In March 1939, when Hana Müller (later Bruml) was 16 years old, Nazi Germany occupied her hometown of Prague, Czechoslovakia. Like other Czech Jews, Hana experienced persecution and discrimination under Nazi rule. In August 1942, she was sent to the Theresienstadt ghetto, where she worked as a nurse. More than two years later, in October 1944, German authorities deported Hana to Auschwitz-Birkenau. At Auschwitz, she was selected for forced labor. After a few weeks, she was sent to Sackisch, a subcamp of the Gross-Rosen concentration camp. At Sackisch, Hana was forced to work in a German factory making airplane parts for the Nazi German war effort. She was liberated in May 1945.
At one point I was able to make contact and I sold my, first I sold few of the, used up some of the money I had on black market to buy extra food. The extra food was smuggled in by the Czech gendarmes. Uh...so we bought some, as much as we could. And...um...finally...we were allowed to keep a wedding ring, so I sold the wedding ring, exchanged it for bread. I thought the bread was more important. Again, through the gendarmes. Uh...Misha's mother, Irma Lausher, my cousin, who had...who was teaching the children in the youth home, she was...uh...she has an incredible memory, and she wrote me books of poems for my birthday, and even under these circumstances we tried to celebrate birthdays. You know, a slice of bread, a small loaf of bread, was a wonderful birthday present. Somebody saved it up or made the connections. Uh...the...the tendency was to try to maintain as normal life as possible.
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