Survivor from Poland | Auschwitz, Salzwedel

Ester Ross was born in Lodz, Poland, in 1924. She lived in a ghetto, and today she states that she “did my duty in hell already” within the ghetto, before being deported to Auschwitz for four days. She was lined up for the gas chambers but was sent to Bergen-Belsen for a few months. She was transferred to Salzwedel female camp in East Germany where she worked in a munitions factory. When soldiers came to liberate the Salzwedel camp in April 1945, they cried because the prisoners were like skeletons. The previous day, the German commandant refused to carry out orders to kill the prisoners. Ester never saw her mother and brother again after being separated in Auschwitz. Another sister died there, her father died in 1942, and one sister fled to Russia. Ester came to the United States in August 1946 with $5 and she worked sewing. Ester visited Israel in 1962 and 1972.