Werner Cohen on Hilda Stern Cohen’s experience
05 July 2013
The young German-Jewish writer Hilde Stern (1924-1997) – later called Hilda Stern Cohen – was transported for Frankfurt/Main to the ghetto of Łódź in October 1941, along with her parents, maternal grandparents, and a young male friend. By chance, they found themselves living in a room at Rybna 14a, one flight of stairs down from Lejzerowicz’s apartment. The artist/poet befriended the young woman – only 17 at the time of her arrival in the ghetto – and invited her to be part of the writers’ circle that met from time to time in his studio. Later, he saved her life by convincing Chaim Rumkowski, “Eldest of the Jews in the Litzmannstadt Ghetto,” to pull her and her father out of a group of people who had volunteered to be transported out of the ghetto. Hilda survived – the only woman of the 1,200 people on that transport from Frankfurt/Main to do so. Of her family in the ghetto, Hilda was the only one to survive the war. Her experiences are recounted in two posthumous books. (For more information, see www.HildaStory.org.)
In this short podcast, her husband, Werner V. Cohen, recounts the importance of Lejzerowicz’s role in his wife’s survival.
Podcast