Heritage Florida Jewish News - Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice

The Jewish Federation of Volusia & Flagler Counties will host guest speaker Angela Orosz, one of only two babies born in Auschwitz, at Temple Beth-El, 579 North Nova Road, Ormond Beach on Tuesday, April 26 at 7 p.m.

This event is free and open to the public.

Angela Orosz came into this world in one of the most horrific places imaginable—the Auschwitz Concentration Camp. As thousands of Jews around her were sent to the gas chambers, Orosz’s mother was strong and was sent for hard labor. She was two months pregnant when she arrived at the camp. She hid her pregnancy for months from her Nazi captors.

On Dec. 21, 1944, Orosz was born in Auschwitz weighing only 2 pounds. Immediately after she was born, her mother had to stand outside in the winter for over three hours for roll call. 

Two miracles happened at that time. Because Orosz couldn’t cry, she survived from being killed, and the other miracle is that her mother had enough milk to feed not only her child but the other baby born in the camp. 

Orosz’s father, grandparents, aunts and uncles all perished in the camps.

Some 1.1 million people were sent to Auschwitz, most of them would never leave, murdered in the camp’s gas chambers. Only about 200,000 people are believed to have survived that fate. Orosz and her mother were among them.  

A newborn at the time the camp was liberated, Orosz is one of the youngest Auschwitz survivors. She remained an only child because her mother was left sterilized from experiments performed by the notorious Nazi “Angel of Death,” Dr. Josef Mengele.