From Death Camp to North Hollywood Deli

After more than 40 years, Rena Drexler wasn’t sure she would recognize the two sisters whose friendship made her imprisonment in the Nazi death camp of Auschwitz a little more bearable.

And, with the prospect of reviving nightmarish memories, she wasn’t sure she wanted to.

But when Helen Prince and Mania Richman walked through the door of Drexler’s homey kosher deli in North Hollywood on Thursday, Drexler called out to them in Polish. The three concentration camp survivors tearfully embraced, oblivious for one long moment to the nearby customers supping on cabbage soup and brisket.

Then, like a rusty faucet newly opened, the pent-up memories spilled out. The flood of horror stories--tales of rats the size of small dogs and of sadistic guards--lasted for more than an hour until it slowed to a trickle and ended with sighs, hasty wipes of the eyes and warm, shy smiles.

“We don’t talk about these things much,” said Drexler, 63, who has owned the deli in the 12500 block of Burbank Boulevard for 35 years. “But between ourselves it’s different because we know what it was like.”

The three met in 1942 as young women in Auschwitz, a death camp in south central Poland where as many as 2 million Jews and Poles were exterminated by the Nazis. Separated from their families, for three years they clung to each other for support in a hostile world.

“We would talk about food, about what our mothers would be making us for dinner if we were free,” said Richman, 69. “Mostly, we helped each other survive.”

But the trio lost contact when Richman and Prince were shipped by train to work in a German labor camp, said Drexler, adding that the search for lost relatives was so consuming that she did not look for the sisters.

A month ago, Prince happened to meet Drexler’s sister-in-law, who was sunbathing with a group of people at Malibu Beach. The two placidly began talking about vacations until Prince heard Drexler’s relative mention someone named “Ufta,” which is Drexler’s Polish nickname.

“I asked her, so excited, ‘was this Ufta in Auschwitz? I couldn’t believe it, but it really was her,” said Prince, who lives in Los Angeles.

She telephoned Drexler and arranged to meet with her when Prince’s sister, Richman, visited this month from Flushing, N.Y.

But Drexler said the meeting was delayed because of her trepidation.

“I was afraid I would have a nervous breakdown,” Drexler said. “Instead, I have such closeness with them, it’s unbelievable.”