Fani was born in Brno, Czechoslovakia. She was the only child of David and Rachel Davidowitz.
In 1943, Fani’s family was moved to the ghetto in Brno. She was there for 2 ½ months before her family’s deportation to Auschwitz. Fani’s grandfather told her when they were being transported there that she had to tell the officers that she was 18 years old though at the time Fani was only 10 years old. She followed her grandfather’s order, which spared her life from the gas chambers upon their arrival. The camp sent Fani’s grandparents and mother to the gas chambers. A woman named Rachel Romander told her that she would be Fani’s ‘new’ mother.
The officers assigned Fani to a death camp. However, due to a series of miraculous occurrences, Fani managed to survive her time in Auschwitz. From there, Fani and her ‘new’ mother were sent to Hainichen, Germany to work at an ammunition factory. Once the air raids by the Allies began, the guards rounded up the slave laborers at the factory and took them to Theresienstadt, a concentration camp.
After the liberation of the camps, Fani reunited with her father. Fani’s adoptive mother married her father. Eventually, Fani and her parents immigrated to the United States.
To read her story in full visit her website Fani Weingarten’s Book.