Alina Bacall-Zwirn as born in the Jewish ghetto of Warsaw, Poland, in 1922. During World War II at the age of nineteen she married Leon Bacall, another resident of the ghetto. Upon Hitler’s plan for eliminating the Jewish population, the couple was separated and sent to Nazi death camps in 1943, she to the women’s camp at Birkenau in Auschwitz and he to the men’s camp in nearby Buna-Monowitz. At the time she did not know that she was pregnant. A few months after arriving at Auschwitz she gave birth to a baby boy. A midwife took the child from her, explaining that he was sick and would probably die. When Alina asked to stay with her child in the infirmary, the midwife warned that Nazi officers would likely send her to the gas chamber because their policy was to hasten the deaths of those in the infirmary. Alina then had to choose between acting upon her identity as the mother of her child and protecting her identity as a vulnerable Jew.

After Germany’s defeat in 1945 Alina was liberated and reunited with her husband. In 1949 the couple moved to the United States.

Remember. org

"One by One: Descendants of the Third Reich and the Holocaust in Dialogue"

Holocaust Survivors

"Stories of Survival"

"Auschwitz - The Concentration Camp"

"Holocaust Revisionists Distort and Ignore The Facts"

"Time For A More Relaxed Attitude About Holocaust Revisionism"