Rachmil's Story

Beloved husband to Itka and father of their four sons, Rachmil Zygmuntowicz was born January 29, 1921, in Belchatow, Poland, a small town located 50 kilometers from Lodz. He was the oldest of seven children born to Avrum Sucher and Laja Wolfowicz Zygmuntowicz. In order, his siblings were: Yonkel, Peso, Mayer, Fela, Shimo, and Rucha. Fela died before the war, and all the others, including Rachmil’s parents, perished in the Holocaust.Rachmil was 18 years old when Nazi Germany invaded Poland. In 1940 Rachmil married Suro-Mirel Buberman, from Belchatow. She was the oldest daughter of Glico and Noiech Buberman, and the sister of Ruheal and Avrum-Meyer. Two weeks after their wedding, the Nazis took Rachmil away to forced labor in Poznan, Poland, to build an autobahn (highway) from Berlin to Warsaw.

His wife died during the Holocaust. Rachmil worked on building the autobahn for two years, and in 1942 he was sent to the Lodz ghetto. From there, Rachmil was deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau. In the early winter of 1945, he was sent on a forced death march to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. He was also interned in Bremerhaven concentration camp. The British Army liberated him in the spring of 1945. The following summer while rebuilding his life in Sweden, he met and married 20 year-old Itka Frajman after an 11 day courtship.