Edith Brandmann

Edith Fuhrmann Brandmann (F / Romania, 1931)

• <Ukraina> <Hidden Children> -- <United States>
• <USHMM>

NOTES : Born September 11, 1931 in Kriesciatik, Romania

USHMM's ID Card

Edith's village of Kriesciatik was located on the border between Romania and Poland. Her Jewish parents owned a large ranch where they raised cattle and grew sugar beets. They also owned a grocery store. Edith had a brother, Jacob, and a sister, Martha. At home the family spoke Yiddish and German, and Edith learned Romanian after she began school.

1933-39: Edith's village was by a river, and she spent summer days by the water with her friends, swimming and playing. Her mother would pack her bread and butter sandwiches and cherries. Sometimes she would go to the forest with her best friend, Fritzie, to pick wild strawberries and flowers. During Easter, Edith's parents made sure that they stayed inside because the local peasants would get drunk and sometimes attacked Jews, blaming them for killing Jesus.

1940-44: In 1940, a year after the war began, Romania became Germany's ally. Edith was 9 when Romanian police expelled the Jews from her village and sent them, on foot, to a place in Ukraine where Jews were concentrated. Edith and the others were brought to a huge barracks where there were thousands of Jews. Nothing seemed organized. They learned that every day, 1,000 Jews were rounded up and sent to Ukrainian ghettos. When Edith's father heard about this, he told them to stall until he could arrange their escape.

Edith's family spent more than three years sheltered by Jewish families in a Ukrainian village, and they survived the war. In 1959 Edith immigrated to America.