Bajla Rotner

In September 1941, Bajla & her family (parents, 3 brothers & 2 sisters) were sent to the Olkusz ghetto in the area known as Sikorka. In March 1942 she was separated from the rest of her family and sent to Czekoslovakia, to the Theresienstadt concentration camp. She worked as forced labor and injured her left hand and both knees. On May 8th 1945 Bajla was liberated from Theresiendstadt by the Red Army.

She returned to Olkusz in hopes of finding her family, but they had all been killed, except for 1 uncle. The 2 of them tried to leave Poland on foot, but her uncle was killed by Polish Partisans and Bajla was jailed at the border.

When she was released she went back to Olkusz and then to Sosnowiec, where she met Chaim Rotner, whom she knew from Olkusz. Chaim was older and had been married before the war, during which his wife and children were killed by the Germans.

Bajla and Chaim were married in January 1947 and had 2 children (Alek & Ewa), before the whole family was eventually able to leave Poland in 1969. They traveled to Vienna and then to Rome, where they lived as displaced persons for a year, before finally emigrating to Brooklyn NY in 1970.

After her husband died in 1980, Bajla worked as a cook in the Bookdale Senior Citizens Center for many years before retiring. She lived independently in her Brooklyn apartment until she was 98, and then moved in with her daughter Ewa and her husband Leonard and her grandson Gabriel, to their home in Teaneck, NJ.

Bajla is survived by her son Alek, 3 grandsons, and 2 great-grandchildren