This is my sister, Irena Birnbaum, married name Warlicka. The photo was taken in Wroclaw in the late 1940s.
My sister, Irena Birnbaum, married name Warlicka, died in 1951. She was a pretty woman. Taller than me, good-looking. After the war, she went to Palestine. It was 1946, perhaps 1947. She didn't stay there for long, because she didn't like the place. On her way back to Europe, on a ship, she caught the flu. There was a flu epidemic a couple of years after the war, in 1947 or 1948. She had the back luck to catch it. She returned to Poland seriously ill. She developed cirrhosis of the liver and three years later died. I don't know whether it was because of the flu or because of penicillin overdose, as that was suggested too. It was the early period of penicillin use.
After returning to Poland Irena lived in Wroclaw. She was married for a short time, two years perhaps. She had a female friend who was a doctor and who died while giving birth. To her second child. Irena married the father of those children, but she was already very ill by then. She had bad luck, died before the age of 30.
Irena Warlicka
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