Una promesa en Auschwitz

For decades, Renee tried to forget what she had endured between September 1939, when the Nazi invasion of Poland marked the beginning of her nightmare, and April 1945, when she was liberated from the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Those years were marked by persecution and escape, deportation, the loss of her sister, imprisonment in Auschwitz-Birkenau, forced labor in Hamburg, and abuse suffered in another camp. Amid so much pain and fear, there was one constant: her mother Sala's hand, always clasped in hers. That love, fragile yet precious, was her support in adversity. It was Sala who hid Renee, who protected her, and who risked her life by disobeying SS orders. Both were eventually liberated, but Sala's health did not withstand it: she died just twelve days later.