Welcome to Litsy!

The youngest of seven children, Sylvia (Sara Gross) grew up in Rawa-Ruska, in southeast Poland. A good student she looked forward to further studies. In 1941, however, the Germans occupied Rawa-Ruska and measures against Jews were promulgated. There would be no further education for Sylvia, then 15 years old. In summer of 1942, after escaping from a roundup of Jews who were being deported to Belzec Death Camp, Sylvia and her sisters, as non-Jews, volunteered for work in Germany. Little did the sisters know then what would be the fate of the rest of the family. Sylvia's memoir describes her work at an AEG electric factory in Berlin and, later, on a farm in the village of Bentwisch am Wittenberge. All the while she was terrified of being betrayed as Jewish and deported to a concentration camp.