Judy Weissenberg Cohen (1) (1928–)

Judy Weissenberg Cohen was born to a Jewish family in Debrecen, Hungary, the youngest of seven children of her parents Margit and Sandor. When Nazi Germany invaded her country in 1944, 15-year-old Judy and her family were deported to the death camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau. There she and her sisters were separated from their parents, who were killed immediately. Judy was sent on to Bergen-Belsen and then to Ascherlseben, a sub camp of Buchenwald, where she did forced labor in a Junkers airplane parts factory; she also endured a death march late in the war. Four of siblings and most of her extended family were murdered. After being liberated by the U.S. army in 1945, Judy was reunited with her sister Eva and brother Leslie. She spent two years in a displaced persons camp before emigrating to Canada in 1948. She settled in Montreal, where she married Sidney Cohen, with whom she had two children. They later moved to Toronto. She became an active speaker and Holocaust and human rights educator. In 2001, she founded the website "Women and the Holocaust," which collects testimony, literature, and scholarly material exploring the specific gender-based experiences of women in the Holocaust. Her memoir, A Cry in Unison, was published in 2020 by the Asrieli Holocaust Survivor Memoirs Program.