Born: Aranka Feldbrand
Veľká Ida/Prešov, Czechoslovakia
September 4, 1920
Died: December 17, 2006
Aranka Kane was born into a large Jewish family in a small town in eastern Czechoslovakia. She was 18 years old when German forces invaded the country in March 1939.
Three years later, in March 1942, Kane and two of her sisters were forced into a locked cattle car and deported to the killing center of Auschwitz-Birkenau. She was tattooed with the number 11990 and struggled to survive two years of starvation, disease and backbreaking labor. In November 1944 Kane was transported to work at a linen factory in Germany. The next year she was liberated by the Soviet army.
After the war, Kane moved to Prague and married her husband Sam, a fellow survivor from eastern Slovakia. In 1948 the Communist party took over Czechoslovakia and the couple temporarily moved to Belgium before immigrating to the United States.
The Kanes settled in Corpus Christi, Texas where Sam established a beef processing business. They had three children. Aranka died in 2006 at the age of 86.
Parents:
Father, d. in Holocaust
Mother, d. in Holocaust
Siblings:
Irene, survived
Four sisters, d. in Holocaust
One brother, d. in Holocaust