Helena Citrónová

Helena Citrónová was born in 1922 in Humenné

Helena Citrónová was born on 26 August 1922 in Humenné to a Jewish family. Her father was a cantor, and she liked to sing from an early age. She had three siblings, among them her older sister Róza.

On 26 March 1942 she was deported to Auschwitz in the first mass transport of Slovak Jewish women. She worked in the Kanada warehouses, sorting the belongings of murdered deportees. After she sang at a guard's birthday party, SS man Franz Wunsch fell in love with her and used his influence to protect her.

In October 1944 Wunsch saved her sister Róza, but not Róza's husband and children. Her parents were murdered, and her brother died during a failed escape. She was among the prisoners liberated by the Red Army.

In 1945 she and Róza moved to the Land of Israel. She married David Tahori, changed her name to Zippora Tahori and lived in Tel Aviv. In 1972 she testified in Vienna at Wunsch's trial, and he was released because the statute of limitations had expired.

She died on 4 June 2007 and was buried at the Yarkon Cemetery. Her story was told in documentaries, in the 2020 film Love It Was Not and in an opera by S. P. Somtow.