Olga Lengyel
Olga Lengyel was a Romanian-born Jewish Holocaust survivor who wrote about her experiences in the Nazi concentration camp at Auschwitz. Born in Transylvania, Romania, she was a trained surgical assistant and helped operate a hospital with her husband, a physician. In 1944, she and her family were deported by the Nazis to Auschwitz, where she lost her husband, parents, and two sons.
During her time in Auschwitz, Olga witnessed and endured unspeakable horrors, which she later detailed in her memoir 'Five Chimneys: A Woman Survivor's True Story of Auschwitz'. Her book is considered one of the earliest and most brutally honest accounts of life inside the concentration camps, focusing particularly on the experiences of women. Olga's detailed descriptions provide a significant contribution to the historical record of the Holocaust.
After the war, Olga Lengyel emigrated to the United States, where she continued to educate people about the Holocaust. She founded the Memorial Library in New York City, dedicated to Holocaust education, and worked tirelessly to ensure that the horrors of the Holocaust were not forgotten. Her efforts in education and remembrance have left a lasting legacy in the field of Holocaust studies.