The only family members Helen Schamroth grew up with were her parents and younger sister Eve. She had only fragmentary knowledge about the past as her parents were reluctant to talk about how they had survived the Holocaust in Poland and how other family members had died. With their baby Helen, they left Poland in 1946 and arrived in Melbourne three years later where they created the good life they had promised themselves.
As an adult Helen moved to Auckland and over time she and her sister discovered some of the extraordinary stories of their parents’ lives. These have been told through Helen’s book Eighteen for life: surviving the Holocaust and Eve’s documentary Man on the Bus.