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Helga Weiss was born on November 10, 1929 in Prague, the capital of the Czech Republic. Before she was sent to the ghetto, Helga saw many horrors as the Nazi regime progressed. More and more things were forbidden for her as time passed. They were banned from swimming pools, sports  clubs, and parks. At age 10 she was banned from going to school. She had no idea what was happening. “As war loomed, the eight-year-old Helga began to keep a diary in words and pictures. The first pages record the growing Nazi threat: air raid alarms, arrests, the expulsion of Jewish children from state schools, adults – including her father – losing their jobs”(Cochrane). In late December 1941, her family’s apartment was handed over to the Nazis and they were transported to Terezín: a concentration camp 30 miles north of her home in Prague. There, her father was sent to the men’s barracks while she stayed with her mom. Her diary includes sounds that still haunt her; “thunderous steps, the roar of the ghetto guards, the banging of doors and hysterical weeping always sound – and foretell – the same.” Before she had gone to the camp, she watched her friends disappear one by one, taken away by the Nazis. Each time she thought the worst had happened to her, but eventually she grew numb to it. She still has some good memories in Terezín, she grew up there, fell in love for the first time, and spent time with both her parents, before her father was killed at Auschwitz. She says, “My father told me that, whatever happens, we must remain human, so that we do not die like cattle, and I think that the will to create was an expression of the will to live, and survive, as human beings." On October 4, 1944 her mother and her were taken to Auschwitz.

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Helga with her parents and grandmother before being taken to Terezin. 

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Picture from her diary:“The first picture I made in Terezin. I smuggled it to my father in the men's barracks and he wrote back: 'Draw what you see!'

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When they arrived at Auschwitz they faced Josef Mengele, one of the most notorious Nazi doctors who performed experiments at Auschwitz. He was directing children and older women toward the gas chambers, and fit adults toward the labor camp. Helga, who was only 14, should’ve died that day. Helga remembers, “Prisoners who knew the fate that lay ahead on the left whispered warnings: "Don't say you are too young, don't say you are ill – say you are able to work. Don't say you belong together, that you are mother and child.” Her mother and her were sent to the line on the right, those who were fit to work, the ones who would survive a little longer. The second day they were there a long speech in a foreign language was given to them. Her mother told her that they had said they were in an extermination camp. They hadn’t known about the gas chambers or death camps. "We arrived and saw smoking chimneys – we thought it was a factory." In reality, the smoke came from the camp crematorium. They were forced to strip naked and shave their heads. She spent only ten days at Auschwitz that she says were worse than her three years at Terezín. It was a victory in itself that she was moved to Freiburg after Auschwitz. She had been destined to die in the line on the left, but she had fooled one of the most remembered Nazis and escaped death.

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Helga fooled one of the most notorious Nazis of the Holocaust, and managed to escape with her life when she was supposed to be doomed to death. Her risk in deceiving Mengele not only saved her but still inspires many others decades later.

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“My father told me that, whatever happens, we must remain human, so that we do not die like cattle. And I think that the will to create was an expression of the will to live, and survive, as human beings.”

When speaking about the Jews being liberated: "No, it was not that special because by that point she was so ill and had seen so many terrible things it was hard to feel anything."

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Picture from her diary: “These children arrived in deplorable condition and were quarantined the whole time in Terezin. They were supposed to be sent to Switzerland but ended up in Auschwitz.

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Surviving the Concentration Camp: Helga’s Diary

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Surviving the Concentration Camp: Helga’s Diary

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Surviving the Concentration Camp: Helga’s Diary

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Railways of the Holocaust- Helga's Story

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Railways of the Holocaust- Helga's Story

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RAILWAYS OF THE HOLOCAUST - HELGA'S STORY