Brandla Small
"Her constant message to her family and to her grandchildren was: Never take your life and your freedoms for granted!"
Name at birth
Brandla Lange
Date of birth
01/24/1914
Where did you grow up?
Bukowa, Stashiv (grandparents lived there). I lived in Lodz as a young adult.
Name of father, occupation
Calmon Lange,
Dealt in animal feed
Maiden name of mother, occupation
Raizel Finekuchen,
Homemaker
Immediate family (names, birth order)
Twelve
How many in entire extended family?
Over 60
Who survived the Holocaust?
Five: Three brothers, Max, Carl, and Motel, and myself and a first cousin, Joe Finer
My mother met her first husband just before they were sent to the Lodz ghetto. They were married there and had a daughter. Her husband was picked up in a round-up one day as he went to work. She never saw him again.
My mother became solely responsible for working and feeding herself and her infant child. It was so difficult for her. The food lines were horribly long, the piecework she did had to be handed in on time, and there were times when she couldn’t feed her child or herself because of the circumstances.
Near the end, the Nazi’s did daily sweeps of the ghetto. The first time they came for the elderly and the sick. The next time they came for the infants and young children. My mother lived on the third floor of an apartment building.
When she found out about the sweep for young children, she managed to hide her daughter by sneaking into an apartment that had already been checked by the Nazi’s and covering herself and her daughter up with the bedclothes, blankets, pillows that had been strewn on the floor.
They survived that sweep. The next day she and many other women were put on a transport to Auschwitz. The train was horrible. As soon as they arrived and got on line, the child was ripped from her arms and thrown to a female SS guard.
She never saw her 3½ year old, baby daughter again.
Name of Ghetto(s)
Name of Concentration / Labor Camp(s)
What DP Camp were you after the war?
Yes, Lager Herzog, Hessisch Lichtenau
Where did you go after being liberated?
Waldenberg, Germany
When did you come to the United States?
1949
Where did you settle?
Detroit, Michigan but first to Akron, Ohio
Occupation after the war
Seamstress
Spouse
Samuel Small,
Tailor
Children
Rose Handleman, small business owner; Joe Small
Grandchildren
Two boys, Justin and Michael Feldman
What do you think helped you to survive?
My mother always told me that she survived because she was emotionally strong. She was motivated by hope to see some of her family again and by sheer hatred of the Nazi’s.
What message would you like to leave for future generations?
Her constant message to her family and to her grandchildren was:
Never take your life and your freedoms for granted!
Interviewer:
Biography given by Rose Handleman, daughter of Samuel and Brandla Small
Interview date:
03/16/2011
Survivor's map
