Sarah Bick Berkowitz (1924–2018)

Sarah Bick Berkowitz was born in Łódź, Poland to a Jewish family of Hungarian origin. She grew up speaking German as her first language. Her happy childhood was shattered when she 15 as Nazi Germany invaded her country in World War II. Her father Shlomo Bick died in the Łódź ghetto, and the rest of the family was deported to the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz. Her mother Cypa, sister Mirka, and brother Jacob died there. She began working on her autobiography while still in the camp. Near the end of the war, Sarah was sent to Bergen-Belsen and then to a forced labor camp. She survived the war and went to Sweden to recuperate from typhoid and other physical illnesses. There she met her husband Morris Berkowitz, a Czech survivor of the camps and a furrier by trade. In October 1947, she emigrated to the USA with their first child, and Morris followed seven weeks later when he obtained a visa. They settled in New York City. She wrote two books about her life, Where Are My Brothers? From the Ghetto to the Gas
Chambers, published in 1965, and In Search of
Ashes, published in 1984.