On the cover

Photo of the siblings Jaś and Wandzia Zylber which was taken in the Warsaw Ghetto for their father. He was an officer of the September Campaign and was in a POW camp at the time. The children left the Jewish quarter along with their mother in October 1942, taking a path through the law courts on Leszno Street. Jaś was placed in an orphanage near Warsaw, and Wandzia lived in Zielonka until Liberation with Żegota paying for her stay. Their parents were able to find them after the War. They were the only members of the Zylber family who survived the Holocaust..

We Couldn’t Understand Why...

This publication consists of selected copyrighted recollections of the Association of Children of the Holocaust in Poland. It is published in a full Children of the Holocaust Speak five-volume series. The project was made possible by the support of the Polish Representation of the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation..

Editor: Anna Kołacińska-Gałązka

Translated by:Mateusz Wehr

English text editor: Sarah Lawson

Editorial adviser: Małgorzata Koraszewska

Development of an e-book: Jacek Gałązka

Copyright © by the Children of the Holocaust Association in Poland

ISBN 978-83-915787-9-7

E-book, Warszawa 2020

Publisher: Children of the Holocaust Association in Poland, ul. Twarda 6, 00-105 Warszawa, tel./fax 22 620 82 45, website: dzieciholocaustu.org.pl, e-mail: chsurv@jewish.org.pl. Other websites: moirodzice.org.pl, zapispamieci.pl

Introduction

“We couldn’t understand why we were expelled from our homes, separated from our parents, and handed over to outsiders who didn’t always shower us with affection. We didn’t understand why we had to hide in basements while other children were playing outdoors. We couldn’t understand why the word ‘Jew’ was an insult or why it was directed towards us. After the War, we couldn’t understand why strangers made us call them ‘Mum and Dad’” – fragment of Lea Balint’s recollections

Many Jewish children were the victims of genocide during World War II. Historians estimate that out of the nearly 6,000,000 Holocaust victims, 1,500,000 were children under the age of 15. They were driven from their homes and suffered from hunger, cold, and disease. Their parents were unable to save them and they perished alongside their children. Others died alone because their loved ones had already been murdered. We will never know what they were thinking or feeling in those last few moments of their lives. They don’t have graves. They don’t even have names. They never had the chance to grow up and have children and grandchildren of their own who would carry on remembering them.

“The Children of the Holocaust” spoke up on their behalf after decades of silence. They had been children or teenagers during the occupation and survived the War. In September 1939 their childhoods ended, and the secure worlds they had known up until then disappeared forever. They ended up in ghettos with their families; they would wander to villages, forests, and unfamiliar homes. They were told to forget their names and who they were.

They had no chance of surviving, and yet they made it through the War. They were savedthanks to the people who hid them, risking their own lives as well as those of their families. These were extraordinary people who passed the toughest test that life had to offer: the test of being human. When they grew up, the Children of the Holocaust decided to share their stories for these people as well.

These recollections were written nearly fifty years after the War and are full of factual material and have an enormous emotional charge. They are true depictions of Jewish children in ghettos and those who hid on the Aryan side. They discuss the relations between rescuers and rescued, as well as the attitudes and behaviour of Polish society towards Jewish refugees. Though these truths can often be hard to swallow, they must be faced head on.

The book is sourced from recollections written between 1991 and 2014 by the members of the Association of Children of the Holocaust in Poland, published in five volumes entitled Children of the Holocaust Speak….

The accounts originate in areas that were within the borders of pre-war Poland. This book synthesises the destinies of surviving Jewish children and consists of extensive quotations describing the authors’ personal experiences and emotions. The book also contains historical information and footnotes describing people, places, and events.

Anna Kołacińska-Gałązka

The Outbreak of War

The German army marched into Poland at dawn on 1 September 1939, starting an occupation that lasted for five years. On 17 September 1939, under an agreement with the Nazi government (the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact signed on 23 August 1939 between the Third Reich and the USSR concerning the division of territories in Eastern Europe: Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Finland, and Romania), the Red Army occupied the eastern province of the Republic of Poland.

The Polish army was defeated by the German army after nearly four weeks of intense fighting. Approximately 100,000 Jews took part in the September Campaign of which 7,000 were killed and 60,000 were taken captive by Germans and Soviets.

“I remember the early morning of September first 1939,” Swen recalls many years later. He was 7 years old at the time and lived in Jabłonowo near Grudziądz. He came from a wealthy family of warehouse owners. “Children climbed into their parents’ beds – which was allowed that day. Suddenly we heard rumbling thunder, as if a storm were approaching.

