Sabina Zimering (née Szwarc; February 24, 1923 – September 6, 2021) was a Polish-American ophthalmologist and memoirist known for sharing her experiences during the Holocaust.

The family spoke both Yiddish and Polish in the home[1] and attended synagogue and celebrated holidays, but did not keep kosher, a source of conflict with Sabina's Orthodox grandparents.

[2]: 34–35  Her father had a small coal business that struggled in the 1930s' depression, but an autodidact, he spent Saturdays taking his daughters for pastries and reading the cafes' free copies of Yiddish and Polish newspapers.

[2]: 27  They had opposing politics, however, as Sabina's father was a socialist who hoped a reformed Poland would be a safe homeland for its Jewish residents, while her mother was more Zionist, feeling his confidence was misplaced and Jews needed to seek safety in Israel.

[2]: 37 Sabina initially attended a Polish public school and though Jewish students were exempted from Catholic theology lessons, she was bored by the free time and joined her classmates studying the catechism, which proved useful knowledge later on.

[2]: 26  She next enrolled in a private Jewish gymnasium as her mother, despite the expense, insisted on giving her an education similar to what she had received; she graduated at 16 shortly prior to the invasion of Poland in 1939.

[4][3] Szwarc's brother, Nathan, survived Buchenwald concentration camp but witnessed their father die two days before liberation.

"[2]: 167 After the war, Szwarc traded in her Polish identification papers to restore her identity and with American support, she and her sister got an apartment in Regensburg.

[3] For Szwarc, as with other Jewish student survivors, the postwar years were marked with what historian Jeremy Varon called "liberating abandon", with outdoor adventures, canoeing and scaling mountains, and participating in the broader trend of reappropriating former Nazi sites of note, for instance with student trips to Adolf Hitler's former compound at Berchtesgaden, gleeful to be alive and now occupying the hotel rooms that had so recently hosted Gestapo and top Nazi generals.

[2]: 177  Szwarc also dealt with isolation and antisemitism at school, with just a few Jewish students enrolled among Germans who at times demonstrated resentment toward them.

[3] Zimering opened her own ophthalmology practice where her proficiency in the Polish language was useful when treating Eastern European patients.