Photograph of Helena Zymler

Helena Zymler-Svantesson was born in Będzin, Poland in 1924 to Wolf Zymler (b. 1889) and Balbine Sztatler Zymler (b. 1892). Her older brother, Bernard Zymler was born in 1921. Her father worked at an office and her mother was a housewife. In 1929 the family moved to Łódź, Poland and lived at 74 Piulsudskiego Street. In April 1940, the family was forced to move into Muhlstrasse 13 in the Łódź ghetto. The family was forced to share a room with an elderly couple from Vienna, Austria.

While imprisoned in the ghetto, Helena befriended Melania Fogelbaum (1911-1944), a Jewish poet and painter. Melania had contracted tuberculosis and was unable to work. Instead she devoted her time to caring for the Jewish youth within the ghetto. In August 1944, Helena Zymler and Melania Fogelbaum were deported to Auschwitz concentration camp. Melania perished upon arrival but Helena survived. In October 1944, Helena was transported to Halbstadt labor camp in Czechoslovakia, a sub-camp of Gross-Rosen concentration camp. On May 8, 1945 the camp was liberated by the Soviet Army. In 1950 Helena Zymler received a notebook with Melania’s poems, her correspondence and a few photographs from Nachman Zonabend, who rescued the Łódź ghetto chronicle and many other documents. In 1972, Helena Zymler-Svantesson published the book "Och skuggorna blir längre : en antologi från krigets Polen."