Danuta Lis née Schmerler, born in 1930

Eclairs

I haven’t decided to share my story until the fourth volume of the Children of the Holocaust Speak because I have tried not to think back on my experiences. However, I believe that I should “bear witness”. I belong to the so-called first generation of the Holocaust. I was born into a wealthy family. My father, an economist, was the co-owner of the Polubior Company. We lived at 16 Nowy Świat Street in our own house, which my father had built in 1938.

After the Russians entered Lvov, we were recognized as the so- called bourgeois. We avoided deportation to Siberia by hiding. I remember the words of my mother, who said, “We may well regret that they didn’t deport us.” These prophetic words proved to be correct.

I associate the entry of the Germans with pogroms. My parents, who had been educated in the Austro-Hungarian period, spoke German and knew the German culture, couldn’t imagine that this nation could commit crimes. In 1941 we were displaced to the ghetto, along with my elder brother. At eleven, I realized that a new reality had begun for me. I was seeing it through the eyes of a child. My diary, which was lost, would have recalled all of my feelings—the feelings of a child who understood the whole tragedy of the situation.

Recurring actions in the ghetto forced my father to part with me. He obtained a baptism certificate for me in the name of Danuta Zakrzewska, born in 1928. Being separated from my parents was a necessary evil. Every evening, I said a prayer in Hebrew, a language I didn’t understand, asking for my parents to be spared.

My first place of refuge was the Bank of Poland. Dad had friends there who took me in. After a short stay with them, I found out about an action in the Jewish district. The ghetto didn’t exist then. We lived at 3 Słoneczna Street. I went to my parents’, who had an employment document for the Germans. This action, in August, was aimed at catching children and the elderly. When Daddy saw me, he fell into despair. He put me under the table and blocked me in with pots. Soon the Germans entered. They searched under the table, shining their flashlight. Daddy distracted one of them by taking my brother’s gymnastics equipment out of the wardrobe, which stood right next to the table. He said that it could come in handy to him. I was saved. This action lasted for three weeks. At Dad’s workplace, a fake wall was made out of valenki. Ten people could hide behind that wall, including me and one lady’s infant. You couldn’t stretch out your legs there. We heard the voices of the Germans looking for people—Jews, considered as sub-humans. The baby started crying. Its mother covered it with a cushion. She suffocated it. We came out after ten days.

valenki—traditional Russian winter footwear made of felt

The next place of my stay was Łyczaków, on Ostrogski Street, at Mrs. Bieńkowska’s. I was a very sensitive and nervous child who couldn’t be separated from her parents. Because of this, I caused a lot of trouble, not realizing how much harm I was doing to them by leaving my hiding place, which was obtained with so much trouble. Well, I survived. With that, at least, I satisfied their efforts to save me. The new reality—Mrs. Bieńkowska and her daughters, much older than me—served me well. Having an Aryan appearance, I passed for their cousin. There were no actions or danger.

At the age of twelve, I begin to feel like a teenager. The friends of Mrs. B.’s daughters, who visited their house, started to make allusions to my identity. During these visits, I hid in the corner, behind the wardrobe. I realized that I could be blackmailed. I started to feel the humiliation that stayed with me for many years. I was ashamed of my existence.

After a few months, I learned about the planned liquidation of the ghetto. Without saying anything to anyone, I got on a tram and went to my parents’ workplace. It was located outside the ghetto. They made felt valenki for the Germans on the front. When Dad saw me, he said in German, “Miss, you’re mistaken.”

I returned to Łyczaków to Mrs. Bieńkowska’s. I was being followed. Mrs. Bieńkowska rented one of the rooms to two men from Warsaw. They were playing bridge with their neighbors. Looking out the window, they noticed that I was being followed. At around 11 p.m. the Ukrainian police and the Germans came for me. I was pulled out of the wardrobe. I showed my baptism certificate. They said that I’d stopped by at my father’s, which I denied. At that moment, one of the men visiting from Warsaw entered the apartment. The police went to their room and soon left. Hans (a civilian) asked me if I was Jewish. He told me that he was a Jew from Silesia and, together with a German friend, they transported Jews from Lvov to Warsaw for a fee. He left me his address and told me to leave Mrs. Bieńkowska’s apartment, saying that we would be blackmailed. He had some dollars on him, which he gave me.

