Helen Lankin

"Never forget us."

Name at birth

Hela Tauziewicz

Date of birth

08/03/1920

Where were you born?

Czestochowa, Poland

Where did you grow up?

Czestochowa, Poland

Name of father, occupation

Michael Tauziewicz, Dry goods, farmer

Maiden name of mother, occupation

Fela Lewkowicz, Dry goods, farmer

Immediate family (names, birth order)

Parents, two boys and four girls

How many in entire extended family?

Who survived the Holocaust?

One sister, Esther, two cousins and me

One brother, Sol, left for Canada before the war and later came to Detroit. My husband, Aron and I came to Detroit after the war.

I was working in another part of the city when the Nazis came to their neighborhood. The Germans rounded up my family and they were taken to Treblinka to their deaths.

I always regretted not being with my family when they took them to Treblinka. Being left was so difficult. My oldest sister Carola had a 3 ½ year old baby, Gitala Devoira. I regretted not taking the baby to the Church of the Black Madonna in Czestochowa, I thought that in doing so, perhaps the baby somehow would have survived.

I later met up with my sister, Esther, at another concentration camp. I was on a forced march from Flossenbürg to Theresienstadt to Bergen-Belsen. I was taken to Sweden after Bergen-Belsen because I was very sick with typhus.

Name of Ghetto(s)

Czestochowa

Name of Concentration / Labor Camp(s)

Bergen Belsen / Flossenbürg / Klobutsk / Neusalz / Theresienstadt

Occupation after the war

Millinery, then Seamstress

Spouse

Aron Lankin (Leizerowicz), Leather cutter at Fisher Body, automobile factory, then self-employed, re-weaver of clothing.

Children

Phyllis Ostroff, special education teacher

Grandchildren

Three: Zack, Siv, and Adam Three great-grandchildren: Noa, Maia, and Eli