Erna Leibler

Erna Leibler was born in Berlin on 26 May 1926. Her parents were the merchant David Meir Leibler and his wife Malka, who had moved to Berlin from Poland after World War I, met there and married in 1922. Erna had two siblings, her brother Max, born in 1923, and her sister Rita, born in 1932. The family last lived in Gipsstraße in Berlin-Mitte, in a neighbourhood where many Jews lived.
After attending a Jewish kindergarten, Erna went to a municipal primary school, where she had her first experience of the exclusion of Jews after the Nazis seized power. After the second grade, she therefore transferred to a Jewish school that had set up additional classes for Jewish pupils who had attended state schools.
The family's life changed dramatically in October 1938, when Jewish men with Polish citizenship were arrested and deported to Poland. The father was first taken to a camp and later transported to the German-Polish border, from where he went to Oswiecim / Auschwitz, where Malka's family lived. Max had gone to Oswiecim to visit his grandparents immediately after his father's arrest. Malka and the two daughters were left alone in Berlin. The mother tried to earn money to ensure survival. Twelve-year-old Erna had to run the household. After nine months, in the summer of 1939, mother and daughters received entry visas for Poland and also moved to Oswiecim.
One of Malka's sisters had emigrated to Palestine in 1936 and had submitted applications for children of her relatives in Europe as part of an emigration programme for Jewish children. The application for Erna was the only one that was approved. He had been sent to Berlin and from there back to Jerusalem, as the Leiblers no longer lived in Berlin. With a great deal of courage and effort, Malka managed to get Erna to leave anyway. The entry permit was sent to Geneva. The journey by ship was to be made from Trieste. Malka went to Berlin and with great difficulty obtained a visa for Erna at the Italian embassy. Erna said goodbye to all her relatives. Her mother accompanied her to the railway station where Erna and another girl making the same journey boarded the train to Vienna. From Trieste, the ship sailed to Haifa. Erna first lived with her aunt in Kiryat Motzkin. She and her brother Max had managed to escape the Nazi terror.
Erna lived all her life in kibbutz Shluhot in the Beit Shean Valley and she is now (2022) 96 years old.