I went back to my parents, who, were going to be transferred to the Janowski camp the next day along with the survivors from the ghetto.

All my parents thought about was saving my brother and me. My brother left Lvov for the territories occupied by the Germans. He survived the war in a German uniform. His and others’ stories are described in the book Gewonnen gegen Hitler, published in German. He was six years older than me. My parents were desperate. They knew that coming with me to the Janowski camp would be the end of their efforts. Literally at the last moment, my father’s partner, Mr. Baron, who had American citizenship, came over. He, his wife, and two children were waiting for an exchange of foreigners. They were, along with others, confined in a hotel in Lvov. He told my parents that they knew about one person (a teacher) who could take me and my mother to her place. For a fee, of course. Daddy could go with her brother. It was our chance. I was with Mom in her apartment for a week. One morning she entered our room saying that someone from the registration office would come to check the number of residents. She said, “I will take Danusia to the closet in the kitchen, and Mom will go into the wardrobe in the room.” I wanted to go into the wardrobe with my mom, but Mom told me to obey the instructions. She threw a coat over my shoulders because I was only wearing a nightgown, and she told me to go with the lady. It was the last time I saw her.

Standing in the kitchen closet, I heard the screams of many people being taken out of this apartment. After a short time, I heard the voice of this lady’s brother. I knew his voice because he had brought us letters from Dad, whom he was hiding at his place. He asked his sister if it was all over here, because it wasn’t at his place. I realized we’d been denounced. My first thought was to warn Dad. Maybe I’d make it in time… He lived in another district of Lvov. When I got there, the neighbors told me that a Jew had recently been taken out of there.

Having nowhere else to go, I went to our house on Nowy Świat Street. Not only Jews had been displaced from this house. The house was taken over by the Gestapo. Our former superintendent, Mrs. Maciopa, bumped into me on the street. Her husband was in the Ukrainian police. She took me to their apartment. I don’t remember how long I stayed there. I was in a haze. One day, I heard Mr. Baron’s voice. He brought a letter from Dad, from the Janowski camp. Mr. Baron could move freely. He didn’t wear an armband. He was waiting for a foreigners exchange with Germans in the USA. Mom was already dead. In the letter, Dad gave me two alternatives for rescue. Leaving for Warsaw with Hans or leaving with Mr. Baron. A fictitious marriage to his son, who was seven years older than me, was on the table. Unfortunately, they were soon deported from Lvov along with many others waiting for this exchange. They were all shot. Mr. Maciopa was involved in this massacre. He returned home with his colleagues, the Ukrainian policemen, and drunk, talked about how he had had a hard time shooting the Barons. He’d known them from before the war.

There was only one option left for me, going to Warsaw. Hans sent a German for me, with whom I stayed as a babysitter. (4 Parkowa Street).

I came to Warsaw in May 1943. The ghetto was on fire. I was thirteen and a half years old. Hans was supposed to look after me, that’s how I imagined it. Unfortunately, he used me in an ugly way. It’s hard for me to write about it. It left a mark on my psyche. He robbed me of money sewn into the arms of my coat, which I didn’t know about. I had to change my location. Hans took me to Jeziorna near Warsaw. Zosia Knapczyk lived there with Hans’s mother. At that time, she was an eighteen-year-old girl from Krakow, a Pole, in love with Hans. She saved his mother by stealing the Kennkarte from her own mother and fled with him and his mother to Warsaw. Zosia gave me shelter in Jeziorna. There she passed for Hans’s wife. I cried at night hearing Zosia and Hans. Soon after, Hans got arrested in a casino in Warsaw. Only the Germans were allowed to enter.

