Mindu Hornick MBE
Mindu was born in Czekoslovakia in 1929. Life changed in 1939, when her father was drafted into a forced labour battalion and the rest of the family were sent to a ghetto. At 14 Mindu was sent on a cattle truck bound for Auschwitz. Her brothers and mother perished on arrival. After eight grueling months of forced labour she was liberated. Provisions were eventually made for her to travel to England to live with her uncle and his family in Birmingham who treated her like a daughter. She met her husband and they started a family and built an electrical store business together. Mindu was awarded an MBE for services to Holocaust education. (Concentration Camp Survivor, Displaced Persons Camp, Brought to UK by Rabbi Schonfeld: postwar, Theresienstadt, Auschwitz)
I remember looking back. I couldn’t see my brothers because of the crowds, but I caught sight of my mother. She was wearing a spotted scarf. I was able to wave to her and she waved back. That was the last time we saw her.
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