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Sabina Wolanski

Polish Holocaust survivor and author

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionApr 14, 2026
Entity authorityQ2209560
Source-derived summary

Sabina Wolanski, born Sabina Haberman, married Sabina van der Linden-Wolanski (8 June 1927 – 23 June 2011) was a Holocaust survivor and author. Her book Destined to Live: One Woman's War, Life, Loves Remembered is a memoir of her account of her experience of the Holocaust.

Biography

Sabina Haberman, born in Borysław, Austrian partition of Poland (today Ukraine), was 12 years old when her home town in Poland was invaded by the Nazis. In her diary she recorded what happened, including the humiliations and terrors, the murder of her family and her survival. In Borysław, she met the industrialist Berthold Beitz, who had helped shelter Jews in Poland. Leaving Europe after the war, Wolanski began a new life in Australia. In 1967, she gave evidence in a trial in Bremen of Friedrich Hildebrand, the man who had killed her father and brother. While there, she met the daughter of a former Nazi who was researching her own past.

In May 2005, when Germany opened the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin, Wolanski was chosen to speak on behalf of the six million dead. In her speech she noted that although the Holocaust had taken everything she valued, it had also taught her that hatred and discrimination are doomed to fail.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Sabina Wolanski” is polish Holocaust survivor and author. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Sabina, Wolanski and Polish, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewStrongest as a route into the people, institutions and dated events that shaped the subject’s public record. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1927, 2011, 1967, 2005—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1927-01-01. For this dossier, Sabina, Wolanski and Polish is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “polish Holocaust survivor and author” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 14, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2209560. VIAF identifies the subject as 12139700. The Library of Congress control number is no2008183524. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1927, 2011, 1967 and 2005.

Critical limits

A concise life account rarely captures disputed attribution, private networks or the changing language used to describe a career. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Sabina Wolanski”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Sabina Wolanski primary sources, Sabina Wolanski archive and Sabina research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Sabina Wolanski”?
  2. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
  3. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Sabina Wolanski” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.