Hana Berger Moran was born in April 1945 in Freiberg, a concentration camp in Germany. Her mother, Priska, had been pregnant when she was deported to Auschwitz in 1944.
Miraculously, Priska managed not only to survive but also to stay pregnant. Two days after Hana’s birth, the two were sent by train to Mauthausen in Austria where, emaciated and suffering from a severe infection, Hana and her mother were later liberated by US 11th Armored Division soldiers.
Hana donated to the Museum her family’s collection of artifacts from the Holocaust, including photographs, a bonnet, and her tiny shirt that women at a concentration camp sewed out of salvaged cloth scraps.
Artifacts like these play an irreplaceable role in teaching the history of the Holocaust, says Hana: “Nothing jolts the memory and leads to understanding like a physical object that is familiar to you.”
Photo: A shirt and photographs that Hana Berger Moran donated to the Museum. US Holocaust Memorial Museum