Hadassah Goldreich (born Ala Zylbersztajn) was born on December 28, 1926 in Dąbrowa Górnicza, Poland to Mosze Zylbersztajn and Zosia Zisl Erlich Zylbersztajn and had three siblings: Edzia, (b. 1935), Pola, (b. 1936), and Heniuś (b. 1940). Mosze Zylbersztajn, originally from Wolbrom, was a baker and Zosia Erlich, originally from Zagórze, took care of the children. Zylbersztajn Mosze Zylbersztajn was arrested and deported to the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp in August 1942. Zosia, Edzia, Pola, and Heniuś were deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau in August 1943. They all perished.
Hadassah was deported to Golleschau (Goleszów) labor camp in March 1943. The camp was located near Cieszyn and was a sub-camp of Auschwitz III – Monowitz. After about a year Hadassah was transferred to Langenbielau labor camp (Bielawa), a sub-camp of Gross-Rosen, where she worked in a cement factory. On May 8, 1945 the Red Army liberated the camp. Hadassah travelled to her hometown, Dąbrowa Górnicza, to search for her family. She found out that no one in her family survived. Hadassah joined a kibbutz in a neighboring town, Sosnowiec. Itzhak Antek Zukerman and his wife Cywia Lubetkin, leaders of Hashomer Hatsair prepared the group for their journey out of Poland. In August 1945 the group travelled to Oświęcim, instructed not to speak Polish or Yiddish – they pretended to be repatriating Rumanian youth. The Soviet soldiers caught them and imprisoned them in an abandoned building. The leaders supplied the Russian soldiers with enough vodka to make them drunk and smuggled five kibbutzim groups out of Poland. Sometime later they arrived in the Landsberg DP camp. Hadassah and her group travelled to Biberach and to Eschwege DP camps and in April 1947 to Genoa, Italy. Hadassah met and married Marek Meir Goldreich, from Stryj, Poland. In December 1948 they finally reached Israel. Hadassah and Marek Goldreich had two sons: Moshe and Ofer.