Zosia, along with his mother (who had a very Semitic appearance), and me, returned to Krakow to her mother. Hans was in Krakow in the Montelupich prison. Zosia somehow got in touch with the prison guards, invited them to her mother’s house for snacks, which usually ended in drunkenness. I, having an Aryan appearance, was present. Hans’s mother was hidden in the basement.

One day, I heard Zosia’s mother say to her, “Those Jews of yours will get us all killed.” I decided to go back to Lvov. Hans lived to see the end of the war in prison. His mother also survived and went to live with her daughter in Australia. Hans was identified after the war by one of the Jews. He had charged them for transport to Warsaw and later denounced them. He was sentenced to death. I refused to testify in his case. After the war, Zosia didn’t make a life for herself. She died in an old folks’ home in Krakow. May she rest in peace.

I had no money for a train ticket to Lvov. As I put on my coat, I felt something hard under the ripped lining. Found a gold dollar coin that had probably slipped down when I was being robbed. I sold it and went to the station. In Lvov, I went to my parents’ friends. I was served tea and they made it clear that I had to leave. I went to Stryjski Park, where I spent the night on a bench. The next day, as I was leaving the park, I saw a tray of pastries and eclairs, which I liked a lot. I didn’t look at who was selling them. I heard a voice, “Why don’t you treat yourself to one?” It was a young boy. I told him about the supposed aunt I had come to visit from Warsaw and missed her at home. I walked with him around the streets of Lvov, not afraid that someone might bump into me and denounce me. I didn’t care about surviving. I was ashamed to be alive.

I spent the following night again in Stryjski Park. In the morning, when I was leaving, I saw the tray of pastries again. I couldn’t resist the temptation and ate an eclair. I continued to spin the story about my aunt. Damian, that was the name of the pastry vendor, said that I could move in with his aunt, the pastry baker. I accepted the offer and stayed with her until the Russians entered Lvov. Damian offered me marriage, not realizing how old I really was. He knew everything about me. We went to Nowy Świat Street, to my parents’ house. He made me overcome my shame that I was alive. The house was deserted. We moved into my old room. Later we were kicked out by the Russians who took over whole house. (the NKVD).

I was ill. Infected with tuberculosis and emotionally exhausted, I agreed to the marriage proposal. I concealed my age from him for a long time. I was afraid of losing him. I couldn’t be alone. The fear for my life rekindled when nothing threatened me anymore. Fear mixed with shame. The doctor advised me to get pregnant. He believed that giving birth at such a young age could bring some stability, causing a shock to my system. His predictions came true. When I was seventeen, I became a mother. I started to function normally. I passed my high school diploma.

My marriage wasn’t successful. We were from two different worlds. I also held a grudge against men. There were reasons for this. I didn’t give Danek happiness. In 1963 we divorced by mutual consent. I quit my job at Cepelia and in 1964 I left for Israel with my son.

After several difficult years of adaptation, I got remarried to Dr. Lis. These were the happiest years of my life. He was eighteen years older than me. For ten years I have been a widow, without a family. My son lives abroad. My husband’s death was very hard on me.

I decided to move to Warsaw. I have many friends in Warsaw. Damian also lived there. He started a family. In some way, I felt like I was a part of it. He had two more sons. I decided to buy an apartment in Warsaw. Also, my son visits Warsaw frequently. I come to my second home every year. I stay in Poland for several months. I’m a member of the Association of Children of the Holocaust. I’ve met many interesting people there. I like my stays in Warsaw very much. I can’t take the step to move back permanently yet. I think I can make this decision when I become infirm.

I consider Israel as my country. Here, I got rid of the complex about being a Jew. Shame and fear of the unknown lived in me for many years after the war. In the Association of Children of the Holocaust we make up a kind of family. All of us experienced the nightmare of the Holocaust. I’m one of them. I know that in my old age I will return to Warsaw. For now, I visit it every summer.

Damian was recognized as a “Righteous Among the Nations”. He died in Warsaw in 2001. We stayed friends until he died.

Herzliya, 2010