Tova Ginot (née Werzburg) was born in 1924 in Borsa in the Maramureş region, Transylvania. In 1944 the Jews of the city were taken to the Vişeu de Sus Ghetto and two months later sent to Auschwitz. In Auschwitz, Tova was in Block 14 of the women's camp in Birkenau.
After three months imprisonment in Auschwitz, Tova was transferred to Gelsenberg, a sub-camp of Buchenwald in Germany. There she worked together with 2000 Hungarian women, clearing the ruins of the Gelsenberg Benzin AG fuel plant which had been bombed by the Allies.
In summer 1944 about 150 prisoners were killed as a result of further bombing by the Allies. In September 1944 survivors of the bombing, Tova among them, were transferred to Soemmerda, another subcamp of Buchenwald, where they worked in a German weapons factory.
Yad Vashem Artifacts Collection
Gift of Bilah Neufeld, Haifa, Israel