Frieda Weinreich was born in July 1924 in Lodz, Poland. She was the baby of the family of six children. They were an Orthodox observant family. His father and mother worked in a clothing factory. She lived and went to school with people of her Jewish faith, and she did not encounter any anti-Semitism because all her friends were Jewish. Weinreich recalled around 1937, her school principal returned from vacation in Austria and commented on the rise of ant-Semitism in that country. She recalled her mother talking about World War 1 and how horrible it was due to hunger and soldiers mistreating the civilians. In September 1939, Weinreich was 15 years old and recalled that they had already closed the boundaries between Germany and Poland, and soon Germany invaded Poland without much of a resistance from the Polish. With the Nazi invasion there were new rules for Jews like a curfew, when and what rations could be purchased, where they could walk, celebration of Jewish Holidays. She remembered her father had to cover his beard in public. Frieda wanted to attend accounting school, but the new rules did not permit Jews to attend school. In October, they burned the synagogues in Lodz. A couple of months after Lodz was taken all the Jews were put in the Lodz Ghetto. Weinreich's family's apartment was already a part of the layout, so they did not have to move. They closed the Lodz Ghetto on 1 May 1940.

A couple of months after Lodz [Annotator's Note: Lodz, Ploand] was taken, all the Jews were put in the Lodz Ghetto. Frieda Weinreich's family's apartment was already a part of the layout, so they did not have to move. Weinreich recalled the Nazis started to make factories in the city. She worked in a factory where she made straw shoes for the German soldiers. The leader of the Ghetto, who was Jewish, gave concession to the Nazis because he wanted to survive the war. Weinreich's father died from starvation in 1941. She watched her father die in his bed; an image that has stayed with her for a lifetime. During selections, people were taken away, never to return to the ghetto. Her mother was always hidden, and Weinreich went down in her place knowing and hoping that she would not be picked. Weinreich remembered using any food scraps to cook so they could have something eat. 1941 was a terrible year because people died of starvation and from the bitter cold weather. She had to stay in bed a lot to keep warm. Her family still performed Shabbat services in their home. A few weeks before the ghetto was liquidated, Weinreich's mother was on the list of those to be deported. Weinreich asked a favor of one of the leaders of the ghetto and her mother was taken off the list. When the ghetto was liquidated, she and her mother were packed into cattle car trains and shipped off. She recalled that the cattle car was packed with people and there was only one bucket for them to use the bathroom. They traveled for days until the train finally came to a stop.

Frieda Weinreich woke up after the train stopped. They had reached the Auschwitz concentration camp [Annotator's Note: concentration and extermination camp system in German Occupied Poland]. The men had already been deboarded from the train. Her mother was sent to the line headed to the showers and crematorium. Two Jewish volunteers tore Weinreich from her mother and put her in the other line and subsequently saved her life. Weinreich never saw her mother again. Weinreich was stripped, shaved, showered, given clothes with no shoes, and sent to Block 3. She could use the bathroom facilities once per day. She saw a teacher from her school and a cousin who came from Lodz [Annotator's Note: Lodz, Poland] too. She spent three days in Auschwitz before being shipped out to a work camp. She was trained as a bricklayer for two months, then went to work. One of her first projects was to make a latrine. One of the women laborers was pregnant and had a baby. The baby was some how hidden in an infirmary. One day, Weinreich found a potato on the floor and picked it up. The woman guard saw and took away the potato and gave her a punishment. Two weeks later, she was sent to the Parschnitz Slave Labor Camp. She was put on a civilian train and people stared at her and the other prisoners. She felt degraded. When she arrived at camp, she was put to work in a factory making gas masks. The weather was cold, and she did not have proper clothing. One of the guards wanted her to do some knitting, so it gave Weinreich an opportunity to make gloves, a scarf and socks for herself.

Frieda Weinreich remembered two girls who ran away from a work camp and ended up coming to the Parschnitz Slave Labor Camp. She recalled that they slept in bunks, two people per bed. She ate a lot of potato skins and hard bread. Weinreich stayed at Parschnitz until she was liberated on 9 May 1945. Near the end of the war, the Germans had disappeared from the camp because they heard the Russians were coming. The prisoners waited around until the Russians arrived. After three weeks, Weinreich decided to return to Lodz, Poland to seek out any family members who survived. On her journey to find any living relatives, Weinreich was aided by various friends, strangers, and organizations. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer pauses the interview at 0:57:59.000.] She was able to find out that all of her siblings had perished. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer pauses the interview from 1:01:03.000 to 1:01:09.000.]

Frieda Weinreich went to the Landsberg Displaced Persons Camp located outside of Munich, Germany. She met old and new friends, and her husband Sam Weinreich. She learned how to be a dress maker at the displaced persons camp. Weinreich did not want to live in Poland because she lost too much living there so she and her husband relocated to the United States. They spent their first week in America at a hotel until they could find a suitable apartment. One day, Weinreich received a phone call from the post office about an overseas letter. It was from a cousin who had survived and was living in Israel. She did not talk about her holocaust experience until years later.

Frieda Weinreich remembered that it took a little while to adjust to the United States because she did not speak English. She soon met her neighbors and became good friends. After Weinreich watched a show on television about the holocaust, she decided she wanted to share her experience with others. She believes that we should teach about the Holocaust, so we never forget.