- Biography
- David Beitner (born David Bajtner) is the son of Leon and Frajdla (Korzuch) Bajtner. He was born June 12, 1926 in Strzemieszyce, Poland, where his father was a merchant. David had five siblings: Josek (b. 1923), Szymon (b. 1928), Elchanan (b. 1930), Genia Gitl (b. 1925) and Ester Mirjam (b. 1935). During the German occupation the family lived in the local ghetto. David was deported on April 20, 1941 to the Mechtal labor camp (Upper Silesia) near Bytom. Nine months later, in January 1942, he was transferred to the Sakrau labor camp (Upper Silesia), where he worked building a section of the Autobahn. In September 1942, he was transferred again to the Merzdorf(?) labor camp, where he worked in a flax mill. The following year, in September 1943, he was sent to the Goerlitz camp, where he worked in the wagon and machine factory. In the fall of 1944 he was transferred to the Faulbrueck labor camp (Lower Silesia), and then to the Sportschule Reichenbach (also known as the Langenbielau in Lower Silesia), where he was liberated by the Soviets on May 9, 1945. After the war David went to the Landsberg displaced persons camp, where he met his future wife, Maria Zisla Immerglik. Only two other members of David's immediate family survived. His father, who had been interned in the Blechhammer labor camp, survived the death march following the evacuation of the camp. His sister Genia was liberated from Bergen-Belsen. The rest of his family was killed in Auschwitz.
Maria Zosia Immerglik (now Beitner) is the daughter of Chaim Salomon and Rajzla Immerglik. She was born January 15, 1927 in Slawikow, Poland, where her father was a factory foreman. Maria had a younger sister, Chana Hanka (b. 1938). Maria was relocated from Slawikow to the Strzemieszyce ghetto near Sosnowiec in June 1942. One year later she was sent to a second labor camp. In September 1944 she was transferred to Kratzau I labor camp in the Sudetenland to work in the Tannenwald munitions factory. Maria was liberated in Kratzau by the Soviet army on May 8, 1945. No one from her immediate family survived. Her mother and sisters were deported to Auschwitz in 1942, and her father perished in Buchenwald in 1945. After the war Maria returned home to look for relatives, but in September 1945, left for Germany. She settled in the Landsberg displaced persons camp, where she met David Bajtner. They married at the Kibbutz Prebitz hachshara (Zionist collective) and later moved to Malmo, Sweden in 1947.