Nelipyno
Perla was born on 14 April 1925 in Nelipyno, a village near Svaliava in Subcarpathian Ruthenia, then part of Czechoslovakia (today Zakarpattia, Ukraine). Her Hungarian name was Piroska, Piri for short. She was the eldest of six children of Meir Weiss, a merchant born in the village in 1895, and Rachel née Stern, born in 1900 in Lokot. Her brothers were David (1928), Eli (1931), Philip (1933), Zalman (1937) and Israel (1939). Philip was named after their grandfather, Filip Weiss.
Spring 1944
In April 1944, under Hungarian rule, the family was arrested and taken to the ghetto in Munkács (Mukachevo). In May they were deported to Auschwitz. Perla was registered as prisoner A-19914. Her mother and her five brothers were murdered; her father did not survive either.
Płaszów, Buchenwald, Leipzig
From Auschwitz she was sent to Płaszów, near Kraków, and in June back to Auschwitz. On 31 August 1944 she was put on a transport to Buchenwald and assigned to its women's sub-camp at Markkleeberg, near Leipzig, where prisoners worked for the Junkers aircraft company. She was liberated there by the American army on 18 April 1945.
Prague, and a new family
After the liberation she made her way to Prague, where she met Bolek. They settled in Ústí nad Labem, where their son was born in May 1946. She named him after her father: Meir.
In 1949 she and Meir went to the United States, sponsored by her uncle John Stern of Philadelphia; the family still speaks of him, and even more of "cousin Piri". About six months later they joined Bolek in Israel. Their daughter Ronit was born in Tel Aviv in December 1954.
In June 1999 Perla filled in a Page of Testimony at Yad Vashem for her father, her mother and each of her five brothers. They are on the We Remember page of this site.