Rachel Piotrkowski, a survivor of a death march and Bergen-Belsen who later became a Petaluma chicken rancher, died on May 17. She was 81.
Born Rachel Weglinsky in Zawierce, Poland, in 1918, she was the daughter of a shoe manufacturer. Before the war began, she apprenticed as a seamstress.
During World War II, she was a forced laborer, making twine in one factory and operating machinery in another. After enduring a death march that ended at Bergen-Belsen, she was liberated from the camp in April of 1945. None of her immediate family — neither her parents nor her two brothers — survived the war.
She met her husband, Gabriel Piotrkowski, in a displaced persons camp in Germany in 1947. Their son, Joe, was born in a nearby hospital in 1948.
In 1949, the family came to San Francisco, with the help of Rachel Piotrkowski’s uncle, Isidore Weglinsky. Soon after, they moved to Petaluma and worked for a chicken rancher. A few months later, they bought their own 5-acre plot of land and went into the poultry business on their own, doing both farming and processing.
Piotrkowski retired in 1976. She was active in her synagogue, Congregation B’nai Israel in Petaluma, its sisterhood and Hadassah.
In addition to her son, she is survived by her daughter-in-law, Fran, and her grandson, Ari Piotrkowski, all of Petaluma.