The Heschel School

Fritzie (Frieda) Fritzshall (née Weiss) was born in Klucarky, Czechoslovakia on August 27, 1929. When the Nazis occupied Klyucharki, Fritzie, her mother, Sarah Davidovicz, and brothers, Elia and Mendel, were brought to a ghetto in a nearby town. Her father, Herman Weiss, traveled to America before the war and was working on securing enough money to bring the rest of the family to America. Unfortunately, after securing the tickets and paperwork necessary for immigration, the borders closed, and the family was unable to leave in time.

In 1944, at the age of 13, Fritzie and her family were deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp. Fritzie was separated from her mother and brothers at selection. Her mother and two brothers were murdered in the gas chambers on arrival to Auschwitz. Fritzie survived selection by pretending to be 15 years old at the advice of one of the other inmates. When she asked fellow inmates when she would see her mother again, they pointed to the smoke of the crematorium.  While in Auschwitz, Fritzie was selected to be killed in the gas chamber but was rescued right before she entered the chamber. In Auschwitz, her only surviving family member Fritzie was her mother’s sister, Bella, who brought Fritzie into her barrack each night and would tell her, “tomorrow will be better.” Fritzie attributes much of her survival during her time in Birkenau to her aunt.  Fritzie’s aunt Bella died of typhus after liberation.

Close to the end of the war, Fritzie was moved to do slave labor outside of the camp. Fritzie was liberated by the Russian army while she was on a death march in 1945. In 1946 she came to the United States and reunited with her father. She settled in Chicago, became a hairdresser and married Norman Fritzshall.

Fritzie is president of the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center and in this capacity speaks extensively about her experience in the Holocaust. She sees the Museum as a place for remembrance, a place dedicated to the memory of all the people lost during the Holocaust and a teaching tool, “only through education can we prevent these horrors from happening again.” In 2020, she was named the “Everyday Extraordinary” Global Citizenship Hero by the Red Cross. Fritzie is the first cousin of Marvis Davis, father of Heschel alums Benjamin and Sabina Sternklar Davis.

You can see two video interviews where Fritzie shares her experiences in the Holocaust with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum here and here.

ABC news covered Fritzie’s experience returning to Auschwitz to educate the next generation. You can read the story here.