Born Survivors by Wendy Holden Read Free Book Online Page B

good-looking young man born on 15 May 1916, who – with his widowed mother Ita and two older brothers David and Avner – owned a textile factory so large that it employed Gentiles, which was highly unusual.
    It was Monik’s indomitable mother Ita, born in Hungary, who had kept the factory going after the death of her husband Shimon from tuberculosis, a disease that almost killed her too and badly affected her health. In spite of that, she became the ‘boss of all she owned’. A devoted mother who worshipped her three sons, Ita was determined to improve the business so that her sons would have something worth inheriting.

    Rachel’s husband Monik Friedman
    Monik and Rachel married in March 1937, just after Rachel finished secondary school. Having filled out since her childhood she made an attractive bride. Her new husband was only twenty-one and Rachel, at eighteen, became a submissive, traditional Jewish wife. At the time of her wedding, her long-suffering mother Fajga still had six-year-old twins at home as well as four-year-old Maniusia. She must have missed Rachel sorely.
    Monik Friedman shared his bride’s interest in Zionism, and the couple had joined a youth organisation named Gordonia (after theprogressive Zionist A.D. Gordon) that promoted allegiance to the kibbutz way of life and the revival of Hebrew. In keeping with these beliefs, they’d asked for a simple wedding. Monik’s influential mother expected her sons to live appropriately to their wealth, however, so her youngest son and his wife had an enviable lifestyle in the new home they moved to in Łódź. The post-war inflation that had ruined millions of lives across Europe had little effect on those savvy enough to invest in fabrics or gold.
    ‘I married a very rich man and I didn’t have to work,’ Rachel admitted. ‘We lived better than other people.’ They deliberately didn’t start a family straight away, as they wanted to enjoy each other’s company and do whatever they could to help develop the business. Besides, Rachel had experienced quite enough of babies for a while.
    Łódź, which had a chequered history of Prussian, German and Polish ownership, was one of the most densely populated industrialised cities in the world. An imposing metropolis with grand buildings, Parisian-style boulevards and beautiful public spaces, it had Poland’s second-largest Jewish community after Warsaw, comprising over thirty per cent of the almost one million population. The rest were Polish Gentiles and a few minority Germans. With an estimated 1,200 textile businesses and more than two million spindles employed in manufacturing, Łódź had become the jewel of Poland’s trading empire during the Industrial Revolution and a magnet for skilled workers.
    There was much more for Rachel and Monik to do in cosmopolitan Łódź than there ever had been in Pabianice. Without chores or studies, Rachel was also able to focus on her fundraising while the Friedman family discussed opening another factory in Warsaw, one hundred and thirty kilometres away, where they already had an apartment. Their plans were stalled by world events, however. When Adolf Hitler annexed Austria and threw out all the Poles it became clear that the German Chancellor could no longer be ignored. After Kristallnacht they knew his threats were genuine. AsJews across Germany, Austria and Sudetenland panicked and prepared to flee, Rachel and Monik also considered getting out while they could. They were Zionists, after all, and many of their friends were leaving for Palestine. But what would they do in the Levant, so far from their loved ones? How and where would they live in such a hot and hostile Middle Eastern climate?
    Tempting as escape from extreme Nazi politics seemed, Hitler and his fanatics were still some distance away and the hope was that he would be satisfied with what he’d already seized. Even if his influence did stretch as far as Poland, the family thought that only religious