United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Sheindel “Bella” Trebits (now Sussman b. 1930) was born in Subotica, Serbia (formally Yugoslavia). She was the only daughter of Robert Riven Tebitz and Betty Baila Sara and had two brothers, Israel Srul (b. 1921) and Itzi Itzhak (b. 1924). Robert was a peddler and Betty took care of the children. The family lived an orthodox Jewish life in Bácskossuthfalva, a small village south of Subotica, and spoke Hungarian at home. Both boys studied in a yeshiva, but Itzi contracted tuberculosis and died in 1942. After Hungary annexed the Subotica area on March 19, 1941 immediate anti-Jewish measures were ordered. In 1943 Israel was inducted into the Hungarian Forced Labor battalions. After the German invasion of Hungary in March 1944 Robert was sent with other Jewish men to the Subotica prison and was never heard from again. The Trebitz family home was sealed and their money was confiscated. Sheindel and her mother were taken to Bácsalmás, an interim ghetto and in southern Hungary. Her mother worked in the kitchen and Sheindel worked in the office of the ghetto. In June 1944, Sheindel and Betty were sent from the transitional ghetto in Bácsalmás to Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp. Scheindel was forcibly separated from her mother and selected as an able bodied labor force. Sheindel's hair was shorn, she wore prisoner's garb, and she stayed with as many as 1,000 other women prisoners in one barrack. She was 14 years old. In October 1944 Sheindel was transferred from the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp to Horneburg concentration camp, a sub camp of Neungamme, near Hamburg where she worked in a munition factory. In March 1945 she was transferred again, this time to Salzwedel concentration camp, another sub-camp of Neungamme until liberation in April 1945. Sheindel decided to return to Subotica to search for her family. In September 1945 she was reunited with her brother, Israel, who had escaped from a forced labor battalion and was in the General Tito's army. Israel deserted from the Yugoslav army and they escaped to Austria through Hungary. In April 1946 Sheindel and her new sister-in-law, Rochl Stern Trebitz, left Yugoslavia and joined Israel in the Salzburg DP camp. In May 1948 they crossed the border into Italy where she met her husband, Rabbi Yitzchak Scharf. They married in 1948. In 1950 they immigrated to the United States and had five children, Osher (b.1949), Riven, Betty, Reisl, and Sara. Rabbi Scharf passed away in 1979 and Scheindel remarried in 1981 to Dovid Sussman.
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The Sheindel Trebits Sussman papers are arranged as a single series.
The Sheindel Trebits Sussman papers include a diary, ID card, and photographs relating to Sheindel “Bella” Trebits Sussman’s experiences during the war. The diary begins on July 8, 1945 and relates Sheindel's memories of her hometown of Bácskossuthfalva, Serbia, the German invasion of Hungary in 1944, her deportation to the Bácsalmás ghetto and Auschwitz, working in a munitions factory, and liberation on April 14, 1945. The last entry is dated September 1945. The collection also includes a color copy of the diary and a membership ID for Poalei Agudat Israel issued to Isak Scharf, Scheindel’s first husband. Photographs depict the Trebits family and their relatives, among others, including Sheindel’s brothers, a fellow survivor, Sheindel’s paternal grandfather, Pinchas Trebitz, and a group photograph of members of Kibbutz Poalei Agudat Israel.
Sheindel Trebits Sussman papers