Jv100*

My mother, Renate Zaidman, was born to Faigla and Moshe Kochman in Dombrowa Gorniche, Poland on July 10, 1912. As the eldest of six children, she helped her mother raise her siblings and work long hours to bring home food and rent money. Wanting not to leave her parents in the line leading directly to the gas chambers at Aushwitz, her parents pleaded for her to get in the line for forced labor. A survivor of three camps, she weighed 96 pounds before being liberated at Bergen-Belsen. A mother of two sons, one born in Bergen-Belsen. She was the very essence of a Jewish mother.

 

Renate Zaidman

Dombrowa Gorniche, Poland