Title Image

Hani Solomon

Hani (Hanna) Solomon, née Neufeld

Hani and her family

Born: 30 March 1922, Vama, Romania
Died: 23 February 1997, Kfar Saba, Israel
Buried: Raanana, Israel

Hani (Hanna) Solomon, née Neufeld, was born on 30 March 1922 in Vama, Romania, to Yaakov Neufeld and Helen (née Lazar). She was one of nine children, growing up with her siblings Izabella, Baruch, Joseph, Peter, Gizi, Armin, Roszi, and Tiberiu.

Hani spent her early childhood in the village, watching her father’s work as the village butcher and helping her mother with daily domestic tasks.

When Hani turned 17, WWII broke out, and life began to become gradually more difficult for Hani, her family, and the local Jewish population. The Northern Transylvanian region where Hani lived was blessed with many Jewish communities residing in countless villages and cities across the region. From September 1939 to early 1942, Hani experienced rapid deterioration in her day-to-day life until, around April 1942, the Hungarians who controlled Northern Transylvania at that time, forced all military-age men to join the forced labour battalions. Her two brothers were taken as well, and for some long three years, Hani didn’t know what had happened to them.

In March 1944, right at the eve of Passover, the Jewish Pesach holiday, following the German occupation of Hungary and Northern Transylvania, Hani was deported along with her sister Roszi and the rest of the family. She was first sent to a local temporary Ghetto in Satu Mare, where they spent two weeks awaiting the unknown. From there, they were taken to Selish in Czechoslovakia, nowadays Vynohradiv, Ukraine, where they endured additional agony and degradation.

Ultimately, after a month of displacement, Hani was sent together with all the other Jewish men, women, and children to Auschwitz. From there, Hani was forced to continue go through the Nazi camp system and registered as a prisoner at the Dachau concentration camp, receiving prisoner number 20690. Surviving records from Dachau confirm her imprisonment there.

Later, she was transferred to the Geislingen satellite camp of Natzweiler-Struthof, where she was forced into labor under brutal conditions. On 15 August 1944, camp medical records document that she received treatment for a severe kidney infection caused by a violent beating from one of the guards. Despite the harsh circumstances, this record demonstrates her survival of illness and abuse while in captivity.

After liberation in 1945, Hani returned to Romania. In 1950 she married Chaim Aryeh (“Laybu”) Solomon in Turţ, Romania. Together they had three children: Rivka (b. 1947), Shlomo (b. 1949), and Natan (b. 1950).

The years following the war were marked by hardship. After her husband’s unrightful imprisonment and eventual early death in 1965 in Baia Mare, she was left to care for her three children. In February 1966, she and her children emigrated to Israel. Their journey began in Naples, Italy, where they boarded the ship Moledet, arriving at the port of Haifa on 7 February 1966.

In Israel, Hani rebuilt her life with resilience and dedication to her family. She passed away on 23 February 1997 in Kfar Saba, Israel, at the age of 74, and was laid to rest in Raanana, Israel.