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Boris Abel
I was born on July 23, 1915 in Panevezys, Lithuania to Benjamin and Sonia Ratz Abelski.
Prior to World War II, my family owned a manufacturing and retail business throughout Lithuania. I had four brothers and two sisters, all of whom worked in this business. In 1939 when the Russians took over Lithuania, they also took over my family's business.
After the Germans occupied Lithuania in 1941, my family and I were forced into the ghetto. In 1943, we were taken to the Landsberg labor camp, Germany, where we worked with thousands of other Jews building underground the Messerschmitt airplane factory. We were supervised by convicted murders brought from Dachau.
In April 1945, I was among 35,000 prisoners on a forced march to Austria. Many people died. I was very sick and was hospitalized for several months after the war.
My sisters Milcha and Rachel and my brothers Saul and Urizick were all killed by the Nazis. Only two of my brothers survived. One went to Israel; the other spent ten years in a labor camp in Siberia for helping people escape from Russia.
In every disaster, a few people survive by chance. I am one of those people.