Survivor of horror went on to celebrate life

“She celebrated life,” Daphne Able said of her mother Annetta, who passed away last month.

On her 101st birthday in February this year, Annetta was officially recognised as the world’s oldest twin to have survived the medical experiments of Josef Mengele in Auschwitz.

“Something she always said was that she doesn’t want to be remembered, or thought of all the time, as a Holocaust victim,” Daphne told the AJN.

“That was very important to her, that people shouldn’t feel sorry for her, because she did so much with her life after that.

“The sad part was, of course, that she lost her entire family – the most important people being her mother and her little sister. But the thing that gave her strength throughout her life was having her identical twin, because she always said Stephanie and her were two parts of one person.”

Born in Czechoslovakia in 1924, Annetta and Stephanie – who passed away in 2019 – were transported to Theresienstadt in 1942. The following year they were sent to Auschwitz, where Mengele, known as ‘the angel of death’, immediately started his experiments on them.

They survived the death march on their 21st birthday and, after a lengthy period of recovery, the pair returned to Czechoslovakia where they learned their entire family had perished.

They subsequently moved to Israel, before Annetta, who had married Auschwitz survivor Jirka Able, followed her twin and relocated to Melbourne in the early 1960s.

After the war, Annetta and Stephanie decided their calling was helping others and so they became nurses.

“Mum was very proud of her years as a nurse,” Daphne said.

“Both of them always said what their mother had told them, which was to understand that there is always someone worse off than yourself, so don’t feel sorry for yourself.”

Annetta struggled when Stephanie passed away, but Daphne said her mum eventually took on the task of talking about the Holocaust.

In 2022, Annetta featured on the cover of the AJN after she received worldwide support for her video rebuke of American star Whoopi Goldberg, who had insisted the Holocaust was “not about race”.

In the video, Annetta said, “It was about race. It was about my race and that of my sister and parents and all who can’t speak today.

“My sister would say more and better, and I’m sure she would be proud of me for speaking out today. It is not easy for me to do this. She was stronger than me. I always cry when I think of our family and their terrible end.

“Whoopi Goldberg and all others, be careful with the words you choose and use.”

Goldberg subsequently apologised for the offence she had caused.

And just last year, Annetta joined the Anti-Defamation Commission to successfully persuade the Australian government to ban far-right political commentator Candace Owens from visiting the country after she had said on her podcast that experiments performed by Mengele were “bizarre propaganda”.

“It is a dangerous distortion of historical truth that I witnessed with my own eyes. I still bear the physical and emotional scars of Mengele’s cruelty,” said Annetta.

Daphne said over the last couple of years Annetta was always asking about what was happening in Israel.

“After October 7 mum volunteered to pack gifts to send to Israel. She was 99,” Daphne said.

“For her 100th birthday she asked that gifts be a donation to particular medical equipment for the war effort.”

Daphne said Shabbat dinners were usually at Annetta’s house. “She had this amazing table that seemed to grow all the time and always have enough room for more people.”