Maya Lee: 'My mother never finished telling her Holocaust story—so I’m telling it for her'
rowing up the child of two Auschwitz survivors, I was only mildly aware of my mother’s and father’s Holocaust experiences. Mum was an incredibly positive person. She managed to survive and live a fulfilling life despite the pain and mental stress of. My mother didn’t allow her experience to impact my sister and myself, and we grew up unburdened by the tragic times she lived through.
After the war, the women who held functionary roles at Auschwitz were often perceived as Kapos, who were in charge of working labor groups within and outside the Auschwitz complex, notoriously known for their brutality and cruelty. And as one of the few survivors who were up close to the murderous, evil commanders and guards, my mother—who was anything but cruel—was often approached by historians, academics, teachers and writers.
Unbeknownst to the rest of the family or me, she decided to write her own story. She had previously provided videoto Yad Vashem in Jerusalem; the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C.; the Melbourne Jewish Holocaust Centre; and the Shoah Foundation. Then, by 2002, when she was 86, she began writing and rewriting her story by hand. The following year she took the manuscript to be transcribed and printed into a small book.
The material, however, was available. I started from that article, which provided a firsthand account of my mother’s role as prisoner functionary. I searched through other articles, as well as every letter and oral testimony Mum had done. I found testimonies from many survivors who were in Auschwitz-Birkenau with my mother and mentioned what she did for them and how she was able to save many of their families.
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