In 1943, at 17 years old, she was taken to Auschwitz.
She had grown up during years of hunger and hardship. By the time she arrived at the camp, she was severely underdeveloped from malnutrition. She looked 11 or 12 years old. When they lined everyone up for selection, that physical detail — something born from suffering — saved her life.
She was placed with the children.
The others she arrived with were sent to the gas chambers.
While the children were in line, something unexpected happened. German civilians came to select children to take into custody. A middle-aged couple who owned a private clinic in Germany chose her.
Instead of death, she was taken into their home.
She became a helper around their clinic. She had her own room. The woman of the house treated her like a daughter. My grandmother stayed with them for 10 years. During that time, she was given food, safety, and even small payments for her work. She spent almost nothing. She didn’t even know if anyone from her family had survived the war.
After a decade, she decided to return home to Yugoslavia. She carried a full briefcase of Deutsche Marks — enough, she believed, to buy a farm and start over.
But history had one more cruel twist.
Because of inflation and economic chaos after the war, by the time she reached Croatia, that briefcase of savings was nearly worthless. It was winter. All she could afford was a coat.
She found out that almost no one from her family had survived. Only one cousin was left alive.
Years later, around 1990, she learned something even more devastating. One of her sisters — a baby who had fallen from a table and was unable to speak — had been handed over to partisans during the war “to deal with.” No one knows what happened to her. You can imagine the likely outcome.
My grandmother carried all of this quietly.
She built a life anyway.
To me, she wasn’t a war survivor. She was the grandmother who came to sleep over at our house. I slept beside her as a child. She told me stories about angels, about old times, about strange and beautiful things from a world that doesn’t exist anymore.
Near the end of her life, she developed dementia. The strangest part? She began speaking only German — the language of the country where she had survived. As if her mind had traveled back to the place where her life split in two.
She passed away in 2000.
I just wanted to put this here so the world knows she existed. She was strong in a way I can barely comprehend. She survived death, lost nearly everyone, rebuilt from nothing, and still had enough softness left to tell her grandson bedtime stories about angels.
Love you, Grandma. ♥
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