Sofia was 12 years old when she and her family were taken to the Auschwitz concentration camp in 1943. The prisoner number Z-4515 was tattooed on Sofia’s arm. She was the 4,515^th Roma prisoner registered in the camp.

Sofia was separated from her family and moved to the Ravensbrück women’s camp, on some date before 2 August 1944, when all the Roma in Auschwitz were gassed to death.

Sofia succeeded in escaping from Ravensbrück in the spring of 1945. She was walking in the direction where she thought her home was when she was finally saved by the Swedish Red Cross’s White Buses.

After a short stay in Malmö Sofia was moved around between various refugee centres. She later got work in a canteen in Vingåker.

As an adult Sofia returned to Auschwitz to hunt for traces of her family. She found only one red child’s shoe like the one her sister Kristina usually wore. Sofia’s grief was heavy but she decided to live.

She married and had a daughter and grandchildren. When she was old she told her story to author Gunilla Lundgren, who wrote it down.

Source: Gunilla Lundgren (2005). Sofia Z-4515. Stockholm: Bokförlaget Tranan och Podium.