THE 20 CHILDREN

Riwka Herszberg

Riwka Herszberg was born on 7 Juni 1938 in Zduńska Wola near Łódź in Poland. Her father Moszek Herszberg was managing director of a small clothing factory there. Riwka and her parents were deported in summer 1944 via Piotrków Trybunalski to Auschwitz Concentration Camp. Riwka’s father was taken to Buchenwald Concentration Camp in January 1945, where he was murdered on 7 April 1945. Riwka and her mother Mania were kept together in the Auschwitz women’s camp. Apparently Riwka escaped the first selection because an SS man found that she resembled his own daughter. Mania Herszberg was transferred to an extension of Buchenwald Concentration Camp in Lippstadt. Also in that transport was Sabina Reichenbaum, the mother of Eduard. Riwka Herszberg was taken to Neuengamme Concentration Camp on 28 November 1944 and murdered here in Bullenhuser Damm on 20 April 1945.

Mania Herszberg survived and returned to Poland to look for Riwka. Later she emigrated to the USA and lives in Boston. She remarried and adopted a son. In 1979 she heard of the possible fate of her daughter, although she was not able to recognise Riwka from the photos made in connection with Dr. Kurt Heißmeyer’s medical experiments.

In 1979, Ella Kozlowski, a cousin of Riwka Herszberg, who worked in the office of investigation into NS crimes in Tel Aviv, discovered the photograph and name of Riwka on one of Günther Schwarberg’s posters and made contact with him. Ella Kozlowski was born in Berlin. In the 1930s she had to leave her Berlin “gymnasium” secondary school because she was Jewish. She lived with relatives in Czechoslovakia and Poland. She was deported to various concentration camps via the ghettoes in Zdunska Wola and Lodz. After liberation she emigrated to Israel.