Blanka Fischer Rothschild (1922–2010) grew up as an only child in a close-knit, affluent Jewish family in Łódź, Poland. Her father died in 1937. A few months after the German invasion of Poland in September 1939, Blanka, her mother, Anna, and other relatives were imprisoned in the Łódź ghetto. Blanka and her mother remained in the ghetto for more than four years. During the liquidation of the ghetto in August 1944, they managed to escape transport to Auschwitz. In fall 1944, they were deported to the Ravensbrück concentration camp. They were then sent to a subcamp of Sachsenhausen, where Blanka worked in an airplane factory in Wittenberg. Her mother was sent to a different camp. Soviet forces liberated Blanka in spring 1945. Blanka made her way back to Łódź, hoping to find living relatives. None of her relatives, including her mother, survived. Blanka immigrated to the United States in 1947.
The Germans started to issue laws. Curfew was one of the first. We were not permitted on the streets past, I believe, five o'clock, I'm not too sure about the hour. We were required to wear yellow stars with the sign "Jude" identifying us as Jews. The money was frozen in the bank, and, uh, we started to be very frightened. One particular time I was walking on a street, not too far from my home, and I was called by a German officer. He called me, motioning with his hand to come over. My heart was beating wildly. I crossed the street. He asked me to go upstairs to his apartment, and being a young girl, I was just petrified. He asked me to clean the place. He took his gun off, put it on a table, and was sitting on a chair next to it watching me. Well, I didn't know too much about cleaning, but I cleaned very fast, and I did what he asked me to do. And he looked at me, and he said in German, "It is a shame that you are a Jew," and he let me go. This is another of the moments that I will never forget.
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