Message:
I found the testimony of Lucia Mandil (maiden Borychowska), the sister of Ada Borychowska. Ada and Lucia survived the Holocaust together.
According to her testimony, the two sisters arrived in Auschwitz in August 1944. They stayed in Auschwitz one week, before being sent to an explosive factory in the North West of Germany. They stayed there 5 or 6 weeks before their factory closed. They were sent from there to Bergen-Belsen.
It is very likely that Ada and Lucia were in Bomlitz, one of the subcamps of Bergen-Belsen. I found a reference to this sub-camp in the book “The Deportation of Jews from the Lodz Ghetto to KL Auschwitz and Their Extermination” by Andrzej Strzelecki at the page 78: “On 3rd September 1944, the “Eibia” explosives factory was opened in a third KL Bergen-Belsen sub-camp in Bomlitz. It was to this camp that 600 women prisoners from KL Auschwitz were sent, including150 Jewish women originally from the Lodz ghetto. Six weeks later they were “withdrawn” to Bergen-Belsen and the sub-camp was closed.”
After having spent two or three weeks in Bergen-Belsen, Ada and Lucia were sent to another explosives factory. According to the same book at the page 78: “In the second half of October 1944, 750 Polish Jewish women were sent from LK Bergen-Belsen to the newly formed KL Buchenwald sub-camp in Elsnig on the Elbe, in the Torgau district. There, they were made to work in the explosives factory WASAG. ”
“…”
“Some of these women spent several weeks in the above mentioned KL Bergen-Belsen sub-camp of Bomlitz.”
According to the prisoner card of Ada Borychowska, Ada was transferred from Bergen-Belsen to Buchenwald on 19/10/1944.
The testitomy of Lucia Mandil, the book of Andrzej Strzelecki and the prisoner card of Ada match together and confirm that Ada was sent from Bergen-Belsen to Elsnig.
According to the book of Strzelecki at the page 79: “With the nearing of American forces in April 1945, the prisoners of Elsnig camp were evacuated by freight train towards Berlin. At the station of Seddin (Neuseddin) near Postdam this transport train together with another freight train carrying explosives and fuel were bombed from the air. Those prisoners who managed to get out of the blazing carriages immediately dispersed in the surrounding area. Many were soon afterwards murdered by the Germans. Only a few managed to stay in Seddin and nearby Beelitz Heilstätten until the Red Army came to liberate them”
According to the testimony of Lucia, the Germans put them to cattle cars in order to go from Elsnig to Oranienburg. On the night of April 20, 1945 the Germans abandoned the cattle cars. A bomb exploded near the cattle car and liberated them from it. Ada and Lucia spent five days in the wood nearby. After that, they ran into what looked like abandoned barracks and hid in the broom closet because they did not know who lived in the barracks. Late in the afternoon of the same day, they heard male voices. The voices came from Italian prisoners of war. These Italians prisoners helped them hid into the barracks. They spent five days in the barracks hiding from the Germans. One morning, the Italians opened the doors of the barracks and said that the Germans have gone. Five days later, the Russians came and distributed meals. The Russians stayed for 3 or 4 days and they announced that the battleground was coming back to town. The Russians were leaving so the Italians and the two sisters decided to follow them. On May 8, 1945, the war was over.
In the testimony, Lucia said she left Bomlitz to Bergen-Belsen after Christmas 1944, while it is written on her prisoner card that she arrived well before from Bergen-Belsen to Buchenwald on 19/10/1944.
In the testimony, Lucia said that the second explosives factory she went was Bomlitz while it was most probably Elsnig.
According to the testimony of Lucia, they were liberated in Oranienburg and not in Seddin as is said in the book. Seddin is only 85 kilometres (53 miles) from Oranienburg.
I don’t think these contradictions are a big deal, but I wanted to point them out.
