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Helen Jonas-Rosenzweig


Helen Jonas-Rosenzweig (born Helena Sternlicht; 25 April 1925) is a Holocaust survivor interned during World War II at the Kraków-Płaszów concentration camp where she was forced to work as a maid for SS camp commandant Amon Göth.

Born in Kraków, she survived the Holocaust with the help of Oskar Schindler, who was credited with saving the lives of nearly 1,200 Jewish forced labourers. After the war, Jonas-Rosenzweig emigrated to the United States. She has been married and widowed twice, and has three children. She resides in Boca Raton, Florida. Jonas-Rosenzweig met the daughter of Amon Göth, Monika Hertwig, and together they were featured in a documentary, Inheritance (2006), made for PBS by James Moll.

Helena Sternlicht was born in Kraków in 1925, to Szymon and Lola Sternlicht. She has remembered her early life as happy. When Germany invaded Poland on 1 September 1939, she and her family were forced to relocate to the Kraków Ghetto.

In 1942, they were sent to concentration camps. Her father died at Belzec extermination camp. She, her mother, and two sisters were sent to Kraków-Płaszów, an arbeitslager (labor camp). On the third day of her internment at Kraków-Płaszów, Jonas was washing windows in a barracks when Göth, the camp commandant, entered the room. He commented on the job she was doing and ordered her to go to his villa on the grounds of the camp to work as a housemaid.

She moved from the barracks to Göth's residence, where she shared a room in the basement with another maid, Helen Hirsch (who was also portrayed in the film Schindler's List). The two women shared the household duties at the commandant's home for the next two years. While working for Göth, Jonas-Rosenzweig saw his notorious sadism firsthand. She said that he would shoot prisoners from the balcony of his villa, and she saw him murder several people and order the deaths of many more. He also beat her. She said that while Göth as depicted in the movie appeared to be interested sexually in his maid, he was not attracted to her in real life.


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