Fania Fainer

Fania Fainer is an Auschwitz survivor. Now 86 years old and a Canadian citizen, she tells a remarkable story of a little heart which she credits with saving her life in that terrible concentration camp.

Fania arrived at Auschwitz at the age of 18 and witnessed many acts of terrible cruelty at the hands of her captors and acts of unbelievable kindness from her fellow prisoners. She became close friends with a small group of girls her age. On her 20th birthday, as she was working at a factory work table, she noticed her friends were handing something down to each other, from hand to hand, and it was finally given to her. It was a piece of bread. In the bread was a booklet with pages in the shape of a heart and was covered with a piece of cloth on which the letter F was embroidered. It was small enough to fit in her hand. Each of her friends had signed the heart. What makes this story so amazing is that in order to make this card, her friends had to steal paper, scissors and a pen; had they been caught stealing, it would have meant their deaths. Fania says "But even in that inhuman place, they insisted on remaining human beings. They risked their lives to make me a present".

A month after receiving her little heart, Auschwitz was evacuated and Fania and thousands of other prisoners marked for days and days. She weighed only 70 pounds and ate grass to keep alive, but she held tightly to her heart. Most of the time she hid it under her arm. Fania had lost everything: her family, her home and her way of life. That heart was all she had and it is what kept her going. She survived that terrible ordeal. In 1949 she came to Canada. She brought her heart with her. Some of the girls who had risked their lives to give her this birthday present did not survive the camp and others moved to other parts of the world, but Fania kept the heart they gave her.

Amazingly, Fania considers herself to be lucky. She says "Yes I lived through hell. But I am a survivor. My little heart survived with me. I consider myself the luckiest human being alive". Never allowing even the most cruel human acts to break your spirit . . . it's a good thing.