At the age of 17, Bella Gelbart and her parents Hillel and Franya were amongst the 67,000 Jews transported from the Lodz Ghetto to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp in 1944. Upon arrival at the death camp, the Nazis selected those deemed fit to work and separated them from those considered unable to do so, nearly all of whom were sent to their death in the gas chambers.