My father told me not to be afraid, but I’ve always been afraid of lightning.

“The thunder grew louder and louder. Suddenly something exploded in our yard and the windows shattered. A shard of shrapnel whistled past and hit the wardrobe. This is how the Second World War began for us. Our parents scooped us up and we fled into the cellar together. It had already been prepared earlier for this purpose. Sandbags lay in the windows, there was a water tank, and rolls of gauze had been put in place so we could cover our mouths in case of a gas attack. Seeing it all from a modern perspective, it was all naive, bordering on stupidity. It characterised Poland’s complete lack of preparedness for war. As soon as the shelling ended, my parents decided to pack some things, load them on a horse cart, and go deep into the Polish countryside.

“We were on the move for three days. Whenever I mow the grass now it reminds me of the smell of fresh hay in the barns where we stayed. The Germans were already everywhere. The only logical choice was to return home. At home we came across new owners of what had belonged to us for generations. They had previously rented a space for a shop in one of our buildings. It turned out that they were of German origin and had declared themselves Volksdeutsche (ethnic Germans). Reichsdeutsche were even better Germans, But Volksdeutsche were still much better than everyone who was not Reichsdeutsche.

“The new-minted Volksdeutsche put swastika armbands on their sleeves and would look at us contemptuously. They pushed us into one of the rooms of the building which had recently been our home. From this point on, all of our belongings and interests were controlled by these ‘ethnic Germans’ and were made available to the German military administration. After two weeks we were told that the area we lived in was to be Judenfrei – cleansed of Jews. We were loaded onto a train, only allowed to take one suitcase per person, and off we went. None of us knew where we were going.

“The overcrowded train car in which all local Jews were taken was attached to the normally scheduled train. Later the car was uncoupled and attached to different trains. Finally we reached Działdowo. When the train approached the station we saw a number of soldiers on the platform with sticks in their hands. They opened the door and beat us while yelling, ‘Raus! Schnell! Judische Schweine!’ and herding us off the train. We formed in groups of four along the platform and marched in a long column. We went through a small town and stopped at a gate revealing

a wide avenue, and farther on a series of barracks. Along the avenue there was a narrow passage with a chain across it. Every few metres guards stood with whips in their hands. The party began. There was an order: ‘Run to the barracks, quick!’ It created terrible confusion. The crowd started to run while the Germans flogged them. Our parents placed us between themselves, to protect us from the constant lashes. We could hear the whips whistling, the moans of beaten people, and Germans screaming: ‘Schneller, schneller!’” Swen Sonnenberg

The western and northern Polish lands occupied by Germany were incorporated into the Reich. The General Government [1] was established out of the remaining lands on 12 October 1939 and hundreds of thousands of Jews were exiled there. The expulsion of Jewish residents began at the end of October 1939, an operation which was carried out in a well-organised, methodical, and ruthless manner. Exiles were gathered at rallying points: barracks, synagogues, prisons, or even out in the open, often without food or water. They stayed there for a few weeks or even months. By February 1940 there were 140,000 Jews resettled to the General Government.

For 8-year-old Krysia, war began on 11 December 1939. “The Germans came and brutally evicted us from our home, not allowing us to take anything. Besides, within a few minutes the caretaker and his family took everything out that could be carried anyway. The Germans didn’t interfere.

“They made us follow them for a very long time. It was snowing heavily. When I absolutely could not walk any longer, I was allowed to sit on the steps of a shop for a moment, and then driven on to the collection point at Łąkowa Street. From there we were taken by truck to a makeshift camp near Łódź in Radogoszcz. When the camp was being searched they groped around in my hair for a long time (I had long braids) as if it contained some kind of treasure.

“Finally the German woman who was searching me spotted a little bundle in my skirt pocket and, believing it contained diamonds, pulled it out with a triumphant expression. When it turned out that it was only candy, she punched me in the face and angrily stomped the candy into the mud. I remember how relieved I felt when finally, after a long march and many hours of waiting, I was allowed to lie down on a bundle of straw and go to sleep. In Radogoszcz they kept us for about two days and then transported us to the Kaliski station in Łódź. There the men were separated from the women and children and then herded off somewhere. When my mother turned around to see where her husband and father had been taken, the German guarding us smacked his stick across her back so hard that the poor woman stumbled. They then loaded us into train cars which were incredibly hot inside. The trip lasted about twenty hours.

