Hanna (Ann) Rydelnik Goodman Sukiennik
Hanna Rydelnik was born in 1923 in Zagórze, Poland but grew up in Będzin with her five brothers and sisters. The family was placed in the Będzin ghetto, which was established in 1942 and liquidated in the spring of 1942, when the Jews were deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau. Hanna and her sister, Genia, managed to hide briefly but were soon discovered by the Nazis, enduring a series of forced labor camps and ultimately escaping a death march in the winter of 1944.
Upon arrival at Christianstadt, a sub-camp of Gross Rosen, Hanna, Genia and two other girls escaped by smuggling in a pair of pliers from a silversmith shop, which they used to cut the fence. They went to a forest hoping partisans would be there, but they didn't find any. However, they met a Polish officer who helped take care of them until they were liberated by the Soviet Army in Sommerfeld, Germany, in February 1945. After the war, Hanna returned to Poland for a short time, where she worked for the State Jewish Committee in Katowice.
It was also after the war when Hanna found her cousin, Isadore Goodman, in a displaced persons camp and married him. They moved to Munich, Germany to be with other surviving family members. It was in Munich where their daughter, Louisa, was born on October 10th, 1947. According to Ann's brother, Maury Rydell, the Goodman family did some work on the Black Market during the 1st World War. The discourse in family values caused tension in the family. Aside from starting a new life after the war, the family dynamics were very difficult, and the cousins were estranged for many years. In addition to having post-traumatic stress from their experiences during the Holocaust, they had to rebuild their lives, finding jobs and creating a new home. When Louisa was three, the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee found a sponsor in St. Joseph, Missouri, who guaranteed that Isadore would have a job and a place to live. Upon starting her new life, Hanna adopted a more American name, Ann. Once settled in the United States, the family moved to the bigger city nearby, Kansas City, Missouri, which had a larger Jewish community with more opportunities. They later moved to Overland Park, Kansas. Ann ran the tailor shop business that her husband opened when they moved to the area. She was a beloved business owner in the community. After Isadore died of a heart attack in 1974, Ann married Ben Sukiennik and ran the tailor shop until she died.
Isadore and Ann’s daughter, Louisa, married and had children. Her daughter Valerie grew up in Overland Park, Kansas then moved to New York City, where she married and had two daughters, Heschel students Mia and Liza Gerstein.
The Midwest Center for Holocaust Education
Hanna Sukiennik Interview Transcript
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum:
The Hanna Gutman papers comprise documents and photographs concerning Hanna Gutman, a Jewish secretary originally from Zagórze, Poland and a survivor of five concentration camps. This collection primarily documents her restitution claims and her life-long struggle with severe panic and anxiety as a result of her experiences in the Holocaust. Also included in this collection is a series of correspondence and photographs and papers collected by Gutman in the years immediately following the war and her subsequent arrival in the United States. Among these materials are her health identification card, certificates stating she was a political prisoner, police registration forms, and a progress report for the Naturalization Council in Kansas City, among others.
