Kitty Hart-Moxon, OBE (born December 1, 1926) is a Polish-British Holocaust survivor. She was sent to the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp in 1943 at age 16, where she survived for two years, and was also imprisoned at other camps. Shortly after her liberation, she moved to England with her mother, where she married and dedicated her life to raising awareness of the Holocaust. She has written two autobiographies entitled I am Alive (1961) and Return to Auschwitz (1981).
Early life
Hart-Moxon was born Kitty Felix, on 1 December 1926, in the southern Polish town of Bielsko (known as Bielitz in German), which bordered both Germany and Czechoslovakia. She was the second child of Karol Felix and his wife Lola Rosa Felix, who had a son five years Kitty's senior, named Robert. Karol Felix (born c. 1888) had studied law in Vienna, and had also been a captain in the Austrian army in the First World War. Upon his father's death, he took over his agricultural supply business, which he ran with his sister, until the outbreak of the war. Lola's father was also in the agricultural business: he was a farmer, who owned his own land, and Kitty believes that this may have been how her parents met—with Lola's father potentially using Karol as a supplier. Kitty's paternal family had come from Italy hundreds of years ago—it had been said that one of her ancestors had been called to attend to the King of Poland, as he was a doctor, and that is how the family came to reside in Poland. Her mother was born on 18 February 1890, to a Slovakian father and his wife. Lola's sister had studied medicine in Vienna, and Lola herself went to England in 1911 to study English at Bedford College, London—eventually becoming an English teacher in Poland, where she taught children preparing for their state examinations (this meant it was an advanced level of English learning).
Prior to the end of the First World War, Poland had been partitioned into three parts, with each part belonging to either Austria-Hungary, the German Empire, or the Russian Empire; the town of Bielsko belonged to Austria-Hungary. The majority of Austro-Hungarians were German speakers, and due to the fact Bielsko belonged to Austria-Hungary, many of its residents were German speakers, including Kitty's parents, and as a result of this, the Felix family spoke German at home, with Kitty not learning a word of Polish until she began attending school. Kitty also began learning basic English in nursery, where her mother—who was teaching at the nursery at the time—taught the children English nursery rhymes.
Growing up, Kitty was extremely sporty, and participated in gymnastics, athletics, swimming, and skiing. Meanwhile, both her parents, and her brother, enjoyed ballroom dancing. Her parents also enjoyed socialising: they had a wide circle of Jewish friends, with whom they frequently went out. The family led quite a prosperous lifestyle: they travelled a lot; employed domestic staff; lived in comfortable accommodation; could afford to send Kitty to private school; and had lavish birthday celebrations—even including parties on ice.
Lola and Karol Felix were liberal Jews: they did not observe Jewish customs, including not keeping a kosher home (in fact, Kitty states that she did not even know what kosher was until after her family had fled to Lublin); and the family only attended synagogue at occasions. Despite this, they were very much a part of the Jewish community: the majority of people the family mixed with were Jews, with Kitty herself frequenting Jewish social clubs. Additionally, Kitty also attended a Jewish primary school, and following this, was a pupil at the Convent School of Notre Dame for a year (after which the war broke out), which although not a Jewish school, was predominantly attended by Jews. The school was a private all-girls school, and people came from miles around to attend it, as it was very prestigious, with alumni including a set of twins who were descended from the Habsburg dynasty.
Kitty has stated that growing up, she was completely oblivious to the political situation in both Poland, and wider Europe, including Hitler's rise to power. One thing she does recall from her youth however, is a girl joining her school who stated that she and her family had been expelled from Germany for being Jews.