Freda Abramowitz 4/13/1922-9/01/2006 Row 5:1

Family: Freda was married to Sam. They had two children Joel and Hyman.

Freda was born in Czenstochowa, Poland and survived the Holocaust in the Hasag, a forced labor camp from 1939-1945.

All of her family perished at Treblinka. She and her husband Sam, another survivor, immigrated to New York City in 1946 and raised 2 sons, Joel and Hyman. Freda never talked directly about her time in the labor camp and her son Joel was reluctant to ask questions. But it was clear that she had experienced great trauma. Once she mentioned she had seen the German leader Eichmann throw a baby out a window to be killed by a German soldier. She also frequently had nightmares and Joel remembers his father comforting Freda in the middle of the night.

However, he does remember her and his father sitting around the table with other Holocaust survivors. They would start talking in English, then in Yiddish which Joel understood. Eventually they would switch to speaking in Polish which Joel didn't know. This was when the group was discussing events of the war.

Freda and her husband moved to Miami Beach in 1981. Sam died in 1983 and in 1990 Freda moved to Houston to be near Joel. She came to Durham in 2006 after Joel had moved there..

She was known as a marvelous knitter, cook, and baker. She was active in the Czenstochowa Society in New York and Miami, a lifetime member of Amit Women, and an ardent supporter of Israel from her youth.