Anna Philipstahl - Very special "adoption" of Frajda from Piotrków Trybunalski that became Fanny that became Rena.

 

Fredzia (Frajda) was sent in December 1944 to Ravensbrück or earlier in February- March 1943 to Czestochowa while her father, Lichtensztajn (Lichtenstein Icek) was sent on the same day to Buchenwald (or to Czestochowa too). Fredzia's school teacher took care of her during the transport to the camp (her name?). Her last Piotrków memories: She remembered seeing her mother and brothers for the last time, at around six years old (1942), when she slipped out of a Piotrków synagogue where Nazis had rounded up hundreds of Jews.  Fredzia remembered saying goodbye to her father when he entrusted her to a schoolteacher as they climbed out of a cattle car and women and children were sent one way (Ravensbrück), men another (Buchenwald).

In late October of 1938, the Nazi regime ordered the arrest of around 17,000 Jews with Polish citizenship who were living in the German Reich. The Jews were then expelled and transported violently to the Polish border. This forced expulsion designated the Polenaktion (“Polish Action”) in German, was the first mass deportation of Jews from the German Reich. Zbąszyń. In Poland, this action is also called the Zbaszyn Affair.

Before arrival in the United States Fredzia (Frajda), in Sweden got a new identity that belonged to Anna Philipstahl late daughter Frania. Anna that was officially stateless could not apply for a national passport as most of the former inmates of the concentration camps did. Most probably she used it in her applications for visa to USA and Swedish Främlingspass. It is likely that in Sweden no one noticed that Fredzia Lichtenstein, 10-year-old orphan from Piotrków Trybunalski disappeared.

In the police interrogation of Anna Philipstahl from December 13th, 1945, one can read: Her two children, a daughter, Fanny, and a son, Sigmund Philipstahl, now resided with her in a (camp) facility in Tingsryd. She does not know where her husband and eldest son are now. She hasn't heard from them since she escaped from the camp in Drohobycz. Her father died in 1928 and her mother in 1934. She intends to travel to America during the month of January 1946, where she has a brother, David Pine, who lives in Baltimore, which is why she wants to obtain a passport as soon as possible to travel to America, where she is also taking her two children.

For the first time, she learned her mother's maiden name,
Messer, and that she was named for her grandmother,
Frail. She also learned her real date of birth, which fell two months before the one she'd adopted. She found the address of her childhood home, and she went to visit the site. She
saw the balcony she remembered, and could picture
the kiosk across the street where she always got ice
cream. When Fredzia-Rena visited Piotrków she found at the doorpost of her former home, 

a faint outline of a tilted rectangle under many layers of paint--the mezuzah her parents had hung as a talisman and prayer to protect the home. Even before her visit,
Fredzia had recalled the moment in 1939 when strangers moved into her home. On her tour through Piotrków, she