Rebirth 1945

Saba FENIGER

About this book

"Survivors of the Holocaust were liberated by British, American and Russian forces. The places, wherever they found themselves at that time, became DP (Displaced Persons') Camps. I consider this period spent in DP Camps as a rebirth and a most precious time. I have tried to explore it in a way that would give a deeper understanding of a time when we were without families, homes, completely dispossessed, having an unknown future but with the possibility of a new life. In most memoirs, including my own, the time spent in the DP Camp is only briefly mentioned. Rebirth 1945, refers to the rebirth of the main characters. Like hundreds of others, I was destined to be drowned in the sea on the 3rd May 1945, had I not been liberated by the British Army in a place which had by then become a DP Camp. As a result of much thought and a compulsion to describe these times in greater detail, I started writing this [autobiographical novel] fifty-four years later. My fictitious characters find themselves in a real historic place. As I am unable to recall exact conversations between individuals from such a long time ago, I have just described some events, similar to those that took place. Some other situations are told here with poetic freedom. This book is not a continuation of my memoir but a novel." - PREFACE BY AUTHOR SABA FENIGER.

Product details

Category

Autobiographical Fiction

Publisher

Book Publisher Name

Published

2015

ISBN

9780646939506

Country

Australia

Pages

209 pages

EXCERPT

"Everybody’s survival should be celebrated by beginning to live a ‘normal’ life again. And the sooner, the better. The loneliness, loss of love, the lack of closeness to another human cannot be rationalised. Getting on with living is a matter of urgency." - p160

Author

Saba FENIGER

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Born in 1924 in Lodz, Poland, Saba Feniger lived in a loving, extended family network which, when she lost her mother at a young age, was a source of solace and consolation for her. Life was comfortable and enriched with strong friendships and fine culture. When Saba was 15, Germany occupied Poland and life as everyone knew it ceased.

The Jews of Lodz were forced into a ghetto where overcrowding, poor sanitation, disease, hunger, fear and death characterised their lives for over four years. Saba lost her beloved father in the ghetto, but worse was to come when transportation to the camps began.

Saba and her aunts were first transported to Auschwitz and then to Stutthof. She suffered unimaginable horrors and more loss of loved ones.

She endured years of oppression and starvation in the Lodz Ghetto, at Auschwitz-Birkenau and in the Stutthof Concentration Camp.  Following a sea evacuation from Stutthof, she was liberated by the British Army in 1945 at Neustadt/Holstein.

Saba would learn she lost all her immediate and extended family except for her middle sister, Eda.

In 1949 she arrived in Melbourne, Australia, where she married a fellow survivor and had two daughters and six grandchildren. Saba worked for 17 years as a voluntary curator at the Jewish Holocaust Museum.