Wiesław Ostern, born in 1930

Good Luck behind a chimney

Peril
We were talking in the kitchen. A doorbell! We looked out of the window. By the gate there were two Germans in uniforms with a dog. My aunt said, “Go, hide quickly in the attic!” I did as I was told. But I wasn’t aware of the peril yet and the grave danger I was in. I didn’t realize what could have happened to me the next moment. All I knew was that something bad was happening. I’m sure that today I wouldn’t survive it.

I quickly ran to the attic. I hid behind the chimney. My Aunt Bronia was talking to them downstairs. Later, one of the Germans started searching the rooms, one by one. He entered the room where I’d been living. But we always tried not to leave any trace of my existence in that room, or in the whole apartment, for that matter. My aunt explained to the Germans that this was the girls’ room, meaning my cousins. But they wouldn’t give up. One of them climbed the ladder to the attic!

It was dark there. I was standing behind the chimney. He swept across the whole attic with his flashlight. I was terrified… Luckily, the attic was clean. If there had been some clutter there, he surely would have been more curious and continued his search. But as it happened, he climbed back down. Soon both Germans left the house. When they were finally gone, my aunt was covered in cold sweat. She was shaking all over from fear. I had never seen her so changed before. Later my cousins came back. Everyone realized the peril! And at the same time, what great good luck it was that they hadn’t found me. They would have shot everyone in the house!

After some deliberation, they concluded that it was too dangerous for me to stay near Warsaw at that time. They decided that I had to go back to Piotrkowice near Kielce, to my mama’s other sister, Aunt Gienia.

Lucky delay
That evening, I got detailed instructions on how to get there, what to say if I was stopped, or rather—what not to say. I was going to the fiancé of one of my cousins. I arrived at the Markowski family’s in Grodzisk in one piece. The next day I went to Kielce, and from there straight to Piotrkowice.

My aunt was very happy, not because of my arrival but because I hadn’t come earlier. It turned out that several days earlier, they had arrested my uncle and sent him to Auschwitz. My uncle was in the underground. The search was very thorough, they checked everything. So if I had been there, they surely would have found me, too. And everyone would have been executed on the spot. And so, for the second time, thanks to a lucky coincidence, I avoided death and so did many of my family members.

Back home
I didn’t stay there much longer. My mother came to get me and took me to Dobromil. They hid me for two months in a stable. Nobody knew I was back. In that stable I managed to last out until the Soviet army came. Their arrival saved me.

Dobromil was a small district town of Galicia. Before the war, it had a population of around seven thousand people, of which half were Poles, the rest Jews, Ruthenians, and Ukrainians. Dobromil is twenty-four kilometers away from Przemyśl. Today, Przemyśl is twelve kilometers away from the Polish-Ukrainian border. It was in Dobromil on June 10, 1930, that I came into this world.

My father, Julian Ostern, the son of Gizela and Menassy, came from a well-educated, affluent, Jewish family. My grandfather was the president of the court in Dobromil. My father’s sister, Aunt Frydzia, completed pharmacy studies in Vienna. Later she owned a pharmacy in Przemyśl. My father’s other sister, Regina, was the treasurer of the municipal council. My father was a dental technician and had an office in Rybotycze.

My mother, Waleria Urbańska, the daughter of Adela and Karol, was Polish-Catholic. The Urbańskis were not wealthy. They had a tiny farm—one field, a cow, some chickens. I wasn’t the first-born. A year before me, my brother Ryszard was born. At that point, my father’s family wanted to keep my father away from my mother because they considered their marriage a misalliance. They sent him to study in Paris, but the separation and great distance didn’t strain the deep love between my parents. My father would come, they’d meet, the effect of which was… my arrival into this world.

My brother was raised by my father’s family while I was raised by my mother. My brother was put in a Jesuits’ boarding school in Chyrów, one of the best in Poland. They ran an elementary, middle, and general secondary school. My brother started elementary school. I didn’t have what my brother had. My mom would accept any work to be able to give money to my grandparents for my upkeep.

This was until 1936. At that point, my father returned to Poland and took Mama and me to Bielsko. He worked in Czeladź and in Bielsko-Biała; he was the secretary of the local Jewish club, “Makabi.” Initially, we lived in a basement apartment. When it was raining we had to walk on planks to get to our home. After some time my father found another apartment. I started elementary school in Bielsko. I completed the third grade there. In 1939 we went with Mama on vacation to Dobromil without even suspecting that we wouldn’t be back in Bielsko. Papa stayed there. Only after some time he joined us in Dobromil.

Gehenna
Until 1939, people in Dobromil got on well together. There was no major strife about origin or religion. People were helpful and kind to one another. Despite this Polish-Ukrainian-Jewish mix, the town had never witnessed any turmoil or riots, as happened in other multinational towns. In 1941 the Germans entered Dobromil, and this is when hell started. As in other places, Jews were persecuted here. They had to observe the curfew and wear the armbands with the star. The persecution intensified.

The Germans rounded up and executed Jews. A ghetto was formed in Dobromil. Once they marched everyone out of the ghetto to a sawmill by the train station. The pits had already been dug. Most Jews who were marched out of the ghetto were executed and buried in those pits. After some time, my grandma was executed at a Jewish cemetery. My father and his sister Regina were herded to Przemyśl. No one saw them again. They were either executed in Przemyśl or sent to Auschwitz.

