A Life Reclaimed: A Child Among the Partisans

Luba Olenski

About this book
In August 1943, twelve-year-old Luba Frank jumped from a cattle train packed with men, women and children bound for the Treblinka death camp. She had already survived two traumatic years in the Bialystok Ghetto in the care of virtual strangers but was still wholly unprepared for the hostility and danger she now faced alone. Famished and terrified, she wandered through fields and villages for five and a half weeks, begging by day and huddling in the forest at night. With no survival skills, she lived just long enough to be rescued by a group of Jewish partisans who brought her back to their hiding-place deep in the forest. The leader of this group, Duvche Olenski, would become her future husband.
Product details
Category
Partisans
Publisher
Makor Publishing ("Write Your Story" Program - Lamm Jewish Library of Australia)
Published
2006
ISBN
1876733632
Country
Australia
Pages
165
EXCERPT
“I was in despair and began to imagine that I was the only Jew left in the world…My days were long and hot. I woke at sunrise and wandered about until the merciless sun drove me to find shade in the forest, despite my fear of venturing there alone. I feared wolves and other dangers I imagined lurking in the deep shadows of the trees. In fact, the forest was my only protector. Humans were the ones who threatened my very existence...” – page 62
Author
Luba Olenski

Luba Olenski was born in Keidania, Lithuania

on 3 March 1931, the first child of Danyiel and Ita Frank. She had two younger brothers, Lazer and Yisrolek, and her father ran a tobacco business in Kaunas.

She grew up in a well-to-do, religious, Yiddish-speaking household. In 1935, the family moved to Kaunas.

Following the Holocaust, in September 1947, Luba emigrated to Sydney. In December 1948, Luba, aged seventeen, travelled to Melbourne and became engaged to Duvche Olenski.

The couple were married on 21 March 1950. Together they had two sons and one daughter.

 

About Image:

“Luba” by Anita Lester from “Portraits of Survival” art exhibition held at Melbourne Holocaust Museum

(October 2025 – January 2026)

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