I was born in Poland, the youngest of three children. I grew up in Lublin, where my father was a brewer. I remember the pretty garden at the brewery, violin classes, and some friends at the school where I was the only Jew in my class. I became close with a young Catholic girl named Christina. We spent Christmas and Hanukkah together. I had no way of knowing then how my close relationship with Christina and her family would someday save my life.

When the war broke out in Poland, I was caught during a raid and sent to Majdanak where I was forced to work. One day a Ukrainian guard hit me over the head for working too slow. The women around me kept me from falling to the ground for fear that I would be shot and killed. Even now, I still part my hair over the scar.

I escaped Majdanek with the help of a Nazi guard who knew my father. The guard disguised me in a Hitler youth uniform and smuggled me out. I hid in an alley and crawled toward home. By 1942 my father, believing the family should separate, gave me money and a fake birth certificate. I became Christina Helena Czerniakowska. After that, I never saw my family again.
Alone, I fled to my friend Christina's house where they hid me in a shed. Eventually I was again on my own. At fourteen I boarded the train with the money my father gave me and a prayer book from Christina's mother. Until the end of the war, I was forced to work for my survival.

After the war, I searched for surviving relatives and located aunts and uncles in Rochester, New York. In 1947, when I was 17, I came to Rochester. I graduated from Franklin High School and later studied dental hygiene at Monroe Community College. I worked as a dental hygienist for thirty years.

I began speaking to students about the Holocaust after my Rabbi showed me a book that claimed the Holocaust was a hoax. Today I speak to each new generation so they will know the truth about the Holocaust and remember not to hate.