Libby Flumenbaum (b. Luba Tenenbaum) was born on June 30, 1922 in Łódź, Poland. She was the oldest daughter of Samuel Szmul Tenenbaum and Ruchla Nechuma Szwarcburg Tenenbaum. Luba and her two younger sisters: Hela (Chaja Róza, b. 1925) and Andzia Chana (b. 1927) lived with their parents on 49 Aleje 1-go Maja in Łódź and attended a private Jewish gymnasium for girls “Maria Hochstein School”. Luba graduated in May 1939. On November 1, 1939 the Germans arrested and executed Szmul Tenenbaum together with other Jewish men. Luba’s mother ordered her to go to Lvov, where Luba’s maternal uncle, Itzhak Szwarcburg, lived. Ruchla Tenenbaum hoped that Luba would be able to attend university in Lvov.
On November 22, 1939 Luba started on her journey. At first she went to Warsaw and continued to the Malkinia village, where she stayed for two weeks in an open field, together with many other Jewish refugees. After two weeks the Soviets allowed the refugees to run east. Luba walked to Bialystok and finally on December 6, 1939 she arrived at her uncle’s, in Lvov, on 45 Sobieskiego Street. In June 1940 the Soviet authorities demanded a decision from all refugees whether they want to go back to Poland, accept Soviet citizenship, or stay where they are. Luba registered to go back and to reunite with her family in Łódź. On June 29, 1940 she was forced to board a train, which took her to Svierdlovsk (today – Yekaterinburg) in Siberia. Luba and other refugees were then taken to a labor camp in Soshva (camp number 45) where they worked in a sawmill. Luba befriended Rózia Horn, another refugee and the two girls stayed close together. In August 1942 they were released from the forced labor camp and went to Kermine in Uzbekistan.
Luba worked in an orphanage for Polish and Jewish children there, which was located in Emir’s palace. Luba met and married Lajbisz Leon Flumenbaum in Uzbekistan on October 12, 1945. Leon was born on April 13, 1914 in Zwoleń, Poland. The young couple returned to Łódź, Poland in May 1946, where Leon became involved in “Bricha”, smuggling Jewish children out of Poland. In Łódź Luba found out that her mother, Ruchla Tenenbaum, died in the Łódź ghetto on September 28, 1940 and her youngest sister Andzia was struck by lightning and died on June 26, 1941. Hela Tenenbaum, the middle sister, survived deportation to Auschwitz and later Elsing concentration camp, a sub-camp of Buchenwald. She met and married a British Jewish soldier and settled in England, but in 1964 she immigrated to the US. Luba and Leon Flumenbaum left Poland in August 1946 and crossed the border to Czechoslovakia illegally. They traveled via Vienna, Austria and arrived in Salzburg DP camp. They stayed there for a few weeks and moved to Stuttgart, Germany, where they were reunited with Leon’s brothers: Israel (Irving) and Szlama (Sam), who survived the Skarżysko Kamienna concentration camp and with Pejsach (Paul), who survived Buchenwald. On February 1, 1950 Luba and Leon Flumenbaum arrived in New York on board SS Gen. Howze. Their son, Martin, was born on July 22, 1950 and their daughter, Rochelle, was born on March 11, 1954.
