Sabina Wolanski

Who is Sabina Wolanski?

Sabina Wolanski, married Sabina van der Linden-Wolanski was a Holocaust survivor and author. Her book Destined to Live: One Woman's War, Life, Loves Remembered is a memoir of her account of her experience of the Holocaust.

Wolanski, born in Borysław, Poland, was 12 years old when her home town in Poland was invaded by the Nazis. In her diary she recorded what happened, including the humiliations and terrors, the murder of her family and her survival. Leaving Europe after the war, Wolanski began a new life in Australia. In 1967, she gave evidence in a trial of the man who had killed her father and brother in Bremen. While there, she met the daughter of a former Nazi who was researching her own past.

In May 2005, when Germany opened the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin, Wolanski was chosen to speak on behalf of the six million dead. In her speech she noted that although the Holocaust had taken everything she valued, it had also taught her that hatred and discrimination are doomed to fail.

Wolanski died on 23 June 2011 in Sydney.