Ewa Janowska-Boisse, née Kleinberg, born in 1931
Anna Janowska-Ciońćka, née Kleinberg, born in 1936
Father Never Returned from Exile
We come from a large Jewish family that had lived in Kraków for many years. Papa’s father, Wilhelm Kleinberg, owned a photography studio. His wife, Antonina, had brought up their six children—Zofia (married name Minder), Paulina (Keiner), Irena (Kirsh), Edward (Aryan name Śliwiński), Juliusz, and our papa, Roman. Mama’s father, Jakub Paster, worked in a bank. His wife had four children—Zygmunt, Irma (Laksberger), Alice (Kleinberg), and Rudolf. Two others had died in childhood.
Śliwiński was the adopted Polish name of Edward Kleinberg.
Before the war broke out, we lived in Rabka, a mountain resort where Papa worked as a dentist. Our life was happy, free of care and worries. Even in 1939 nobody would have thought that the Germans, heirs to Heine, Schiller, and Goethe, would make it their goal to annihilate the Jewish people or that they would proceed to carry it out with German precision and unimaginable cruelty.
At the end of August 1939, we were at Aunt Zosia Minder’s in Kraków. I [Ewa] was almost eight years old then, and my sister, Hanka [Anna], had turned three. One day Papa set out from Kraków on a bicycle with his backpack and mobilization card in order to join the army. We never saw him again. German air raids on Kraków began. We didn’t go down to the shelter, fearing that if the house were bombed, we wouldn’t be able to get out from under the rubble. We assembled in the hallway, which had a Gothic arched ceiling. People believed that such an arch would not collapse.
After a few days, the Germans entered Kraków. I remember how they walked down Karmelicka Street, tired and dusty, on foot, while some rode on heavy, massive horses. A few days later, Mama, my sister, and I returned to Rabka, joined by our close relative, Lola Schifeldrim.
The Germans chased us out of our luxurious home, in which father had had his dental office, to the Rabka ghetto. We had to wear armbands with the Star of David. Mama brought from Kraków my two grandmothers, Laura Paster and Antonina Kleinberg, as well as Grandfather Wilhelm Kleinberg. (Grandfather Jakub Paster had died before the war.) It was thought that it would be easier to survive outside the big city. Things turned out otherwise.
The Gestapo went wild. In what once was the St. Theresa Gymnasium, an SS school was established. It was headed by Wilhelm Rosenbaum, who was then about twenty-eight years old. The SS officers and their wives lived on the grounds of the school. Terror, searches, and robberies became increasingly common in town. People were overwhelmed by fear and despair. On top of everything, there were also diseases. Grandma Tońcia [Antonina] got erysipelas, I developed scarlet fever, and Hanka came down with diphtheria. Unfortunately, Grandma got better—unfortunately, because it would have been better for her to die a natural death than to perish later at the hands of the Nazis. On May 20, 1942, the Nazis conducted their first so-called “action”. They ordered elderly and handicapped Jews to be brought to the Gestapo headquarters. Among the elderly were our sixty-eight-year-old Grandma Laura and seventy-five-year-old Grandma Tońcia. The selection was conducted, and appropriate marks were placed beside each name; a “+” meant a death sentence, and that is what both our grandmothers received. Mama’s efforts to get those “+” marks changed to “-” were to no avail.
Erysipilas is an acute streptococcus infection of the skin, similar to cellulitis; also called Saint Anthony’s fire.
After a few days, those who had been marked for death were summoned again. Mama escorted her mother and mother-in-law, fully aware that they were going to their deaths. The Germans crammed the people, naked (although May in the mountains is still cold), into an old shed. At dusk they led them out to the nearby woods. They shot them standing over freshly dug pits, which were then covered up. Those who were not shot were buried alive, according to eyewitnesses—Jewish workers who had been brought in to dig and later cover the pits.
Grandfather Wilhelm, by then fully aware of what was about to happen, was killed a few weeks later in another action.
