Malka Kahana

Testimony of Malka (Hus) Kahana, born in Stramtura, Romania, 1926, regarding her experiences in Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen Hasidic community in Stramtura. German occupation and entry of the Germans into the synagogue on the morning of the blessing of the new month of Nisan on Shabbat, March 1944; shearing of beards and shaving of hair of the worshippers; deportation of all the town's Jews to the Dragomiresti Ghetto; stay in the Dragomiresti Ghetto for two weeks until deportation to Auschwitz; her grandfather takes Jewish ritual objects with him to Auschwitz; her grandfather descends from the deportation train wearing his talit and tefillin; separation from her family; transfer to Birkenau with one of her sisters; camp registration process; daily camp life; forced labor digging trenches; transfer on trains to Bergen-Belsen, January 1945; conditions en route; camp life; dirt, lice, typhus, hunger and corpses; witness is thrown onto a pile of corpses in the condition of a Muselmann; witness manages to crawl and reach British Army soldiers at liberation of the camp. Medical treatment in the British hospital in camp; move to Sweden; starting a family and education; fate of her family members.