Mauthausen

75th Anniversary of the Liberation of Mauthausen Concentration Camp: Born Survivors

05.05.2020

Hana Berger-Moran, Mark Olsky and Eva Clarke are not related but they are, as they say themselves, "siblings by heart". They had only been a couple of days and weeks old when the Mauthausen concentration camp was liberated by the US Army on 5 May 1945.

75th Anniversary of the Liberation of Mauthausen Concentration Camp: Born Survivors
(Photo: LPD OÖ/Michael Dietrich)

Their Jewish fathers were murdered by the Nazis.Their mothers had to go through the unimaginable. They survived the Auschwitz extermination camp where they had to hide their pregnancies from Dr. Josef Mengele and his cruel experiments. They survived violence, hunger and the inhuman transport to the Mauthausen death camp during the last days of the war. There, or rather on their way to the camp, they gave birth to their children. The children, weighing only around 1500 grams at birth, barely survived.

In 2010, the "siblings by heart" met at the Mauthausen Memorial and have become inseparable ever since.

Hana, Mark and Eva had originally planned to come to Austria to join the celebrations marking the 75th anniversary of the liberation of the Mauthausen concentration camp. Due to the present situation they were unable to travel. Instead, they sent us video messages.

Eva Clarke


Mark Olsky


Hana Berger-Moran