The Clown of Majdanek: "In One Eye I Laughed for the Germans, and in the Other I Wept"

Hana Rozbruch, born in November 1929 in Lublin, Poland, is a Holocaust survivor who endured the Majdanek concentration camp. During her time at the camp, she was forced to act as a clown to entertain the German soldiers while coping with the terrible personal loss of her brother and sister, who were murdered in the gas chambers.

She described her experiences with the words: "In one eye I wept, and in the other, I laughed for the German soldiers. I knew they had burned my brother, sister, and my aunt."

Rozbruch's story was documented in the documentary "The Clown of Majdanek - In the Concentration Camp, I Had to Dance to Survive," produced by the German newspaper "Bild". The film presents Rozbruch's journey from Lublin back to the Majdanek camp and brings her personal testimony about the horrors she experienced. The film is part of an extensive documentation project of testimonies from survivors who were children during the Holocaust, called "Children of Auschwitz."

During the war, Rozbruch was rescued from Majdanek by Janek, a Christian partner of her father who smuggled her out of the camp and hid her in a basement for 18 months until liberation. After the war, she reunited with her parents, who miraculously survived, and together they immigrated to Israel in 1948.

Today, Rozbruch resides in Kfar Saba. She is a mother of two children, grandmother to five grandchildren, and great-grandmother to six great-grandchildren. She continues to participate in dance groups, as she promised herself: "When I am free - I will dance just for me."