Sonia Orbuch

a town about south of Warsaw, Poland, that had an overwhelmingly Jewish population.

Second World War The Second World War broke out in 1939 when she was 14. The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact divided Poland between Germany and the Soviet Union and her hometown came under Soviet control. Two years later, Operation Barbarossa forced the Jews of Luboml into a Jewish ghetto. Eight thousand Jews were affected, resulting in a scramble to self-defend, escape or hide. Unable to join her brother's partisan group due to her gender, Sonia hid in the forest with her parents and uncle during the winter of 1942 to 1943, keeping on the move and remaining hungry, cold, and unclean with lice. While there, she learned how to give assistance to the wounded, despite having no previous medical training. whom she met in Chelm just after the war. and in 2009, published her autobiography Here, There Are No Sarahs: A Woman's Courageous Fight Against the Nazis and Her Bittersweet Fulfillment of the American Dream which was co-authored with Fred Rosenbaum.

Before she died, Orbuch reflected on the extent of Jewish resistance: "Was it possible for everybody to fight and get out to the forest and survive, no it wasn't. My brother did not survive, my uncle did not survive" but nevertheless she felt the "every person in the ghetto fought in their own way."

Orbuch died on September 30, 2018. Her obituaries were published around the world, including in the United States, Asia, and Europe.

Publications Here, There Are No Sarahs: A Woman's Courageous Fight Against the Nazis and Her Bittersweet Fulfillment of the American Dream. Gatekeeper Press, Columbus, 2009. (With Fred Rosenbaum)