Biography
Renate and Rene Guttmann are fraternal twins born on December 21, 1937 to Herbert and Ita (Aisenscharf) Guttmann of Teplice-Sanov, Czechoslovakia. When the twins were very young, the family moved to Prague. In the fall of 1941 Herbert was arrested by the German. Subsequently, the twins and their mother were deported to Theresienstadt, and from there, to Auschwitz. In Auschwitz, the twins were separated from their mother and from one another and housed in separate barracks. Both were experimented on by Josef Mengele and were subjected to injections and x-rays. After the liberation, Rene was sent to a Catholic hospital in Kosice, Czechoslovakia. One of the hospital administrators, Dr. Kalina, took Rene home to his family, where he remained until the family fled to Israel. Before they left, Rene was placed in the home of the doctor's sister, Edith Mann. Renate was taken in by a Polish women, Mrs. Mukha, after the Germans abandoned Auschwitz. Later, the Joint Distribution Committee located Renate and brought her to Bratislava and then to Fublaines, France, where she was placed in an orphanage. In the fall of 1947 Renate was chosen by the chairman of Rescue Children, Inc., Herbert Tenzer, to travel to the United States with another Jewish orphan, Charles Karo, to raise money for Jewish children's homes in France. The children became the focus of considerable media attention and appeared on the cover of Life magazine. When Dr. Kalina saw the Life magazine article in Israel, he contacted Rescue Children Inc. and gave them Rene's address in Kosice. By that time, the Slotkins, a Jewish family in the United States, had already agreed to adopt Renate (Irene). Upon hearing that she had a twin, the Slotkins decided to adopt Rene, as well. Two years later, in March 1950, Rene arrived in the United States.
