Biography
Ann Shore (born Hania Goldman) is the daughter of Maier and Cyla Goldman. She was born April 13, 1929 in Zabno, Poland, where her father owned a shoe store. Hania had one older sister, Rachela, (b. 1925). After the German occupation of Poland, the Goldman family remained in their home in Zabno. On March 10, 1942 German soldiers, who were looking for Hania's father, raided the Goldmans' home. They killed Maier on the spot when they discovered him hiding in the cellar. Soon afterwards, the rest of the family fled to the countryside. They found shelter on the farm of a poor widow, who reluctantly allowed them to hide in the hayloft in return for most of their possessions. After the Goldmans had bartered away the remainder of their belongings, the widow became very hostile. She continued to suffer their existence on the farm only out of fear of being arrested herself, should she turn them in, for harboring Jews in the first place. For two years the Goldmans lived a very precarious existence, confined to the lice-infested hayloft during the day and scavenging the area for food at night. The widow finally forced them out in the summer of 1944. For several days they roamed the woods until they made contact with a sixteen-year-old Jewish youth from Zabno, who had been hiding all alone in a barn for two years. For the next six months the Goldmans shared his tiny shelter until they were liberated by the Red Army in January 1945. After the war they returned to Zabno briefly, only to discover that only fifteen of the prewar Jewish community of 700 had survived. Following the murder of one of the survivors by a Pole, the Goldmans fled to Tarnow, where they remained until the end of the year. In January 1946 they left Poland for Germany. After spending a few weeks at the Schlachtensee displaced persons camp in Berlin, the Goldmans moved to another camp in Fuerth. They remained there for the next two-and-a-half years, until immigrating to Canada in October 1948.
