Hedy Tugendhaft Rosen photographs

Hedy Rosen was born Jadwiga Wisia Bat Sheva Tugendhaft in Krakow, Poland on September 27, 1936 to businessman Moshe David Max Tugendhaft and Mania Löbel Tugendhaft. The family lived in a spacious apartment on Dietla Street with Hedy’s maternal aunt, Zelda Löbel. Most members of the Löbel family had immigrated to Palestine. The German Army occupied Krakow on September 6, 1939, and the persecution of the Jews started immediately. Max was arrested in October, sent to the Pustków forced labor camp, and killed at the Płaszów concentration camp. In March 1941 Mania, Zelda, and Hedy were forced into a ghetto in the Podgórze area of Krakow. In May 1942, the Germans started liquidating the ghetto, and Mania hid Hedy in a wardrobe for three days. Zelda was shot and killed at the Umschlagplatz, but Mania and Hedy managed to flee. They wandered between villages, posing as Polish peasants.

Mania managed to get false papers in the name “Maria Kozlowska.” When the pair arrived in Przemyśl, Mania got a job as a maid and introduced Hedy as her niece “Jadwiga Kozlowska.” Mania taught Hedy some basic Christian prayers, instructed her forget she was Jewish, equipped her with a crucifix, and left her at the entrance to the Sacred Heart convent in Przemyśl. There had been no orphanage at the convent, but the nuns established one with Hedy and a dozen other Jewish children. Mother Superior Emilia promised to return the Jewish children to their families or to the Jewish community after liberation. Mania only visited Hedy at the convent from afar and was aware that other Jewish children were hidden in the orphanage.

In July 1944, the Soviets liberated Przemyśl, and the convent transferred the children to a Jewish orphanage. In 1945, Mania and fellow survivor Hermann Fuhrer planned to travel to Budapest, where the Jewish Agency organized a transport to Palestine, but Hedy was too ill to travel that far. She had rheumatoid fever and was placed in the Rothschild hospital in Vienna for three months. They later relocated to Heidelberg, Germany. In 1947, Mania and Hedy sailed from Marseille, France to Australia to join two uncles who sponsored their immigration. In 1949, after the death of one of the uncles, Mania and Hedy immigrated to Israel and settled in Rechovot in Hedy’s grandparents’ house. Mania’s life became more difficult, and she suffered a nervous breakdown. Hedy was sent to Youth Aliyah school, served in the Israeli Army, and then studied nursing. In 1957, Hedy married, and her daughter Michal was born. That marriage did not last, and in March 1967 Hedy met and married Menachem Rosen, an American born pharmacist. Their son Moshe David Rosen was born in 1967. Hedy worked as a lab technician at the Weizman Institute in Rechovot.