b'BOOK OF MEMORY FOR HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL DAYFrom prison they were taken to Mauthausen OberLanzendorfinAustriawherethey hadtoworkasweavers.Theydidnot starve but the work was heavy. Gusti could not manage to work the whole day and BarbaraworkedGustisweavingframe too. A Dutch Kapo who was known to have beaten prisoners to death forbade this but Barbara persuaded a supervisor to allow her to do part of her mothers work, and soChaskel and Barbara Sieratzkiher mother survived. When the war ended, the SS wardens retreated in an orderly fashion. After some time, the Red Army arrived, one soldier on a horse, one on a donkey, some on motor bikes, some even on bicycles. It seemed incomprehensible that the SS had run away from this poor lot. A Jewish Red Army officer helped them get back to Budapest on a horse carriage as Gusti could not walk. Here they received new Jewish refugee IDs and lived in their old heavily damaged home. In June 1945, Barbara went to the Pzmny Pter University. She earned money as a translator and by smuggling cigarettes from Bratislava to Budapest. One day at a street corner in Bratislava, Gusti said to Barbara: if our Ida is still alive she would look like this Russian officer over there. It WAS Ida. They burned her uniform and her papers, got her new civilian clothes and a civilian ID from the refugee organisation. The three then moved west and ended up in the British occupied zone. With her knowledge of eight languages, intelligence, determination, and charm, Barbara made a career at the Bergen Belsen refugee camp. She had the rank of a lieutenant in the British forces and the privilege of using a chauffeured limousine. Barbara had suitors but really wasnt aware of how pretty she was. Gusti was against too much attention to external appearance.In 1949, my father, Chaskel Sieratzki, was told of Barbara and decided to go and look her up. Like in a fairy tale, he was the prince who had the key to the princesss heart: Chaskel treated Gustiwith the love and respect that he would have given his own mother had she not been shot to death in Piotrkov, in 1942. He said to Gusti: I do not have father or mother to ask for your daughters hand and must do it myself. It was the right sentence. The wedding was in Loheide, near Bergen Belsen, in 1949. The chuppah stood in a villa that had belonged to an infamous Nazi and was now kashered by the Lubavich. My parents moved to Frankfurt am Main where they were successful in business. After Chaskels early death in 1976, Barbara lived up to all challenges and died at age 92 having inspired many with her courage, strength, and love for life.37'