On the day of her arrest, Wise turned ten years old. She arrived at Auschwitz-Birkenau on November 3, 1944, and was subjected to medical experimentation at the hands of Dr. Josef Mengele. Wise credited luck, hope, and companionship from her sister, Eva, who was also imprisoned at Auschwitz in occupied Poland.
Read the complete article either from The Washington Post here or the USC Shoah Foundation here.
Read a longer biography from Echoes and Reflections here.
Photo: In this photo taken Thursday, Jan. 22, 2015, Marta Wise holds a famous black-and-white photo, taken by the Russian liberators of Auschwitz, showing her, center, with about a dozen children in rags standing behind a row of barbed wire that has become one of the most iconic images of the Holocaust, as she poses for a portrait in her house in Jerusalem. Wise was ill and emaciated when she heard the distant sound the soldiers marching toward Auschwitz. The 10-year-old Slovakian Jew assumed it was German troops coming to get her but once she saw the red stars on their uniforms she realized they were Russian. Her nightmare was over. She was liberated. (AP Photo/Dan Balilty)