Confronted with this horrible tragedy, Mama made a decision to flee from Rabka. My Uncle Edward asked a relative of his wife, a Pole, to take us out of that hell. This noble man came and took us children with him. Mama and Lola had to stay behind, because they did not yet have their false documents prepared. The man who saved our lives by taking us out of there was Marian Sikorski. He had a wife and three young children. He was a school principal in the small village of Szerzyny. When he picked us up at the train station at Skomielno in the fall of 1942, he had difficulty prying my little sister from Mother’s and Lola’s embraces.
The train ride lasted several hours, I don’t remember how many. We got off at the station in Siepietnica and then rode in a horse-drawn wagon to the home of the Sikorskis. We children were without any papers. Along the way we stopped next to the home of the district administrator to get a drink of water. “What pretty, dark-haired little girls,” the administrator said. “Little Jewish girls, surely.” “No,” answered Mr. Sikorski, masking his fear with a smile. “They are related to my wife.” There are no words that could convey the enormity of his deed. After all, his whole family could have been shot for helping Jews. For his heroic and unselfish deed, he was awarded—unfortunately, already posthumously—the medal of the Righteous Among the Nations of the World. It was accepted by his daughters, Bożena and Lidia.
Righteous Among the Nations of the World is an award given by Yad Vashem in Israel to non-Jews who saved Jews in occupied countries during World War II.
It seemed to us like ages had passed before Mama arrived, but it was only about two weeks—of waiting in fear, despair, and longing. It is hard to imagine what our mama must have felt during our separation, uncertain whether we had reached our destination and whether she herself would be able to escape from the ghetto and join us. Fortunately, Mama was able to secure a falsified Kennkarte [identity card]. This happened at the last minute, just before the complete liquidation of the ghetto in Rabka. It turned out that the color of the stamp in the Kennkarte was different from the one on Mama’s glued-in photograph, but it was already too late to fix anything. This was a death sentence. In desperation Mama came up with the idea to pour ink on the photograph, and if the Germans were to question her, she would explain that her children had made the ink spot by accidentally knocking over an ink bottle.
Several times during our stay in the countryside the German gendarmes checked Mama’s papers. One of them, I remember, even whistled when he saw the spotted Kennkarte. Mama told him the story about the ink spilled by her children. He stroked us children on our heads and went away. Another time, a different German, after looking over the Kennkarte, made a “joke” for his own amusement, pulling out his revolver and putting it to Hanka’s head. He did not shoot, just said, “Bang-bang”, chortled, and walked away. I can’t imagine what Mama must have felt then.
Not wanting to endanger the Sikorskis, Mama decided to move to the nearby village of Święcany. We moved in with a family of farmers named Szynal. Mama told the farmers that she was an officer’s wife and that this was the reason why it was safer for her to live with the children in the countryside. We had instructions from Mama to bite our lips, because their natural fullness could give away our origins. Nonetheless, our black hair, which stayed curly despite constant brushing, still betrayed us. Any suspicions were alleviated, however, by Mama’s beautiful blond hair and regular features.
Our living quarters consisted of a tiny room with a clay floor, which was cleaned with a broom made of tree branches. On the beds were pallets of straw, which pricked us, drawing blood. Water was carried from the well, and Mama heated it in a small copper basin over the stove. That’s how we bathed. In summer and until late autumn we bathed in the river. The toilet was outside. From this shabby little room we looked with envy upon the typical, prosperous farmstead—its big kitchen, white sitting room, stacks of lace-trimmed pillows on the beds, its barn, sty, and stable. A horse rotated the kierat, the farmers threshed the grain on the threshing floor. There were millstones for making flour. In the evenings, the farmer’s wife would spin flax yarn.
A kierat is a mechanical device powered by a horse harnessed to a rod walking around in a circle. It was used to drive farm machinery such as a small thresher.
Mama had a few valuables with her, some clothes, and also some bed linens, but only as much as she could carry in her arms when leaving Rabka. She sold off these items gradually to pay for our room and food. Slowly our clothes became tattered, and the money was coming to an end. We grew out of our worn-out shoes. Mama had a local shoemaker make wooden clogs for us. The tops were made from Papa’s pre-war skiing gloves. We were pestered by lice, fleas, and cockroaches, as well as scabies. Our poverty began to get to us.
