Born Survivors by Wendy Holden Read Free Book Online

breaking off only to dispense orders to prisoners wearing what looked like striped pyjamas .
    Any women who were visibly pregnant or given away by telltale drops of milk were hauled off by these stony-faced men. The women weren’t stony-faced, though. The look of fear in their eyes as they huddled together was enough to convince Rachel of her answer .
    When Mengele asked her his question and then impatiently flipped his glove left and right, she cupped a hand protectively over each breast and said quietly, ‘ Nie.’
    Mengele never laid a finger on the pregnant woman standing before him. As he moved on to his next victim, he didn’t even give Rachel Friedman a backward glance .
    Rachel grew up as part of a large, ‘happy and beautiful’ family in which the children played, laughed and sang together, and for whom life should have been long and sweet.
    She was named Rachel Abramczyk but called Ruze or ‘Rushka’ for much of her later life. The eldest of nine children, she was born one month after the end of the First World War on New Year’s Eve, 1918, in Pabianice near Łódź – Poland’s second-largest city.
    Pabianice was one of the oldest settlements in the country and among its most prosperous, with a long history of manufacturing textiles. Even so, it was still relatively rural and there were only two cars in town, one of which belonged to the local doctor. Jews in this part of Eastern Europe had experienced prejudice since Prussian rule but by the 1930s they had assimilated much more and now comprised approximately sixteen per cent of the population. Orthodox and Hasidic Jews, who stood out in their black robes and hats, were persecuted far more than non-religious families like the Abramczyks, who described themselves as ‘culturally Jewish’ or as ‘reformed’ Jews long before the reformation movement officially started.
    Although they spoke Yiddish at home and celebrated Shabbatand other holy days with kosher food and candles, they rarely went to the synagogue and the children weren’t raised to think of themselves as being especially observant – although they did attend a Jewish school.
    Rachel’s father Shaiah was a textile engineer in a company owned by his parents-in-law, one of the few industries open to someone of their faith. The family had their own looms and employed mostly relatives making tapestries and fabrics for curtains and soft furnishings. They lived well enough, thanks to the parents of his wife Fajga, and had a large third-floor apartment with two balconies and a large back garden.
    Shaiah Abramczyk, who was forty-eight when his first child was born, was unusually well educated and considered himself an intellectual. Largely self-taught, he was a voracious reader who immersed himself in classic books on history, literature and the arts. He pushed his children to focus on their studies and encouraged them to become fluent in German, which was widely considered to be the language of cultured people.
    Rachel respected her father and inherited his hunger for learning. A diligent student, she and her siblings walked a kilometre every day to and from school, come rain or shine. They studied from 8 a.m. to 1.30 p.m. but were then free to read or play.
    As was often the custom then, her mother Fajga was a very young bride for her much older husband and was only nineteen when she gave birth to Rachel. She remained almost permanently pregnant throughout her eldest daughter’s childhood. Although she adored her children, she was sometimes resentful of her husband’s eagerness to improve his mind and openly expressed the wish to friends and family that he might consider more effective birth control.
    A kind and gentle woman who was proud of her life and often told her children, ‘Our home is our castle,’ Fajga decorated their apartment with an eclectic mix of art, fine china and ornaments, and always fresh flowers for Pesach (Passover). Whenever friends orrelatives came to call, they were