Sarah Goldberg

Sarah Goldberg (1 January 192110 June 2003) was a Polish resistance fighter and human rights activist. Goldberg became part of a Soviet espionage group that operated in Europe in World War II that would later be identified by the Abwehr as the Red Orchestra ("Rote Kapelle").

Life Goldberg was born into a very poor working-class pious Jewish Polish family consisting of 9 siblings, four of whom died in infancy. Goldberg was only a nine months old when her mother, Eve (Jentka) Goldberg née Eisenstein died of Typhus. There she acquired a political education and took part in solidarity campaigns in support of the International Brigades in Spain.

World War II After the invasion of Belgium and the exodus in 1940, Goldberg and her siblings fled Belgium by train and took refuge in Saint-Ferréol-de-Comminges in the south of France. to work for a soviet espionage organisation run by the GRU that was later given the name Red Orchestra ("Rote Kapelle") by the German Abwehr. On 12 December 1941, the Rue des Atrébates safehouse was raided by the Abwehr and all the people who worked there were arrested. Goldberg, who occasionally visited the safehouse to meet the group members and to learn the wireless transmission procedures, wasn't there at the time of the Abwehr raid and escaped arrest.

In late July 1942, Isbutzki was arrested. For two or three weeks Goldberg heard nothing and began to panic as Isbutzki knew her home address. However, Goldberg knew that Isbutzki was likely arrested as their prior arrangements for meeting, gave this indication. As Isbutzki never revealed any details of the espionage organisation after being tortured, Goldberg remained safe from the Sonderkommando who arrested so many other members of the Red Orchestra in Belgium and later France and the low countries. As a partisan, Goldberg worked to identify, determine the movements of and execute Nazi collaborators and German officers who were a threat to the partisans. One of these collaborators was Icek Glogowski. Several attempts were made to kill Glogowski by various people including Youra Livchitz but his attempt on 27 April 1943 failed, when his gun jammed.

Arrest Following a denunciation, Goldberg was arrested by the Gestapo on 4 June 1943 at her home in Forest in Brussels, at the same time as her fiancé Henri Wajnberg and her close friend Laja Bryftreger-Rabinowitch. Goldberg was taken to Gestapo headquarters on Avenue Louise in Brussels and then the three were transferred to the Mechelen transit camp in Mechelen. Goldberg like Wajnberg, who was killed in a gas chamber on 25 January 1944, was registered on the deportation list of transport XXI under no. 525. This convoy initially comprised 1,563 people, including 208 children. The convoy left Mechelen on 31 July 1943 and arrived in Auschwitz concentration camp on 1 August 1943. Goldberg was registered with a tattoo bearing no. 51825. While there she suffered from numerous illnesses including typhus, dysentery, boils and scurvy. On 18 January 1945, she took part in the Auschwitz-Birkenau death march, arriving at the Ravensbrück concentration camp on 22 January 1945, then on to Malchow to work in a Sonderkommando on 26 February 1945. On 23 April 1945, Goldberg was liberated by the Red Army and deported from Germany to a repatriation centre in Verviers, Belgium on 3 June 1945. On 6 June 1945, Goldberg became a member of the Communist Party of Belgium.

After the war After the war, Goldberg recuperated in a home in Blankenberge that was run by a group associated with the Front de l'Indépendance. After her recuperation, Goldberg began working for the Aide aux Israélites Victimes de la Guerre (Aid for Israelite Victims of the War), a position she held for eight months. In 1992, Goldberg created a video log of her experiences in the concentration camps, for the Auschwitz Foundation that is hosted at the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies. In 1998, she visited the Anderlecht Institute of the Marius Renard Institute and was named an honorary pupil.

Awards and honours 1949 Resistance Medal