My vagrancy
My situation was also becoming increasingly dangerous. Although I was raised in a Polish family and had been christened, if they had caught me, they wouldn’t have shown me any mercy. One day Mama told me: “I’m sorry, Son, but I have to hide you somewhere. You have to leave Dobromil.” I was taken to a small town of Piotrkowice, which is near Chmielnik, on route to Kielce-Busko. One of my mama’s sisters, Aunt Gienia, lived there. I didn’t stay there long. People started saying I was a Jew. My aunt was more and more afraid. One day she took me to her sister Bronisława’s, in Podkowa Leśna near Warsaw.

I was in deep undercover there. I didn’t leave the house. At home everyone did everything to not leave any trace of my staying there. But the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising broke out. When it was over, the Germans started combing the area near Warsaw. They were furiously searching for the Jews who’d fled from the Uprising.

And then they came to us.

And then my aunt told me to hide in the attic. And then I got really lucky behind the chimney.

Repatriation
The war was over and resettlements started. My uncle, Bolesław Urbański, my mother’s brother, came from Dobromil to Przemyśl in the first repatriation transport. And on September 29, 1945, I followed him in a two-horse cart. He took care of me. We lived in the building of the State Repatriation Office, where the court had been located before the war. We lived in the courtrooms, and in the basements, where prisoners used to be held. Repatriates kept all their possessions, such as horses, cows, and carts. My uncle got a farm in Nehrybka, three kilometers away from Przemyśl. During the day we farmed, and at night we returned to Przemyśl because it wasn’t too safe to stay there due to UPA [the Ukrainian Insurgent Army—trans. note] bands scouring the territory at night.

One day my aunt, who at that point lived in Katowice-Ligota, came to visit. She was trying to talk me into going back to school. “You’ll go to waste here,” she’d say. “And it would be a shame because you’re smart. You’re not going to walk behind a horse and poke in the dirt your whole life, are you?” I listened to her. In Przemyśl, I completed a rather fast-tracked elementary school. Over two months, I had to cover three grades. I succeeded.

Leaving for Silesia
I left for my aunt’s in Silesia. My aunt made it possible for me to go to a middle school in Katowice. I started commuting from Ligota to the center of Katowice. The middle school was near the train station. That didn’t last long, though, because my aunt had three sons. So, the fourth young man, myself, was too much of a burden on the whole family.

My uncle used his connections to place me in a boarding school in Leśnica, near Strzelce Opolskie. There was a middle school and a co- educational general secondary school for orphans and half-orphans. I lived and studied there for only two years because the place closed down and we were moved to boarding houses in various towns of Opole Silesia—mainly to Strzelce, Niemodlina, and Grodkowo. Again, I got lucky! I ended up in Opole where I got a place in a boarding school and a scholarship.

I was passionate about sports. I played soccer in the Lwowianka Sports Club and later in the Budowlani SC. That wasn’t all. I had many athletic talents. I achieved good results in 100- and 200-meter races. I was good at the long jump. I represented my school—that is the General Secondary School No. 3 in Opole—in athletics, soccer, and volleyball. I also represented the club colors of Budowlani Opole in volleyball.

Professional work
For many years, my professional work was closely linked to sport. I started as the president of the District Committee of Physical Culture in Opole. After three months, I was sent to the College of Physical Education in Wrocław. Unfortunately, I had to drop out because I got sick with pneumonia.

After I recovered, I started working as a PE teacher at the State Technical School of Economics in Opole. I also coached the athletics section of the Gwardia Sports Club in Opole. Around that time, I took the position of the secretary of the Provincial Board of Gwardia. I did a good job there. It was soon noticed, and I was recommended to be the secretary of the Provincial Committee for Physical Culture in Opole. After two years, I became its vice-president.

I was bursting with energy, had lots of new ideas, and was a good organizer. In 1962 I worked on the foundation of the Provincial Center for Sport, Tourism, and Leisure in Opole. After two years I became its director.

When I took my job, I started with an old desk. When I was leaving it, I left behind several sporting and touristic facilities and a substantial fleet of cars. I turned a meager district center into a provincial one. And I advanced from the head to the director.

Smear campaign against Jews
I was a good employee. I received high bonuses, diplomas, and medals. The press wrote about me. And in 1966, I was given notice of termination. That’s right! With no grounds, no specific charges. I turned to the Provincial Commission of Party Supervision at the PZPR’s Provincial Committee in Opole with a request to explain and justify my notice. I never got a reply.

I am confident that the campaign against Jews in Poland started not in March of 1968 but two years earlier. I felt it painfully on my own skin. Later, I learned that “well-wishing” colleagues reported to the PZPR’s committee about my origin. I was persecuted so severely that I didn’t even get permission to go to Hungary. Me, a person who used to have a permanent pass to Czechoslovakia? Prior to this, I had never had any issues about going abroad. But it ended up benefiting me. My professional life took a completely different turn. When I got the termination notice, I started looking for a job. I came across a gifted craftsman whose locksmith workshop was on the verge of bankruptcy, through no fault of his own. He took me in. Because I had a lot of friends and knew how to organize work, the workshop started to prosper again. And I, as a manual worker, got my first salary almost twice as high as the director.

After some time, I earned my craft license. My first products were drink dispensers for broiler chickens and metal window corners. Later, in the furniture industry, I manufactured wardrobes. My latest products were various kinds of roasters which have been quite popular for many years. My life has had its ups and downs but I never complained.

After many years of searching, on November 10, 2005, I received a note from the International Tracing Service that my father’s sister—Regina Maria Sara Ostern—“on an unspecified day, was brought to the concentration camp in Auschwitz and died on February 25, 1943, at 9.50 am. The cause of death: valvular defect.” I suspect that my father died there, too. I live in hope that one day I will learn where and when my father was murdered.