by Dr. Gideon Greiff

On 10 January 1945, eight days before the evacuation of Auschwitz, Fella Allon (then Rosenberg), turned 14. At that time Fella and her mother Zusha, both Warsaw natives, were prisoners in the women’s camp at Auschwitz. Despite the harsh reality in which she was living, Fella nevertheless harbored a glimmer of hope that she and her mother would live to see the day of liberation. The female prisoners had been transferred from Birkenau to the Auschwitz parent camp several weeks earlier, resulting in a slight improvement in their living conditions.

Now a widowed mother of three living in Israel, Fella remembers the day vividly. “January 10th was a day of such optimism,” she recalls. “We were in our block early one evening, having returned from working at the Union factory, when three older women—good friends of my mother—suddenly came up to me. ‘It’s your birthday, Fella,’ they said, ‘and we have a little surprise for you.’ I was completely astounded. They handed me a lovely, colorful postcard, with warm ‘Happy Birthday’ wishes written in German. My joy was boundless, especially since the postcard was so colorful. Of course the optimistic message written on it— the hope that we would stay alive—filled me and my mother with the desire to struggle until the end, up to the very last moment.”

Fella clearly remembers the women who gave her the present, but their fate remains unknown to her. She cherished the postcard more dearly than gold, and managed to preserve it from harm during the odyssey upon which she and her mother embarked after leaving Auschwitz on 18 January 1945: the Malchow camp, the “Death March,” the return to Poland after the war to search for Fella’s father, and the tortuous path to Eretz Yisrael.

The colorful postcard stayed in her possession for many years, accompanying her through all stages of her life’s journey. Occasionally she removed it from its album, showing it to astonished family and close friends. But it remained in Fella’s hands until last year, when the author of this article interviewed her as part of his research on the Majdanek concentration camp. At the end of the interview, almost as an afterthought, Fella mentioned the postcard and retrieved it from one of her drawers. Immediately after the interview, the author contacted staff at Yad Vashem’s Archives. “At first it was hard for me to believe the postcard was an original,” recalls Naomi Halpern, the Archive’s Deputy Director. “This is because of its varied colors and the unusual way in which the date 10 January 1945 was recorded—with the numbers written the opposite way to what we are used to seeing.”

Fella is content with her decision to place her rare and special birthday gift in the care of Yad Vashem: “I am happy that the postcard is in Yad Vashem,” she says with a broad smile. “Now many more people can see the object that gave me and my mother so much hope during the final days of the Auschwitz death camp.”

Best wishes for Your Birthday

Fella’s Birthday!

For your birthday we wish you all the best and nicest wishes.
You are not a child anymore; you now enter into adulthood.
It should be full of happiness and sunshine for you.

Unfortunately you couldn’t fully enjoy your childhood, you had to bear a lot.
But the sun will shine for you again.
Therefore keep your chin up, little girl and don’t cry too much.
After all, you are very lucky to have your mother by your side, that is the best present.
Shared pain is half pain, and after pain comes double the amount of happiness.
Keep being a good child to your mother, and you’ll see time goes by.
Everything has an end, everything passes by, and for your next birthday we will all be free.
So once again, all the best for you,
Titji, Lia, Anja

Auschwitz, 1.10.1945

The author is a historian and an educator at the International School for Holocaust Studies.

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