Aleksandra Pawlowna Lawrik – “... or else they would take my child or one of my parents.”

Aleksandra Pawlowna Lawrik came from a poor family. She married early and had a son. The Gestapo arrested her and her father in the summer of 1943 for being members of the Communist party. She was deported to the Ravensbrück concentration camp. In the Wolfen subcamp she was assigned to labour in a cellulose factory where toxic fumes permanently damaged her lungs. When the SS cleared the camp in April 1945, she fled and managed to make her way back home. Because she had been in Germany, however, she was considered a traitor. She was put in custody in a labour camp, and afterward was long unable to find employment. After her husband’s early death, she had to care for her three children on her own.