By the time Yona Dickmann arrived at Mauthausen concentration camp, she had lost her entire immediate family. By the time Yona Dickmann arrived at Mauthausen concentration camp, she had lost her entire immediate family.


By the time Yona Dickmann arrived at Mauthausen concentration camp, she had lost her entire immediate family. The Nazis persecuted and murdered her parents and three younger siblings over the course of more than five years. 

During this time, Yona survived two ghettos, selection at Auschwitz, and forced labor in a factory where she and her aunt Hela assembled parts for military aircraft. When the Allies began bombing the factory, Yona and Hela were loaded onto freight trains. 

“In the end they brought us to Mauthausen,” remembered Yona. “My aunt was very weak. She said, ‘Leave me here.' So I started to cry. I said, ‘No, you have to go. We have to walk.’”

Yona and Hela survived the next several days with little food and water amid lethally overcrowded conditions. They were liberated by the US Army On thisDay in 1945. They were two of the 197,464 prisoners to pass through Mauthausen. At least 95,000 prisoners died in the camp. 

Yona later reflected, “I hope it never will happen again—that people will speak up, they won’t hate each other.”

Photo: USHMM, courtesy of Yona Dickmann

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