Manya Frydman Perel

You can easily download and print Manya's biography here (pdf)

Manya Perel's reaction to the June 10, 2009 shooting at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (from myfoxphilly.com).

Manya Perel reunited with Chester Vacca, a Merchant Marine Sailor who helped rescue her (from northeasttimes.com).

Manya Frydman Perel was born in 1924 in Radom, Poland. She was one of ten children. In September 1939, the Nazis invaded Poland and life changed drastically for her family. By spring 1941, her family was forced into the Radom ghetto, where she nearly starved and witnessed routine killings.
Manya then spent the next several years in different concentration camps, including Ravensbrück, Plaszow, Rechlin, Gundelsdorf, and Auschwitz. She performed hard labor and continued to starve.
In 1945, during a death march from Auschwitz, Manya, exhausted and starving, knew she could not walk much further, so she took an opportunity to flee into the woods. During the next three days, she hid in the woods as the Soviet army bombed German positions close by. Russian soldiers later rescued her.
Once liberated, Manya was amazed to learn that her four sisters and one brother also survived the war. Her three surviving sisters also spent the war in concentration camps performing hard labor. Manya’s remaining brother had fled to Argentina previously. In July 1945, she and other camp survivors were taken to a displaced-persons camp in Stuttgart, Germany. It was at that camp that Manya was reunited with her surviving sisters. She used her time in the camp to recuperate, while waiting for her turn to travel to North America. Today, Manya donates her time telling school groups about the atrocities she experienced and witnessed during the Holocaust.