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Ruth Barnett — Daughter of a Survivor

Ruth tells the story of her mother, Irene Levin, who was born Josepha Weil in 1927. Josepha was the child of a large, prosperous, secular family in the Sudetenland, a German corridor of western Czechoslovakia. When Josepha was 11 years old, her father died. By December 1941, Josepha, her mother Irena, and stepfather Georg, were deported to Terezin, where they were imprisoned for over two years. Deportation to Auschwitz and slave labor at a subcamp called Christianstadt followed. In January 1945, with the Russians advancing, Josepha and her mother were forced on a death march, which spanned 200 miles in ice and snow. Then they were loaded into a cattle car to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, where Irena died. The British liberated Bergen-Belsen in April 1945. After several months of recovery from typhus, Josepha returned to Prague. Only Georg and one cousin returned. In 1947, Josepha immigrated to America and adopted her mother’s name, Irene. In 1949, Irene met and married her husband, Joe Levin, and raised three children. In 2017, Joe died, and Irene relocated to Mason, Ohio from Hammond, Indiana. Irene died in 2020. Ruth is a retired quality assurance professional.

This program is brought to you in collaboration with The Center for Holocaust and Humanity Education through The Nancy and David Wolf Holocaust and Humanity Center.