Halina Birenbaum survived the Warsaw Ghetto, Majdanek, Auschwitz, the death march, and Ravensbrück. She lost her parents and brothers in the gas chambers of Treblinka and Majdanek. Nevertheless, she never stopped believing that even in an SS officer, one could see a human being capable of changing his mind and choosing not to kill.
Interrupted Childhood
Halina’s parents had big plans for her. Maybe she would become a lawyer, maybe a doctor like her older brother. Born in 1929 in Warsaw as the youngest of three children of Jakub Grynsztajn and Pola née Kijewska, Halina had a bright future ahead of her. All this collapsed in September 1939, when the German occupation shattered the entire family’s dreams.
The Grynsztajn home soon found itself within the boundaries of the Warsaw Ghetto. Ten-year-old Halina did not yet understand the cruel rules of war. She couldn’t grasp that, in this new world, survival of oneself—not others—was paramount. She used to regularly bring potatoes to a beggar woman on Nalewki street, until her mother caught her. The ban was strict, because by tomorrow her own family might go hungry.
Her family desperately tried to stay together. In a world where every day could be the last, closeness gave them strength to fight on. Sharing a meager piece of bread, seeing the relief in the eyes of a loved one—this was all they had left.
The dreaded moment eventually arrived. Halina watched as Jewish policemen beat her father and pushed him onto a train bound for Treblinka. That was the last time she saw him. She and her mother managed to escape, hiding in a sewer during a roundup. Her mother kept telling her that there would still be time to board the train if necessary. She didn’t believe the fairytales of being sent to work and did all she could to delay their fate.
In time, Halina was separated from her siblings. She remained with her mother, who was her whole world. Together, they were taken to Majdanek, and the only comfort for Halina was that her mother was with her in the cattle car. But that closeness did not last. Her mother did not survive the selection and died in the gas chamber. Halina, a teenager who had just lost her entire family, was utterly alone.
Halina’s brothers did not survive either. They died in the extermination camp at Treblinka, just like their father. In just a few months, Halina lost everyone she loved.
Auschwitz and the Struggle for the Will to Live
At Auschwitz, where she soon found herself, Halina experienced the unexpected. Amid unimaginable cruelty, some women tried to care for her. They shared bits of food and arranged for her to work in slightly better conditions. Especially important was Hela, who became a surrogate family member to the orphaned girl.
When Hela left, Halina completely lost her will to survive. She no longer had anyone left to live for. As she later recalled, in Auschwitz, having someone close gave you the strength to survive another day. Loneliness meant surrendering your spirit.
Perhaps it was this temporary loss of will to live that led to Halina being shot near the end of her time in the camp. In the hospital ward, selections were no longer conducted; instead, the Germans would simply kill the wounded. She survived by a miracle—just as she had previously evaded selection for medical experiments by sheer luck.
Coming of Age During the Holocaust
Halina’s attitude towards her tormentors was astonishing. She kept reminding herself that they were not rain, impossible to stop, but people, and people can always change their minds. She did not see only murderers in the SS men. She saw human beings, who might also choose not to kill. Perhaps this philosophy helped her survive.
Yet, she witnessed horrors beyond the limits of imagination. She saw children being given sleeping pills or suffocated to keep their crying from betraying the hiding places of adults. It was a world of reversed values, where the cry of a baby meant certain death for hundreds. In a normal world, children are protected above all else. There, they were the greatest threat.
But even in that abyss of darkness, rays of light appeared. Unexpected help from strangers, solidarity among fellow prisoners, and even love. If she had not been shot, Halina would never have met Abram, a medic who became her hope for the future.
Halina’s story is also one of coming of age under unimaginable trauma. When she got her first period in the ghetto, she ran to her mother, certain she was dying. Her mother gave her a slap and a smile—a sign Halina was becoming a woman. After that, she coped alone, using notebook paper for padding that cut her legs because there was not even any toilet paper.
She bound her breasts with rags to hide their growth from her father and brothers—the family lived in a single room, after all. When she finally needed a bra, she put it on so the men wouldn’t see. These were the problems of any teenager but set against a backdrop where every day could be the last.
In the camps, the nakedness of emaciated female bodies became a daily reality. Hygiene was non-existent. Wiping with a scrap of torn blouse was a luxury. Prisoners did not menstruate because, as Halina recalled, the soup was laced with bromide.
The Road to Freedom and a New Life
After Auschwitz, Halina endured a death march in January 1945 that led to Wodzisław Śląski. From there, she was transported to Ravensbrück and in February to Neustadt-Glewe. Only in May 1945 did the Red Army bring her freedom. She was not even sixteen, with experiences behind her that could have broken any adult.
Two years later, in 1947, antisemitism drove her from Poland. She emigrated to Israel, married Chaim Birenbaum, and had two sons. Until the end of 1950, she worked in a kibbutz. But her true mission became sharing her story with Israeli, Polish, and German youth.
Halina’s writing—both prose and poetry—focuses on life and death under German occupation in Poland and the martyrdom of Polish Jews in ghettos and extermination camps. She writes in both Polish and Hebrew, and her works have been translated into many languages, including English, French, German, Japanese, and Spanish.
She has received numerous honors for her work. In 1999, President Aleksander Kwaśniewski awarded her the Officer’s Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta. In 2001, the Polish Council of Christians and Jews named her the Person of Reconciliation. In 2015, she was awarded the title 'Meritorious for Warsaw,’ and in 2018, honorary citizenship of the city.
Margot Cleverly
Margot's journey into women's history began with a box of forgotten letters in a Cambridge archive – suffragettes whose voices had been silenced for over a century. Since then, she's been on a mission to uncover the stories history overlooked.
What she writes about: Queens who ruled from the shadows. Scientists whose male colleagues took credit. Revolutionaries who risked everything. But also ordinary women – those who survived wars, raised families through upheaval, and shaped their communities in ways no one bothered to record.
Margot turns historical figures into real people. She writes with warmth and detail, making centuries-old stories feel surprisingly relevant. Rigorous research meets accessible storytelling – no dusty academic jargon, just compelling narratives backed by solid facts.
When she's not writing, you'll find her in regional archives, collecting oral histories, or visiting sites connected to the women she writes about.