The Rucksack That Haya Rosenbaum (née Prywes) Took from a Pile of Clothes in Birkenau Before the Death March
Haya Prywes was born in 1929 in Sosnowiec in the Zaglebie region, Poland
On the 2nd of August 1943, during the liquidation of the Sosnowiec ghetto, she was deported, together with her parents Zelig and Hadasa and her brother Yosef to Auschwitz. Her father was murdered immediately upon arrival. Her brother's fate is unknown.Haya and her mother, who had pretended to be her sister, passed the selection and were sent to the women's camp near crematorium no. 4 in Birkenau. They worked sorting clothes and preparing rags from those that were not fit to be sent to Germany.
When the camp was evacuated they set out on the death march. The Germans allowed them to equip themselves with clothes and bags. This bag was among the items that they took. During the march, Haya and her mother threw most of the things that they had taken and just this bag was left.
Haya and Hadassah survived the war and immigrated to Eretz Israel in 1947 via the detention camps in Cyprus.
During their first years in Israel the rucksack served the family on outings and Haya's daughter wrote her name on it in Hebrew.
Yad Vashem Artifacts Collection, Gift of Haya Rosenbaum (née Prywes), Ramat Gan, Israel
