Hana Brukner Rosenburg, a Holocaust survivor and former property developer, died in the early morning of Tuesday, May 28, in Los Angeles. She was 89.

Born in 1930 in Łódź, Poland, Hana and her family were forced into the city's Jewish ghetto in 1939, and later deported to Auschwitz. There she was separated from her parents and three brothers; she was the only member of the family to survive.

After the liberation, Hana was sent to a displaced persons camp near Munich, where she would later meet her husband, Ahron. After their marriage the Rosenburgs immigrated to California, where they started their family as well as a property development business. They were partners in both business and life for 58 years before Ahron’s death in 2006.

Mrs. Rosenburg is survived by her five children, Isaac (Mara), Leah (John) Wright, Matthew (Shellie), Zachary (Eve), and Ariel (David) Schwartz. She will also be remembered by her twelve grandchildren – Benjamin (Sara) and Anna; Jonathan (Emily), Eleanor, and Natalie (Andrew); Michael, Evan (Simon), and Rebecca; Eric and Jordan (Danielle); Noah and Avital – and her seven great-grandchildren.

A private memorial service and interment were held yesterday, Thursday, May 30. For shiva information, please contact Andrew Springer, Mrs. Rosenburg's grandson-in-law.

Memorial donations can be made to the Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust and the American Civil Liberties Union.

Absolution is to be washed clean. It's not a balancing of scales, not a careful stacking and cantilevering of apologies and forgivenesses until they're so high you can't believe they don't topple. But is being absolved what we want? We certainly don't deserve it. But isn't that what family is, or should be? A place where you have no choice but to be absolved whether you want to or deserve to or not?