Dorien Grunbaum was born in 1942 in Rotterdam, Netherlands, where her father was in the grain import/export business and her mother was a social worker. When Dorien was a year old, her family was arrested and sent to Westerbork transit camp, where they remained imprisoned for nine months. At Westerbork, the Grunbaum family received papers from Dorien's aunt and uncle in Mexico which granted them permission to emigrate to Palestine. These papers won the family better treatment for a short time in Bergen-Belsen, where they were transferred from Westerbork in February 1944. After enduring horrors at Bergen-Belsen and then being liberated by the Soviet Army, the Grunbaum family moved to the United States. Dorien was four years old. She has recently pieced together her family’s story from documents, stories, and her own memories.
New York City, NY; NYC