Ada Willenberg (née Lubelczyk) ( he, -עדה וילנברג) (born January 11, 1929) is a Polish-Israeli Holocaust survivor. She is the widow of fellow Holocaust survivor, sculptor and writer

Samuel Willenberg Samuel Willenberg, ''nom de guerre'' Igo (16 February 1923 – 19 February 2016), was a Polish Holocaust survivor, artist, and writer. He was a ''Sonderkommando'' at the Treblinka extermination camp and participated in the unit's planned revol ...

(1923-2016). Ada Willenberg was born in Warsaw (

Second Polish Republic The Second Polish Republic, at the time officially known as the Republic of Poland, was a country in Central Europe, Central and Eastern Europe that existed between 1918 and 1939. The state was established on 6 November 1918, before the end of ...

) in January 1929. She lived in the Jewish quarter of this city, together with her parents, grandmother and uncle. Her parents had a leather goods company, where leather products were produced for (among others) German companies. Ten-year-old Ada moved to

Czyżew Czyżew is a town in Wysokie Mazowieckie County, Podlaskie Voivodeship, in north-eastern Poland. It is the seat of the gmina (administrative district) called Gmina Czyżew. It lies approximately south-west of Wysokie Mazowieckie and south-wes ...

in 1939, but shortly afterwards the family moved to a three-room apartment in the Warsaw Ghetto, where they lived with other Jewish families. On August 18, 1942, her mother was deported to

Treblinka concentration camp Treblinka () was an extermination camp, built and operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland during World War II. It was in a forest north-east of Warsaw, south of the village of Treblinka in what is now the Masovian Voivodeship. The camp ...

, while Ada and her grandmother remained in the ghetto. In March 1943, a few months before the destruction of the ghetto, she decided to jump the walls of the ghetto and run for her life. Ada got false documents and worked on a farm in

Oschatz Oschatz () is a town in the district Nordsachsen, in Saxony, Germany. It is located 60 km east of Leipzig and 60 km west of Dresden. Geography Site and climate Oschatz lies in the Saxon Lowland and is located on the river Döllni ...

until the end of the war. In 1945, Ada went back to Poland, where she studied dentistry. In 1946, she met

, and the two married in 1948. In 1950, during the peak years of

Stalinism in Poland Stalinism is the means of governing and Marxist-Leninist policies implemented in the Soviet Union from 1927 to 1953 by Joseph Stalin. It included the creation of a one-party totalitarian police state, rapid industrialization, the theory o ...

, Willenberg emigrated to

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

with her husband and her mother-in-law. She has one daughter, Orit Willenberg-Giladi, and three grandchildren.

References

External links

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Interview with Ada Willenberg
{{DEFAULTSORT:Willenberg, Samuel 1929 births Living people People from Warsaw Israeli people of Polish-Jewish descent Polish emigrants to Israel Warsaw Ghetto inmates