Annetta Able

Prepared by the Witnesses of War team

Annetta Able, née Heilbrunn, was born on 4 February 1924 in Subotica, then Yugoslavia, alongside her identical twin sister, Stephanie, later known as Stepha Heller. They grew up in Prague, Czechoslovakia. Their close relationship would become a vital source of strength during persecution and imprisonment. Guinness World Records recognised Annetta as the oldest twin Holocaust survivor, documenting both sisters’ survival of Josef Mengele’s experiments.

In 1941, their parents and younger sister, Elizabeth, were deported to the Łódź ghetto. The twins never saw them again. Annetta was sent to Theresienstadt (Terezín) in May 1942, where Stephanie later joined her. They worked as nursing aides in an infectious diseases hospital before being deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau in December 1943. There, they were selected for Josef Mengele’s medical experiments on twins. Annetta was tattooed with prisoner number 72890.

In January 1945, the sisters were forced onto an evacuation death march, subsequently passing through Ravensbrück and Malchow. They eventually escaped and encountered American troops near Lübeck in May 1945. Returning to Prague, they learned that their parents, younger sister and Stephanie’s husband had not survived. Both sisters subsequently trained as nurses.

Annetta married fellow survivor George “Jirka” Able in 1948. They moved to Israel in 1949, raised three children and later settled in Melbourne. In 1985, Annetta and Stephanie testified at an international inquiry in Jerusalem examining Mengele’s crimes. Throughout her later life, Annetta helped preserve Holocaust memory while emphasising the family and life she had rebuilt. She died in November 2025, aged 101.