Scotland's last Auschwitz survivor found love after Holocaust

Though many around the world commemorate the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz by focusing on those horrors, 97-year-old Judith Rosenberg remembers the love she found afterwards

By AARON REICH
THE LIBERATION of Auschwitz is the opening image of 'Liberation-The First Moments.' (photo credit: Courtesy)
THE LIBERATION of Auschwitz is the opening image of 'Liberation-The First Moments.'
(photo credit: Courtesy)
Judith Rosenberg was 22 when she was sent by the Nazis to Auschwitz in 1944, and experienced some of the most horrific conditions and events in human history.
It was over a year later, however, that she met the love of her life.
Now, at 97 years old, Judith is the last Auschwitz survivor in Scotland, and though many around the world commemorate the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz by focusing on those horrors, she still remembers the love she found afterwards, according to the Daily Record.
Born in the town of Gyor, Hungary, Judith was sent to the infamous concentration camp alongside her father, mother and sister.
Kept in the cattle trains in a several day-long journey, she was forced to share her cart with multiple corpses and little water, with no destination known.
She was separated from her father – who she later learned died in a slave labor camp – and was screened by the infamous doctor, Josef Mengele.
She endured the humiliation of being shaved, stripped, given prisoners' pajamas and walked 3 kilometers to the camp, only to be shoved into an overcrowded barrack.
Judith and the others were subjected to a daily routine of horror, starvation and dehumanization, before suddenly being put on trains again in August, sending them to a slave labor camp near Lippstadt, Germany.
As a watchmaker, Judith was sent to the munitions factory, she explained to the Daily Record, where her repair skills made her invaluable.
The Nazis would give her extra soup to share with her family when she repaired the watches, something she credits with keeping them alive, she told the Daily Record.
But the Nazis retreated as the Allies continued to advance, and Judith and her family were abandoned during a march to a mountain camp in 1945.
With the war over, Judith put her bilingualism in English and German to work as a translator at British military headquarters. It was here she met Harold Rosenberg, a Jewish artillery soldier from Glasgow, Scotland.
“He sat down beside me and really, after that, he never left my side," Judith told the Daily Record.
Her family left to return to Hungary, but Judith stayed behind to marry Harold, though the two had to wait months for the approval of Field Marshall Bernanrd Montgomery, who had to personally authorize marriages. He agreed, and the two were married in April 1946 in the city of Warburg.
It was the first celebration the war-torn city had in a long time, with a huge effort having been put in by everyone. A wedding suit was made from funeral cloth, the cake was made by nuns and the wedding feast was put together by local deer and champagne found by US soldiers.
The two moved back to Glasgow and lived together happily for decades, until Harold's death on Yom Kippur in 2005 in the arms of his wife.
In recent years, far-right ideology has been on the rise in Europe, with a notable rising wave of antisemitism sparking numerous incidents across the continent.
And yet, despite the many parallels some draw between modern far-right extremism and the Nazi regime, Judith remains optimistic.
“After the war I felt that though Hitler was bad to me, not all Germans were bad," she told the Daily Record.
“When I was a child, my father taught me, that all people are equal, that it doesn’t matter who or what race they are, they are just people.
“I think we should all remember that. If we do, then I am not pessimistic.”


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