Her parents, maternal grandparents Szymon and Shajna Kohn, younger brother Józio (Josef), and other members of her extended family were murdered at the Treblinka extermination camp.
After that, she was placed with a couple in the nearby village of Styków but when it was revealed in church that she hadn't been baptized, she expected repercussions and fled back to Hucisko and lived with Zosia.
[3] After liberation, Miriam lived in Lwów with Maryla, at which point her last name was changed to Dudek, and her birth date from June 1933 to September 1937.
However, she fled at the age of 15 after months of being mistreated physically and emotionally, and began living in an orphanage in Szczecin.
Miriam and her husband applied for emigration and, in 1969, were able to move to the United States, where they had their second Child, David.