Three Babies Born in Nazi Camps in April 1945 Turn 80

Eva Clarke, Hana Berger-Moran and Mark Olsky were born in April 1945 to mothers who concealed their pregnancies from Nazi guards at Auschwitz and later gave birth under extreme conditions on a train and at Mauthausen concentration camp.

CBS News reported that the three are among the youngest known Holocaust survivors. Their mothers—Anka from Czechoslovakia, Priska from Czechoslovakia and Rachel from Poland—were sent to Auschwitz in 1944 while newly pregnant.

Each woman denied being pregnant when questioned by Josef Mengele. All three were then transferred to a slave-labor camp in Freiberg, Saxony. More than 1,000 women prisoners worked 12-hour shifts in a converted porcelain factory in Freiberg manufacturing parts for German fighter planes.

Prisoners received ersatz coffee in the morning, thin soup and a tiny piece of bread each day. The three mothers never met one another in the camps. Hana Berger-Moran was born on the factory floor in Freiberg on a plank across a table while guards watched and placed bets on the baby’s sex.

Thirty-six hours later, the prisoners and newborn were loaded onto open coal wagons for a 16-day journey with no food and hardly any water. She weighed under 70 pounds and was nine months pregnant when placed in the sick car.

Mark Olsky was born on Hitler’s birthday. Anka went into labor as the train reached Mauthausen on April 29, 1945. The gas chambers at Mauthausen had last been used the previous day. Anka, Rachel and Priska survived at Mauthausen with their infants for almost a week after arrival.

Hana had infected sores all over her body at Mauthausen. Leroy “Pete” Petersohn, a 22-year-old medic from Illinois in the 11th Armored Division, treated her wounds with penicillin. Petersohn had been drafted in 1942, survived a jeep explosion and fought in the Battle of the Bulge before his unit liberated the camp.