Biography
Elcia Berger (born Elcia Hela Rechenman, the mother of the donor, was born in Pulawy on January 15, 1927. She is the daughter of Shmuel and Ruchel (nee Lederman) Rechenman, both born in 1890. Shmuel Rechenman was an impoverished, religious peddler. The family lived at Pomorska 20/4 in Pulawy. Elcia had two older sisters. Yocheved was born circa 1918-1920 and Bayla Gitel was born circa 1925. Shortly after the start of World War II, the family left Pulawy for Deblin where they became incarcerated in the ghetto there. In 1942 two transports left the ghetto for the extermination camps of Treblinka and Sobibor. Elcia's parents and sister Bayla, who was handicapped, were on one of the transports. They either died in the camps or en route. Elcia and Yocheved remained performing slave labor for the next two years working in an airfield and digging coal. In 1944, Elcia was sent to Czestechowa, probably to Hasag Warta, which was the munitions factory. She never saw her sister again. Elcia was liberated on January 16, 1945, one day after her 18th birthday. She is the sole survivor of her family. After the war she went to Lodz and registered with the Jewish community that summer before moving west to Germany. Sometime afterwards she married Solomon Drucker in Regensburg, Germany, and in April 1948 gave birth to a son, Schmuel Eliaju (later Elliott), named after her father. Elcia lived in Regensburg while she awaited permission to come to the United States. Elcia and her husband soon divorced, and in 1952 she immigrated to the United States together with her son. She met Yosef Berger (b. Chorzele) who had survived the war in the Soviet Union. They married in 1956.