We children had to mind cows for the farmers in order to get dinner. The village children taught us how to walk barefoot over harvested fields without getting our feet cut—the trick was to run, making the straw stubble fold under one’s feet so you wouldn’t feel pain. We will always remember the difficult moments, when on rainy days, barefoot, numb from cold, hungry, with tears in our eyes, we would pray for the hour to arrive when we could drive the cows back to the barn. Afraid of the farmer’s wife, we had no courage to do this too early. The winters were cold and harsh back then. Toward the end of the war we didn’t go out of the house, because we had no warm clothes or shoes. Luckily, there were various people who helped Mama in all this misery. In order to create the appearance that we did have a family, that we were not in hiding, Lola, who herself was hiding on Aryan papers, would come to visit us. Endangering her own life, she brought us money from Aunt Zosia, who by then was already in the Kraków ghetto. A priest from a nearby parish also visited us, bringing us food from time to time. I remember that his name was Józef Wilk. Maria Wnęk, a relative of Mr. Sikorski, who was a teacher, would come through heavy snow to visit us. She walked on foot more than a dozen kilometers to instruct us in catechism and how to behave in church.
Hanka turned six and should have gone to school. Further education for me was out of the question, because our village school had only three grades. Hanka’s education ended after several days because she was always crying, whether she was separating from Mama, staying in school, or even returning home. She was terribly afraid that when she got back, she would find Mama and me killed by the Germans. This fear didn’t leave us even for a moment. There were days when Mama would tell us to hide in the nearby woods, because she would get a tip that German gendarmes were coming into the village. At such times we were dying of fear, wondering whether we would still find Mama alive when we returned.
In this village, Mama met a man from Sieradz who had escaped from a train that was taking him to forced labor in Germany. His name was Władysław Nogala, an exceptionally good-hearted and noble man. He helped us, bringing us onions so that “the children wouldn’t get scurvy”. He also gave us chickens and whatever else he could obtain. Władysław Nogala was respected in the village and was involved with the partisans who were active in our area.
One day the village administrator, knowing that Władysław was friendly with Mama, told him that “people are talking that Mrs. Janowska is a Jew, and I will have to report this to the police.” Władysław Nogala replied, “If you do, your head will lie in this dunghill.” After this encounter the administrator was silent. The heroism of Władysław Nogala was tremendous. After all, he could have brought disaster upon himself, on us, and upon the farmers with whom we lived.
Finally, January 1945 arrived. One day we heard shots. The Russians were entering the village. The shooting lasted all night. Mama, the two of us, and the farmer’s whole family hid behind a big stove and sat there through the whole night in the middle of resounding gunfire. By morning things grew quiet. We could see that the windows were full of bullet holes. At first, the grown-ups, then we children, stepped outside and saw Russian soldiers running from a nearby, snow-covered hill after the fleeing Germans, yelling “Hurrah!” Mama stood on the threshold and cried. We cuddled up to her. In my childlike naiveté I couldn’t understand why Mama was crying, since the nightmare had ended. I didn’t know then that you could cry from joy.
But our happiness wasn’t complete. We still didn’t know the fate of our papa. All through the war, our mama and we constantly thought about him and prayed to God for his return. But this did not happen. His fate after leaving Kraków unfolded tragically. At first, he made his way to Lwów. From there, desperate letters arrived about his fruitless efforts to return to Poland, letters filled with great worry and anxiety for us. Then the correspondence ceased.
After the war we learned that he had been sent to a łagier [Soviet forced labor camp] in the Yaroslavl oblast [district]. It is known from eyewitness accounts how inhuman the work and living conditions were in those łagry [camps]. Nevertheless, Papa survived this period, was released and wandered around the great expanse of Russia in order to join the Polish army of General Anders. He never reached there. Exhausted by the camp, he came down with typhus and then pneumonia. He died in the Kalinin sovkhoz [state farm] in Uzbekistan on January 7, 1942, at the age of thirty-nine. He was a handsome, good man, full of joy for life; he worshiped Mama and us. He was buried in a refugees’ cemetery in grave number nine, of which undoubtedly no trace remains. The news of our father’s tragic fate was reported to us by Mrs. Emilia Czternastek, a nurse who was present at his death. She said he died with our mama’s and our names on his lips. She also passed on to us photographs of us and fragments of his last letters from Mama.
