My Story

Book excerpt: Lola Taubman was born in 1925 in the Carpathian Mountains (then Czechoslovakia). Life was rich in her extended Jewish family, part of a community with citizens from many backgrounds, where multiple languages were common currency, and education mingled with the joys and games of youth. By the late 1930s, anti-Semitism grew, and communities were disrupted. In May 1944, Lola and her family, and the remaining Jews from her town, were sent to Auschwitz. Lola was chosen to work; her immediate family perished. In January 1945, as the allies approached, the Nazis moved her, with many others from Auschwitz, on a series of death marches. Life as a DP followed, with a 4-year struggle to emigrate to the U.S. Arriving in New York in 1949, she later relocated to the Detroit area, where she married Sam Taubman and raised a family. Since the mid-1990s, she has been an inspiring speaker about her Holocaust experiences. Now, she shares her amazing story with us in this moving narrative of her life's journey.