Biography
Helen Ptashnik (born Hela Iwaniska) is the daughter of Shlomo and Manya Iwaniska. She was born on August 6, 1925 in Stopnice, Poland where her parents had a fabric store. Hela had two older sisters, Sara (b. 1923) and Tema (b. 1919) and a younger sister Cvetla. Hela was imprisoned in the Stopnice ghetto before being deported to the Skarzysko Kamienna HASAG camp. From there she was sent to work in Leipzig and Buchenwald where she was liberated. Though Hela and her older sisters survived; her parents and baby sister perished. After the war Hela joined a Kibbutz Ichud hachshara in Warsaw. From there she went with the Bricha to Austria and then Italy where she came to Grottoferrata, Mussolini's former villa. She then went to La Spezia to board a boat to Palestine, but when the British refused to let them sail, she, along with some 1000 other Jews, participated in a hunger strike protesting British immigration policy to Palestine. The British eventually gave in, and in May 1946, Hela was allowed to board Eliyahu Golumb and come to Palestine. After her arrival there she settled in Nes Tziona where she attended the Ayanot agricultural school for girls. She lived there for two years, and in 1949 she married Yechezkel Ptashnik, another survivor from Stopnice, in Tel Aviv.
Yechezkel (now Henry) Ptashnik (b. 12/20/14) is the son of Alter and Rachel Ptashnik. He had six older siblings, Shaindel, Frayde, Josef (who immigrated to Brazil before the war), Chaya, Meir and Golde, and a younger brother Eliezer. Like Hela, Yechezkel had lived briefly in Lodz before the war but then later returned to Stopnice. He and Meir were deported in November 1942 to the HASAG camp in Skarzysko-Kamienna. (Golde's husband was also selected to go to Skarzysko, but he refused to leave his wife and children.) From there they were sent to Buchenwald, Schlieben and eventually Theresienstadt where they was liberated in May 1945. After the war he joined Kibbutz Netiv in the Landsberg DP camp along with his two surviving older brothers Meir and Eliezer. During the summer of 1946, kibbutz members, including Yechezkel and Eliezer, went to Italy where they boarded the Yagur for Palestine. (Meir remained in Landsberg temporarily because his wife Chana was pregnant and due to give birth shortly afterwards.) The British navy intercepted the Yagur on August 11 and sent the passengers to a detention camp in Cyprus. This is the first time, the British sent Jewish immigrants to Cyprus. Yechezkel and Eliezer remained on Cyprus until January 1947 when they were allowed to enter Palestine and settled in Mishmar Hasharon.
At the same time when Hela and Yechezkel were deported to Skarzysko during the fall of 1942, German and Ukrainian police rounded up the bulk of the ghetto's population sent them to Treblinka. Among those killed included Yechezkel's grandparent and his older sister, Chaya, who had opted to accompany her grandparents. Hela's parents went into hiding on a nearby farm, and Yechezkel's parents hid in a bunker with Eliezer, Golde, her husband Abram and two young children. After a few days, Eliezer left the bunker to look for water. He learned that the deportation action had ended and that a new smaller ghetto had been established. The family left the bunker and joined the new ghetto, which ironically was set up in the former home of Yechezkel's grandparents. Hela's parents also left their hiding place for the new ghetto. They remained there for three months. Then, on January 10, 1943, the Germans liquidated the small ghetto as well and sent everyone to Sandomierz and from there to Treblinka. Hela and Yechezkel's remaining family all perished with the exception of Eliezer who later was sent to Skarzysko and survived the war with Yechezkel and Meir.
