Museum
Born July 9, 1928, Volosyanka, Czechoslovakia
Listen to Helen Goldkind discuss her arrival at Auschwitz- Birkenau »
Helen was born Chaya Lebowitz on July 9, 1928 in Volosyanka, Czechoslovakia, a small town with a bustling Jewish community, nestled in the Carpathian Mountains. Helen was one of seven children born into a close-knit, observant Jewish family, and many relatives, including her grandparents, lived nearby. Her father, Martin, owned a shoe store, and her mother, Rose, took care of the home and children.
The Subcarpathian Rus, the region of Czechoslovakia where Helen’s family lived, was annexed by Hungary in 1939 when Helen was just eleven years old. Under the Hungarian occupation, Jewish children were not allowed to attend school and the synagogues were closed. Helen’s father hired a tutor, a young Jewish teacher who had lost his post, and eventually their home became like a school for the Jewish children in the community. Eventually Helen’s father was forced to give up his business and the family had to rely on the few livestock her grandparents still owned for basic food goods.
In March 1944 the Germans took over the occupation of Volosyanka and within a month they sent all the able-bodied men, including Helen’s father and older brothers, to labor camps. During Passover, two weeks later, Helen and the rest of her family were ordered to pack a single suitcase and gather in the town square. Helen’s grandfather packed the Torah scroll he had saved from their synagogue, and the family put on multiple layers of clothing to protect themselves against the cold. They were sent to the Uzhgorod ghetto, little more than an old brick factory, with a roof and no walls, surrounded by a lumber yard. The ghetto was liquidated six weeks later and Helen’s family was deported to Auschwitz.
Upon arrival at Auschwitz, Helen’s grandfather was beaten and thrown into a truck for refusing to desecrate his Torah scroll. Helen’s mother was holding her younger brother when a guard tried to pull him from her, taking him to the left and sending her to the right. The guards beat her as she ran after him, pleading with them to let her go to the left with her son. Meanwhile, Helen and her sister, Sylvia, were sent to the right and they could do nothing but watch as their grandmother, younger brother and mother disappeared to the left. The girls never saw their family again.
Helen and her sister were in Auschwitz for about five weeks before being sent into Germany to work at a munitions factory with two thousand other girls. At the factory they loaded empty shells with gunpowder, but the ventilation was poor and the gunpowder was poisonous. It burned the girls’ skin and eyes, turning them yellow; hundreds died under such conditions. By the time the factory was bombed in the spring of 1945, there were only about five hundred girls left. Helen, although very weak, survived with the help of her sister. They were loaded onto trucks and sent to Bergen-Belsen, where they were eventually liberated on April 15, 1945. Helen and Sylvia both fell ill in the camp and after a brief separation they were sent to Sweden to recuperate.
Helen and Sylvia immigrated to the United States in 1946 to live with an older sister in Brooklyn. Helen married Abe Goldkind in 1947 and they had three children. She now has eight grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren. Helen continues to be a strong advocate for freedom and human rights, particularly for the people of Darfur.
Interview — Describes forced labor in an ammunition factory [2001 interview].
View transcript »
I like to work with all of the people in the Museum. And most of all, I like teaching people to be tolerant of others.
