Auschwitz couple who found each other 72 years later

The first time he spoke to her, in 1943, by the Auschwitz crematory, David Wisnia realised that Helen Spitzer was no regular inmate. Zippi, as she was known, was clean, always neat. She wore a jacket and smelled good. They were introduced by a fellow inmate, at her request.

Her presence was unusual in itself: a woman outside the women’s quarters, speaking with a male prisoner. Before Mr Wisnia knew it, they were alone, all the prisoners around them gone. This wasn’t a coincidence, he later realised. They made a plan to meet again in a week.

On their set date, Mr Wisnia went as planned to meet at the barracks between crematories 4 and 5. He climbed on top of a makeshift ladder made up of packages of prisoners’ clothing. Ms Spitzer had arranged it, a space amid hundreds of piles, just large enough to fit the two of them. Mr Wisnia was 17 years old; she was 25.

“I had no knowledge of what, when, where,” Mr Wisnia recently reminisced at age 93. “She taught me everything.”

They were both Jewish inmates in Auschwitz, both privileged prisoners. Mr Wisnia, initially forced to collect the bodies of prisoners who committed suicide, had been chosen to entertain his Nazi captors when they discovered he was a talented singer.

Ms Spitzer held the more high-powered position: She was the camp’s graphic designer. They became lovers, meeting in their nook at a prescribed time about once a month. After the initial fears of knowing they were putting their lives in danger, they began to look forward to their dates. Mr Wisnia felt special. “She chose me,” he recalled.

They didn’t talk much. When they did, they told each other brief snippets of their past. Mr Wisnia had an opera-loving father who’d inspired his singing, and who’d perished with the rest of his family at the Warsaw ghetto. Ms Spitzer, who also loved music — she played the piano and the mandolin — taught Mr Wisnia a Hungarian song. Below the boxes of clothing, fellow prisoners stood guard, prepared to warn them if an SS officer was approaching.

For a few months, they managed to be each other’s escape, but they knew these visits wouldn’t last. Around them, death was everywhere. Still, the lovers planned a life together, a future outside of Auschwitz. They knew they would be separated, but they had a plan, after the fighting was done, to reunite.