After university, Rachela Werebejczyk lived in Łódź, where she met Elijasz Turbowicz. They married in 1924, and their son Mosze was born two years later. Their second son Sewek followed in 1932. In September 1939, German troops captured Łódź. From then on, the Jews there were persecuted. The occupiers set up a ghetto in the city in 1940 – the Litzmannstadt ghetto. The Turbowiczs had to move there in April 1940. Inside the ghetto, they lived under difficult conditions. Although Rachela Turbowicz worked as an office clerk for the Jewish Council, they did not have enough to eat.
In August 1944, Rachela Turbowicz was deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp. Her husband and their younger son were murdered there. In the fall of 1944, Turbowicz was moved to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp and then to Salzwedel concentration camp. She had to perform forced labor in a munitions factory.
After her liberation, Turbowicz lived in a Displaced Persons camp in Braunschweig. She returned to Poland to join her son Mosze 1947. She changed her first name to Helena and worked for the Central Jewish Historical Commission.
