Sylvia Weiner (born 1930) was the first woman to ever win the Boston Marathon's women's masters division, which she did in 1975, at age 44 with a time of 3:21:38. [1]
She is a Holocaust survivor, born in Poland, taken from her family at age twelve in 1942 and sent to three concentration camps during the next two years. [1] [2] She went to Majdanek, Auschwitz, and then Bergen-Belsen. [3] In Bergen-Belsen she befriended Anne Frank, and was with her on the day that she died. [3]
She was living in Montreal when she joined a YMHA because membership was required to enroll her daughter in the YMHA's nursery school. [1] There she took a fitness course which became a running class. [1] Later she joined a small, otherwise-all-male running group called the Wolf Pack after its leader, Wolf Bronet, who was also a Holocaust survivor. [1] She ran the Boston Marathon for the first time in 1974, with a time of 3:47. [1] Her best marathon time was a 3:15 at the Skylon Marathon in Buffalo in 1976. [1] At the Advil Mini Marathon 10K in Central Park, she won her age group one year, and finished second in the mother-daughter division with her daughter Debbie; in 2014 she won her division in the Leaf Peepers 5K in Waterbury, Vermont, in 48:36. [1]
Bergen-Belsen, or Belsen, was a Nazi concentration camp in what is today Lower Saxony in northern Germany, southwest of the town of Bergen near Celle. Originally established as a prisoner of war camp, in 1943, parts of it became a concentration camp. Initially this was an "exchange camp", where Jewish hostages were held with the intention of exchanging them for German prisoners of war held overseas. The camp was later expanded to hold Jews from other concentration camps.
Annelies MarieFrank was a German-born Jewish girl who kept a diary in which she documented life in hiding under Nazi persecution. She is a celebrated diarist who described everyday life from her family hiding place in an Amsterdam attic. One of the most-discussed Jewish victims of the Holocaust, she gained fame posthumously with the 1947 publication of The Diary of a Young Girl, in which she documents her life in hiding from 1942 to 1944, during the German occupation of the Netherlands in World War II. It is one of the world's best-known books and has been the basis for several plays and films.
The Attic: The Hiding of Anne Frank is a 1988 television film directed by John Erman. It is based on Miep Gies's 1988 book Anne Frank Remembered. The film was broadcast as part of an ad hoc network, Kraft Golden Showcase Network. Playwright William Hanley received an Emmy for his script.
Ceija Stojka was an Austrian Romani writer, painter, activist, and musician, and survivor of the Holocaust.
Lucille Eichengreen was a survivor of the Łódź (Litzmannstadt) Ghetto and the Nazi German concentration camps of Auschwitz, Neuengamme and Bergen-Belsen. She moved to the United States in 1946, married, had two sons and worked as an insurance agent. In 1994, she published From Ashes to Life: My Memories of the Holocaust. She frequently lectured on the Holocaust at libraries, schools and universities in the U.S. and Germany. She took part in a documentary from the University of Giessen on life in the Ghetto, for which she was awarded an honorary doctorate.
Marion's Triumph is a 2003 documentary film that tells the story of Marion Blumenthal Lazan, a child Holocaust survivor, who recounts her painful childhood memories in order to preserve history. The film combines rare historic footage, animated flashbacks, and family photographs to illustrate the horrors she experienced. It is narrated by Debra Messing.
Hannah Elisabeth Pick-Goslar was a German-born Israeli nurse and Holocaust survivor best known for her close friendship with writer Anne Frank. The girls attended the 6th Montessori School in Amsterdam and then the Jewish Lyceum. They met again at Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Goslar and her young sister were the only family members who survived the war, being rescued from the Lost Train. Both emigrated to Israel, where Hannah worked as a nurse for children. They shared their memories as eyewitnesses of the Holocaust.
Marianne "Janny" Brandes-Brilleslijper was a Dutch Holocaust survivor and one of the last people to see Anne Frank. She is the sister of singer Lin Jaldati. Both Brandes-Brilleslijper and Jaldati were in the Westerbork, Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen concentration camps with Anne and Anne's older sister Margot Frank.
Toshiko D'Elia was an American Masters athletics long distance running legend. She was a member of the 1996 inaugural class of the Masters division of the USATF National Track and Field Hall of Fame. She holds numerous American long distance running records, primarily in the W75 age division.
Berthe Meijer was a Dutch Holocaust survivor and author. In her memoir of her time imprisoned in Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, she wrote of knowing Anne Frank, which was corroborated by other camp survivors. She was also a culinary journalist and published a cookbook.
Rywka Lipszyc was a Polish-born Jewish diarist and Holocaust survivor. She was deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp followed by a transfer to Gross-Rosen and forced labor at its subcamp in Christianstadt. She was then taken on a death march to Bergen-Belsen, and was liberated there in April 1945. Too ill to be evacuated, she was transferred to a hospital at Niendorf, where the record of her life ended.
Tomáš "Tomi" Reichental, is a Holocaust survivor. He was born in Czechoslovakia in 1935 to Jewish farmers and lived with his family on their farm until he was the age of eight. At this age laws started coming in that prohibited the movement and rights of Jewish people and that is when he and his family went into hiding. He, his mother, his brother, and his grandmother were caught and taken to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in 1944 where they remained until the camp was liberated by the British in 1945. More than 30 members of his family were killed during the Holocaust.
Hetty Esther Verolme is an Australian writer, educator and Holocaust survivor. She now lives in Australia. She has written about her experiences as a child in Bergen-Belsen, and is a founding trustee of Children of Belsen and the Holocaust Trust.
Lieutenant-Colonel Leonard Berney was a British soldier who was one of the first British officers at the liberation of Bergen-Belsen. He also testified in the Belsen trial.
Lin Jaldati was a Dutch-born, East German-based Yiddish singer. She was a Holocaust survivor, and one of the last people to see Anne Frank. After the war she published an article, "Memories of Anne Frank," in Joachim Hellwig and Günther Deicke's book A Diary for Anne Frank. A self-professed socialist, she performed in Yiddish in the Soviet Union, China, North Korea and Vietnam from the 1950s to the 1970s.
Nanette Konig-Blitz is a Bergen-Belsen concentration camp survivor and former classmate of Anne Frank. She has lived in São Paulo, Brazil since 1953. In 2015, she published a book about being a Belsen survivor called Eu Sobrevivi ao Holocausto. On Holocaust Memorial Day 26 January 2018, Nanette's book was published in English with the title Holocaust Memoirs of a Bergen-Belsen Survivor & Classmate of Anne Frank.
Gena Turgel was a Jewish Polish author, educator, and Holocaust survivor.
Mirjam Finkelstein was a Holocaust survivor and educator. Born in Berlin, Germany, to Alfred Wiener, a Jewish activist and founder of the Wiener Library for the Study of the Holocaust and Genocide, her family moved to Amsterdam in 1933. There she grew up in the same community as Anne Frank and they knew each other as children.
Annelies is a 2019 novel by David R. Gillham, which has a depiction of Anne Frank surviving her term in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp and reuniting with her father, Otto Frank.