Irene Weiss (b. 1930) was thirteen when she arrived at Auschwitz-Birkenau with her family. Most of her relatives died in the gas chambers on the first day.
From Normalcy to the Ghetto
Irene Fogel grew up in a small town on the Czechoslovak-Ukrainian border, where her father ran a sawmill. The family was large – six children, stable financial situation, life according to Jewish tradition. The late thirties brought the first restrictions when the region came under Hungarian control and anti-Semitic laws were introduced.
The real nightmare began in the mid-forties when Germany occupied Hungary. Within weeks, the Fogel family’s life was reduced to a struggle for survival. Yellow stars, expropriations, prohibition of free movement – these were only preliminary stages. Irene’s father had earlier been conscripted into labor brigades, where Jews performed forced labor for the Hungarian army. He returned weakened but alive.
In the spring of 1944, Hungarian authorities gathered thousands of Jews in the ghetto in Munkács. The Fogel family found themselves in a brick factory warehouse, without basic sanitary conditions, crowded with hundreds of other people. This was a transitional phase – waiting for transport that would take them into the unknown. No one said explicitly where they were going, but everyone knew nothing good awaited them.
Auschwitz: Selection and Separation
The transport to Auschwitz-Birkenau ended at the railway ramp in early summer 1944. That’s where the family was separated within minutes. Men in one direction, women and children in another. German SS officers conducted selections – a quick glance, a hand gesture, a decision about life or death. There was no time for goodbyes, no explanations.
Irene’s mother and three younger siblings were directed to the gas chambers. They died the same day, probably within hours of arrival. Irene and her older sister Serena were selected for work – young and healthy enough to be useful to the camp machinery. Their father ended up in the Sonderkommando, a unit of prisoners forced to remove bodies from the gas chambers. This was work that guaranteed death – if not from exhaustion, then from a bullet when you ceased to be productive.
The fate of their older brother remained unknown. He probably died in the camp, but there’s no certainty about the circumstances. This is how the Holocaust machinery worked – families were torn apart in an instant, and the fate of individuals was lost in the chaos of mass extermination. Of the large Fogel family, only two sisters survived.
Work in Canada Section and the Road to Freedom
Irene and Serena spent eight months in the section called Canada – a place where items taken from camp victims were sorted. Clothes, jewelry, documents, mementos – everything people brought with them, believing in promises of resettlement. The work was physically bearable compared to other camp duties, but psychologically devastating. Every sorted item belonged to someone who had just died in the gas chamber.
When the Eastern Front approached Auschwitz in early 1945, the Germans began evacuating the camps. Prisoners were forced on death marches – multi-day treks in the cold, without food, under escort of guards ready to shoot anyone who stopped. The sisters survived the march to Ravensbrück, then ended up in the Neustadt-Glewe subcamp. There one of their aunts died from exhaustion and disease.
During another selection at Ravensbrück, Irene faced a choice – she could be separated from her sister. She asked to stay together. It was a decision that could have cost them their lives, but proved to be salvation. They were placed in a barrack awaiting transport that never arrived. When Soviet troops approached the camp, SS guards fled, leaving the prisoners on their own.
The road to freedom led through Prague, where the sisters found their uncle fighting in Czechoslovak forces alongside the British. Of the large family, only a few people survived. In 1947, thanks to support from Jewish organizations, Irene and Serena emigrated to the United States. Irene started a family, completed her studies, worked as a teacher for over a decade.
For decades she has volunteered at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, passing on her story to future generations. She has children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren – the family she was deprived of in 1944.
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY:
- https://www.ushmm.org/remember/holocaust-survivors/volunteers/irene-fogel-weiss
- https://www.memoryofnations.eu/en/weiss-irene-1930
- https://edition.cnn.com/audio/podcasts/all-there-is-with-anderson-cooper/episodes/fed2614e-7b6c-11ef-993b-9fba1a3d8d2c
- https://medium.com/memory-action/the-moment-she-lost-her-family-captured-in-a-photo-2f765c9158bc
- https://time.com/4373337/nazi-trial-auschwitz-survivor-conviction/
Rory Thornfield
Rory's grandfather left behind a wartime diary filled with accounts of a minor Burma skirmish that history books never mentioned. Reading it, Rory realized: behind every famous battle are dozens of forgotten struggles, each with its own human drama.
His preferred topics: The overlooked corners of military history – secondary campaigns, shadow battalions, local conflicts that never made headlines. From medieval sieges to twentieth-century expeditions, he focuses on the soldiers, not the generals. The people who faced impossible choices and carried those experiences forever.
Rory strips away the romanticism without losing respect for those who served. He combines tactical analysis with personal stories, examining human endurance and moral complexity rather than celebrating warfare. His writing is balanced, thoughtful, and deeply researched.
Outside work, Rory visits forgotten battlefields (now quiet farmland), photographs war memorials nobody tends anymore, and interviews veterans' families.