Rena Kornreich Volunteered For Auschwitz

 

 

 

 

 

 

Holocaust Survivor Extraordinaire

 

 

 

 

 

The Kornreich Family

 

 

 

 

 

 

They Lived In The Polish village of Tylicz in the Carpathian Mountains

 

 

 

 

 

 

She Was One Of  The First Woman To Arrive At Auschwitz

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One Of The Greatest Stories To Come Out Of The Holocaust

Rena Kornreich is a 21 Year-old Jewess who decided to protect her family, and volunteers to be shipped to Auschwitz.
 

 

 

 

 

Rena Volunteered For The Death Camps

Twenty-one year old Rena Kornreich was one of the first women brought into Auschwitz on March 26, 1942.
   

 

 

 

 

 

Her Baby Sister Meets Her

Two days after the first transport, Danka, Rena's younger sister, followed Rena to camp where, together, they spent the next three years of their young lives as slaves to the Third Reich.

   

 

 

 

 

Shaved Head To Toe By Men

Every three weeks they were shaved… all over their bodies. The women were humiliated each time as they had to stand naked all day before each other, the SS, and their fellow men, prisoners who were forced to do the shaving. 

   

 

 

 

 
   

Watching Children Walk To The Gas Chambers

Death was everywhere. Those who were brought in and selected for the gas chambers, she even speaks of seeing hundreds of children at one time, clutching toys, walking in lines, as they headed to the gas chambers. People who ran for the electric fences, certain they would not survive the selections the next day. [1]

 
   

 

 

 

 

Toilet Humiliation

In the camps, they had nothing. She spent three years with no toilet paper. 

There was, oh, so much more, camp life was literally hell on earth.[2]

 
 

 

 

 

   

Death Dogs And Electric Fences

Rena and her sister watched as Jews threw themselves on electric fences and the eaten by 'Death dogs'.
   

 

 

 

 

Mengele Saved Rena And Danka

It was Mengele himself that chose Rena and her sister for the SS laundry. In the SS laundry Rena and Danka were relatively safe from the mass selections that plagued the prisoners of Birkenau but receiving something as innocent as a note or a secret piece of sausage could still mean death
   

 

 

 

 

The Sisters Meet Irma Grese

In 1944 Rena meet the infamous Irma Grese, who told her, "All of you Jews will be sent to Madagascar. You'll be slaves for the rest of your life. You will work in factories all day long and be sterilized so you can never have children." ..
   

 

 

 

 

The Death March

During the blizzard of January 18, 1945, Rena and her sister left Auschwitz for the first and last time. They were death marched  for six days and 60 kilometers to Wodzislaw Slaski.
   

 

 

 

 

Next The Sisters Are Put On Coal Cars

They were then loaded into coal cars and taken into the interior of Germany.

 

 

 

 

 

  

The Next Four Months

The rest of the war was spent digging ditches against the allies, and burying their own comrades who had starved or been beaten to death.

 
   

 

 

 

 

Finally Liberation

Then, on May 2, 1945, the Russian and American troops met in the middle of Germany and Rena and her sister were finally liberated. 

 
   

 

 

 

 

Rena's Promise To Momma Is Kept

Rena  dreamed of the day she could say. "Momma, I brought you the baby back." My one great feat in life, my fate, is to survive this thing and return triumphant with my sister to our parents' house.[3]

 
   

 

 

 

 
Rena Reunites With Momma And Poppa

She moves to Brooklyn, and after forty years writes her memoirs.

 
   
   
   

 
 

 

 

 

 

One Fantastic Tale

So an old lady in Brooklyn suddenly remembers she was in the holocaust. Rena claims she was born in the Carpathian mountains, and decided to walk to Auschwitz to turn herself in.

$10 says she never left Brooklyn.
 

 

 

 

 

Auschwitz

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