Wiktoria Śliwowska
I was eight years old when the war broke out and nine when I found myself behind the walls of the Warsaw Ghetto. My parents had no substantial supplies, neither food nor cash. They lived modestly. Mother, Sara, née Fryszman (according to family accounts, she was related to the well- known Hebrew writer, David Frischman), […]
Mieczysław Rudnicki
I was born in Warsaw into a family of Jewish origin. The outbreak of the war found me in Żuków (Lublin province), where I was on vacation with my grandmother, Sara Mantel, and my younger siblings, seven-year-old brother, Srul, and three-year-old little sister, Etel. My father, Szymon Rudnicki, a physician, was mobilized at that […]
Aleksandra Kaniuka née Rozengarten
I was born in Warsaw. We lived at 4 Nowogrodzka Street. My father, Stanisław Rozengarten, worked as the chief accountant in an insurance company. My mother, Irena, operated with her father, Henryk, a shop on Leszno Street manufacturing tapes and ribbons. Upon the outbreak of the war in September 1939, Father was called up to […]
Hanna Raicher
I was born in Warsaw. Mother, Chaja, née Bromberg, the youngest of ten brothers and sisters, was then thirty-five years old and worked for the Polish-American philanthropic institution “Joint” involved in promoting the productive skills of the Jewish population (she had completed studies at the Horticulture Department of the Main School of Rural Agriculture). Father, […]
Ludwik Oppenheim
I was born in Warsaw. My father, Antoni Oppenheim, pseudonym Tomasz, was a lawyer, my mother, Franciszka Anna, née Berenbaum, a teacher. Until the outbreak of the war, we lived on a street that does not exist today, Wielka Street (second entrance from Zielna Street), in the vicinity of the present Palace of Culture. Our […]
Maria Ochlewska
I was born in Chełm Lubelski. I remember that my parents were called Binijumin and Perla Horn. My given name was Estera. I do not remember the names of other members of my family, although I know that I had several aunts and cousins. Father met his death at the beginning of the war. Mother […]
Krystyna Nowak
I, Krystyna Nowak, maiden name Marczak (former name Róża Aleksander), born on August 25, 1931, am the daughter of Saba, née Flaster, and Gabryel Aleksander. My parents were tailors. In 1936, my father died of typhus. In 1939, after the entry of the Nazis into Łódź, when racial discrimination against Jews began, we moved to […]
Bronka Niedźwiecka
I was very lucky. I was born into an honest Jewish family blessed with numerous siblings. All the evil of the world conspired, however, that this good fortune would pass as if it were a fleeting dream… I was delivered at birth by an ordinary country midwife, a Polish woman, our local midwife who appeared […]
Hanna Mesz
I was born in Warsaw. My mother, Klara Ratner-Mesz, was a medical doctor, a gynecologist. My father, Henryk Mesz, worked in an office. In 1939, I finished the first year of the gymnasium Współpraca (Collaborative). This private girls high school was located in Warsaw on Miodowa Street. We lived at that time in Warsaw at […]
Katarzyna Meloch (1)
Someone asked me when it was that I heard the word “Jew” for the first time in my family circle—perhaps only in 1941 when, in Białystok, the Germans came to pick up my mother. They were then tracking down people connected with the Soviet authorities. “A Communist,” said one of them after looking over her […]