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She was born in a concentration camp. A Holocaust survivor tells her story for the first time
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Holocaust survivor Ilana Shalem-Kantorowics born in the Nazi Bergen-Belsen concentration camp holds a photo of her with her mother Lola in the camp in 1946, in Tel Aviv, Israel, Jan. 26, 2026. - photo by AP Photo/Ariel Schalit
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — In the last months of World War II, Lola Kantorowicz tried her best to hide her pregnancy. She succeeded because most of the prisoners at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp had bellies that were distended and bloated from extended starvation. As she went into labor in March 1945, the Russians were advancing through Germany, and Bergen-Belsen was in chaos.