Rachel Levy spent her early childhood in the Carpathian region of Czechoslovakia, where Jewish communities lived in close-knit towns disrupted by political upheaval and the rise of antisemitic rule. When Nazi power extended into the region, Rachel and her family faced forced labour, confiscation of property and escalating violence. Eventually captured and deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau, she endured the devastation of family separation, starvation and the relentless pressure to survive. Later transferred through other labour sites and forced on a winter death march, Rachel reached the war’s end deeply traumatised and largely alone.

After liberation, Rachel was brought to Britain as a child refugee, where she confronted language barriers, cultural dislocation and the challenge of carrying unspoken memories. Over time, she built a family and a life rooted in both loss and endurance, retaining Yiddish as a link to the world she left behind.

Rachel’s book is part of the My Voice book collection, a stand-alone project of The Fed, the leading Jewish social care charity in Manchester, dedicated to preserving the life stories of Holocaust survivors and refugees from Nazi persecution who settled in the UK. The oral history, which is recorded and transcribed, captures their entire lives from before, during and after the war years. The books are written in the words of the survivor so that future generations can always hear their voice. The My Voice book collection is a valuable resource for Holocaust awareness and education.