Felicia Anchor honors her maternal grandparents, Chana and Schmuel, and her mother’s sister, Ruchel Aranowicz. Ruchel was born in Lodz, Poland, which was a large city with a thriving Jewish community before the war. The Germans created one of the first Jewish ghettos in Lodz during the war. It is not known where Chana and Schmuel were born, but Anchor is certain that Chana’s birthday was on May 16. Before the war, Schmuel worked in the textile business. When the war began, and Germany invaded Poland, the family was sent to the Lodz ghetto. Ruchel was taken from the ghetto with her co-workers and never heard from again. Chana and Schmuel, along with their daughter, Goldie, were taken by cattle car to Auschwitz in August 1944. They were taken out of the train cars and separated; Goldie was kept with her mother, who survived, but she never saw her father again. Before they separated, he had given her a comb for her hair and a packet of sugar.
The Nashville Holocaust Memorial