The Yaroslavl district is in northern Russia. During the Soviet occupation of eastern Poland (1939–41), many Polish citizens were deported to Siberia or Soviet labor camps.
Polish army of General Anders/Anders Army – an army of Poles under the command of General Władysław Anders, also known as the Polish Second Corps. When Germany attacked the Soviet Union in 1941, Stalin, in order to get the cooperation of the Allies, agreed to release Poles who had been exiled to Siberia during the Soviet occu pation of eastern Poland (1939-41) and allowed them to form this army. The Anders Army left the Soviet Union and went to Iran and then to Palestine, where it became part of the British Eighth Army. It took part in the Italian campaign, in cluding the famous Battle of Monte Cassino.
This was not the final blow. News reached us of the tragic fate of the majority of our large family. Aunt Zosia Minder perished in the Stutthof concentration camp, while her husband, Izydor, died in Russia—just like our father. Their son, Jurek, a young, talented writer, survived the hell in Russia, went to Palestine with the Anders Army, and then on to England—but there he died of tuberculosis, which he had contracted during the war. Uncle Julek, with his wife, Sabina, and son, Eryk, died in an unknown location in the Podhale region. Aunt Pola survived the war in Russia with her son, Olek, as did Aunt Irena, who escaped to England through Romania. From Mama’s family, Aunt Irma and her daughter, Ada, who now lives in Israel, survived the concentration camps in Płaszów and Częstochowa. Her husband, Rajmund, died in Buchenwald on the eve of its liberation, while her son, Jurek, survived this camp and now lives in America. Uncle Zygmunt also died somewhere in Podhale with his wife, Mala, and lovely daughter, Anita, who was the same age as Hanka—not even a grave remains. Uncle Rudek [Rudolf], too, died in an unknown location. One can easily see that the count is tragic, but we had to go on living.
Stutthof was a concentration camp near Danzig (Gdańsk) where approximately 65,000 people perished.
Płaszów was a forced labor and later concentration camp near Krakow.
Częstochowa – In and near Częstochowa were several forced labor camps. mostly in armament factories.
Buchenwald, located five miles north of Weimar, was one of the largest concentration camps in Germany. More than 40,000 prisoners perished there.
Władysław Nogala contacted our Mama several months after the end of the war. Their common experiences during the war brought them to join in marriage. He was a good father to us and gave care and support to Mama, just as during the war. From this marriage was born a son, Jacuś, but he died after two weeks. This was also a tragic result of the war and Mama’s frail mental and physical health. We had enormous sympathy for our stepfather, who was not to have a son of his own after all the love he had bestowed on the children of someone else.
Our further fate was commonplace. We remained in Poland because our closest family was here, and here we were educated and started our own families. We worked professionally and were appreciated and respected in our work and in our circles. We did not experience any unpleasantness because of our origins. However, our tragic childhood did leave its mark. Hitler had devised a horrible fate for people. Everyone experienced hunger, cold, disease, fear, as well as separation from, and the loss of, their loved ones.
This suffering remains in memory; we have all been wounded, regardless of our age during the dark days of Nazi slaughter, or no matter by what miracle our one and only life was saved. It doesn’t matter whether we survived in a ghetto, a camp, in hiding, or in inhuman conditions in Russia, nor is it significant how long we suffered
—for a day, a month, or for years. It is impossible to measure this suffering by the amount of time or the sort of repression experienced.
In conclusion, we would like to pay homage to all the victims of the war, to those who helped others to survive, and most of all to our splendid mama—who, unfortunately, is no longer with us. Having two small children in such inhuman conditions, she held out courageously until the end of the war, despite the tragic loss of her own mother and the constant fear for her own life and the lives of her children, as well as for the fate of her husband and the rest of her family. When we asked her how it was possible, she modestly answered, “Necessity awakens the power within us. Besides, I always believed that a miracle would happen and that this hell would end.” She was right; our survival was indeed a miracle.
