In the final months of World War II, Lola Kantorovich did her best to hide her pregnancy. It worked, almost to the end, because most of the prisoners in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp had stomachs bloated and distended from prolonged hunger.
When she went into labor, in March 1945, the Russians were advancing through Germany, and Bergen-Belsen was in utter chaos. Her daughter, Ilana, was born on March 20, 29 days before the British liberated the camp.
Ilana Kantorovich Shalem, now 81, is one of the youngest Holocaust survivors. She only survived because she was born near the end of the war, when the German leadership was in disarray. Now, more than eight decades after the Holocaust ended, Shalem has begun sharing her story, realizing that there are few Holocaust survivors left to bear witness.
International Holocaust Remembrance Day is observed around the world on January 27, which commemorates the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the most famous death camp where some 1.1 million people were killed, most of them Jews.
The United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution in 2005 establishing International Holocaust Remembrance Day as an annual observance.
About 6 million European Jews and millions of other people, including Poles, Roma, people with disabilities, and LGBT people, were murdered by the Nazis and their collaborators. About 1.5 million were children.
This year’s commemorations are being held amid a rise in anti-Semitism that gained momentum during the two-year war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.
Shalem’s parents met when they were teenagers in a ghetto in Poland.
After spending several years in the ghetto under hard working conditions, including the loss of family members, they were transferred through several camps, where they were able to continue meeting in secret for several months.
Ultimately, the couple separated. Hirsch would ultimately die on a death march just days before the war ended.
Lola spent time in Auschwitz and completed the death march to Bergen-Belsen while pregnant. “If they found out she was pregnant, they would have killed her,” Shalem said.
“She hid her pregnancy from everyone, including her friends, because she didn’t want the extra attention or for anyone to give her their food,” Shalem said.
To this day, Shalem has no explanation for how her mother survived the camp conditions and instead gave birth to a healthy baby boy.
Mother and daughter spent a month in Bergen-Belsen camp before the British liberated it, then two years in a nearby refugee camp.
They then moved to Israel, where her father’s parents had moved before the war. For years, her mother hoped that her father would survive. She never married again or had additional children.
In the months immediately following the war, Ilana, one of the only children in the camp, was constantly worried.
Black-and-white photos from the time show a beaming Ilana surrounded by a cadre of adults. Shalem remembers her mother’s friends speaking of her as a “new seed” and a ray of hope during a dark time.
She is not aware of any other children born in Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. On a research trip, the museum in Bergen-Belsen was able to find documentation of her birth. Children born in the camps who survived are considered a rare phenomenon, according to Yad Vashem archivist Sima Velkovich.
Lola Kantorovich died in 1991.
Shalem, a social worker, began asking her mother questions while at university, when exploring survivors’ experiences was still taboo in Israeli society.
Many survivors were trying to forget what happened. Ilana’s mother often faced disbelief when she shared her story of giving birth at camp, so she stopped sharing it widely.
Shalem has never shared her mother’s story publicly. Last year, I completed a genealogy course at Yad Vashem, and realized how fewer and fewer Holocaust survivors remained to share their stories.
According to the Claims Conference, which handles the financial claims of Holocaust victims against Germany, there are approximately 196,600 Holocaust survivors still alive, half of whom live in Israel. Nearly 25,000 Holocaust survivors died last year. The average age of Holocaust survivors is 87 years.
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