Amselova), Margaret Friedman (#1019; Kulik). Center: bride Lily Friedman. Front row: Malka Tannenbaumova (Getz), an unidentified woman, and “the only child to survive the war in the town.” The photo was taken in 1948.
Perel Kaufman (#1461; Fridman) with her firstborn. Perel emigrated to Israel after the war.
This photo, taken ten days after liberation, shows the Friedman sisters, who were among the hostages liberated by Count Folke Bernadotte and brought to Sweden. Here are Lila (front), Ella, and Edie Friedman (#3866, #1949, and #1950).
Margaret Friedman (#1019; Kulik) with Linda Reich (#1173; Breder) and Mira Gold (#4535) in Margaret’s kitchen in Montreal, circa 1970s.
Among photos from the Friedman family album was this picture taken in the Swedish dormitory where they were held in quarantine for two weeks. Joan Rosner (#1188; Weintraub) is at far left, standing behind the bunk.
Edith Friedman (#1970) spent three years in a Swiss sanitarium, trying to recover from tuberculosis. After surgery made it impossible to bend her leg, Edith worried that her limp would bother Ladislav. “If your soul limped,” he told her, “that would bother me.” This is Edith and Ladislav Grosman’s wedding photo, 1948.
The Friedman family in 1963, left to right: Herman, Edith (sticking out her tongue), Margita (Edith’s eldest sister), Ruthie, Hilda, Ishtak. Their parents, Hanna and Emmanuel, are at center.
Edith celebrated her ninetieth birthday with her granddaughters, Hanna and Naomi, and her son, George Grosman, in 2015.
Edith with her great-grandsons, Elias (twelve years old) and Atlas (two months) in 2019.
Notes
1 No relation to Edith and Lea Friedman
2 A shadow number implies it has negative connotations, astrologer and numerologist Molly McCord explains.
3 Helena was referring to the other women working in Canada, who knew about her relationship with Wunsch.
4 , heaven in Hebrew.
5 Vrba was most likely referring to the first ten transports from Slovakia, which brought 6,051 young Slovak women and 197 Czech women to Auschwitz by the end of April 1942.
Heather Dune Macadam, 999
