Hadassa Broder, a resident of Będzin, did not survive the Holocaust. Born in 1917, Hadassa was the fourth of six children. She came from a well-to-do family that lived at 52 Malachowski Street. The family ran a shop selling tobacco and stationery.
Hadassa and her family followed the Orthodox practice in Judaism. All six children attended religious school. Hadassa’s brother Eli often clashed with his very orthodox father over his love for sports. Following the Nazi invasion of Poland, Hadassa and her family were moved into the ghetto along with the Jewish community. In 1941, Hadassa married Dawid Schlezynger, also from Będzin, and they lived in the Kamionka ghetto.
In 1942, Hadassa and Dawid’s son Nachum was born. He too did not survive. In 1943, the ghetto was liquidated and all Jews, including Hadassa and her husband, were deported to Auschwitz. There is no additional information on either Hadassa or her husband after their deportation, and little to no record of them exists in the archives of the International Tracing Service (ITS). It is assumed that Hadassa and her husband were killed in Auschwitz [see map]. Only one of her siblings, her brother Eli, survived the Holocaust.
We know about Hadassa only through the testimony of Eli, quoted in:
Before They Perished: Photographs Found in Auschwitz (2001)