Born
into a rabbinical family in Poland, as a teenager at the University of
Warsaw, Sara ardently took up the Communist cause. Her political
activism -delivering a letter- landed her in prison at seventeen.
During WWII, as a prisoner in Auschwitz, her job was being the
infamous Dr.Mengele’s aide in the Auschwitz infirmary. In post-war Poland, she was a
journalist and government official until 1965 when, anticipating her own
purging, resigned her membership in the Party and departed Poland.
Wolf Krakowski met Sara in 1974 and, through his close relationship
with her older son Jerzy, became part of the family. Sara had not spoken
Yiddish since the War; it was their best common language, by far. Wolf
recorded Sara in 1986. Her book, Auschwitz: True Tales From A Grotesque
Land (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press) was published in
1985.
