Linda Breder

LINDA BREDER Linda (Libusha) Breder, Holocaust Survivor, passed peacefully on September 19, 2010. Linda Breder was born in Stropkov, Slovakia on February 24, 1924. On March 26, 1942, she was taken from her family and deported to Auschwitz. She was the 173rd Slovakian woman to enter the camp, where she survived for over three years until she was liberated on May 5, 1945. After the war, she met fellow Holocaust survivor Fridrich Breder in a bread line in Slovakia. They married six months later, had children, and immigrated to San Francisco in 1966. Linda and Fridrich celebrated 64 years of marriage shortly before her passing. She is survived by loving husband Fridrich; her sister Edith Wellisch; children Pavel Breder and Dasha Grafil and their spouses Chairina Breder and David Grafil; grandchildren Caroline Breder, Linda Peters (ne Grafil), Steven Breder, Elliot Grafil, and Ethan Breder; and great-grandchildren Christine Rayo, Richie Rayo, David Peters, and Gwendolyn Gaythorpe. Despite losing her entire familywith the exception of her sister Edithto genocide, Linda maintained a positive fighting spirit, and brought joy to those around her. She was an outspoken and active survivor, and was known for her eloquence and passion. Her accounts of the war have been included in documentaries, books, magazines, classrooms, oral history projects, and numerous speaking engagements. In 1997 she was the Keynote Speaker for the North Peninsula's annual Yom HaShoah observance. And in 2005, one of her descriptions of the war was the opening quote for the U.S. House of Representatives, Congresswoman Schultz's 2005 Floor Statement on the 60th Anniversary of the Liberation of Auschwitz. She was a member of the Holocaust Center of Northern California's Survivors Speakers Bureau. Funeral services will be held on Friday, September 24, 2010, at 1:00 p.m. in the chapel at Eternal Home Cemetery, 1051 El Camino Real in Colma. Donations in her memory can be made to the Jewish Family and Children's Services, 2150 Post Street, San Francisco, CA 94115; or to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, http://www.ushmm.org/.