Frimit Bursztyn

Frimit was one of eight children born to Yiddish-speaking, religious Jewish parents. The Bursztyns lived in the heart of the same Jewish neighborhood in Warsaw where Frimit's father owned and operated a bakery located on Zamenhofa Street. In 1920 the Bursztyns moved to a comfortable, two-bedroom apartment in the same neighborhood at 47 Mila Street. Frimit attended Warsaw public schools.

1933-39: By 1939 six of Frimit's brothers and sisters had already moved out. Only Frimit and her younger brother were left at home, and they were enjoying their parents' undivided attention. Frimit had finished school and had lots of friends. Her father had given up his business and was working at Warsaw's excellent Kagan Bakery. Nothing could have prepared them for the German invasion in September 1939. Their city was surrendered on September 28.

1940-44: Frimit's family's apartment was in the heart of the Warsaw ghetto, which was closed off by the Germans in November 1940. Frimit was deported on May 1, 1943, to the Majdanek concentration camp. There, smoke from the crematoria clouded the skies and hung over the prisoners. Her fingers became broken and disfigured as, day after day, she and five other women pushed a heavy wagon filled with manure across the fields surrounding the camp. If they worked too slowly, they were flogged with a bullwhip. They fertilized those fields with their bare hands.

Over the next two years Frimit was deported to seven more Nazi camps. She was liberated in the Turkheim labor camp on April 27, 1945. In 1949 she immigrated to the United States.