At the station the women asked for some water, because very small children were with us, but no one was allowed to give us any.

“This is how they took us to Kraków. They accommodated us in a monastery. It turned out that our men were not executed, but transported, unharmed and healthy, in the same train in freight cars. When we got to Kraków we were just dumped there.” Krystyna Chudy

From the first days of the war the Wehrmacht and SS and special police troops (Einsatzgruppen) [2] treated Jews with particular cruelty. They were expelled from their homes and killed in mass executions. The Nazis looted and burned synagogues and places of worship.

Thousands of Jewish refugees therefore went East thinking that the Soviet occupation would pose less of a threat. This was exactly what the parents of 5-year-old Miriam did. When the War began the family was away from home on vacation.

“We spent our summer holiday together with our cousins in the village of Bystra. We were there on 1 September 1939 when Germany invaded Poland. Returning to Chorzów was impossible since the Germans were already there. At the time we had no idea that we would never go back to Chorzów. My father loaded us onto a truck and off we went, fleeing in the direction of Ukraine. There were twenty adults and eight children. We joined thousands of people who roamed the roads, fleeing from the Germans on foot, horse-drawn wagons and cars.

“German planes bombed those who fled. As a frightened child I remembered this terrible journey – the smoke coming from fires and the moans of the wounded crying for help. I remember the burning houses in Tomaszów Lubelski, which you couldn’t see for the flames.” Miriam Sharon

Marysia was 6 years old when the War broke out. “In 1939 my father, a Legionnaire [3], was drafted into the army. Along with my mother and the Leszczyński family, I went to Poddębice to my great-grandmother’s property, and then to Warsaw, because we believed that the Germans would not get that far. I remember the dramatic trek across Poland in a horse-drawn cart, the bombardment, the siege of Warsaw, the first sight of blood, and the corpses. After the surrender my father found us and after a short stay in Konin, which was already occupied by the Germans, we returned to Warsaw. We lost everything in Konin; going back there was impossible.

“In November of 1940, we moved to the Warsaw Ghetto. My father couldn’t fit in on the “Aryan side” with his handsome Semitic look. Moreover, we did not know anyone in Warsaw. All of our relatives went to the Ghetto.” Maria Leszczyńska Ejzen

[1] General Government: a German zone of occupation comprising a large area of central Poland. It was an autonomous administration staffed by Germans.

[2] Einsatzgruppen – Nazi paramilitary death squads. Their task was to combat enemies of the Reich among German troops and to exterminate Jews.

[3] A member of the Polish Legions, that is, the Polish army, founded in 1914 before Poland itself was re-established in 1918 and therefore of great patriotic significance.

In the Ghetto

EVERYDAY LIFE

The Germans had already begun to create ghettos in October 1939 as residential areas designated for Jews. The first was established in the city of Piotrków on 5 October 1939. The Jewish population was resettled to designated quarters, with a wall with barbed wire built around them to prevent any contact with the city’s Polish, non-Jewish, inhabitants. Approximately 400 ghettos were created in the occupied Polish territory.

Eight-year-old Emanuel: “I was born in Kraków. Until September 1942 I lived in Nowe Brzesko in the Kraków voivodeship with my parents Bernard and Rozalia Elbinger, and sisters Pola and Lusia.

I had already finished first grade of primary school by the time World War II broke out. I couldn’t continue my education because the German authorities forbade education for Jewish children. The Jewish populace were harassed immediately after the Germans invaded. I remember beard cuttings, beatings, and older people forced to run.

“My parents owned a textile shop which the German authorities ordered closed, the goods were confiscated and taken to the local authority in Miechów. My parents were able to hide some of the goods in the homes of friendly Polish families, and this became the main source of our livelihood. Around 1940 Jews aged 13 and over were forced to wear a white armband with a blue Star of David. [1]

“The ghetto was created in early 1940. Threatened with the death penalty, Jews were forbidden to use any public transport or travel outside the city limits. During this time Jews were also searched and shot. Our family was ordered to leave our flat. The five of us (my parents, two sisters and I) moved into a small room.”

Emanuel’s sister Pola, one year younger than he, remembers posters that the Germans had put up in the ghetto.

“Posters with abusive content were pasted on the walls. One example showed a Jewish woman kneading dough with lice crawling towards it. It was terrible. Jewish shops were looted, and at night Nazis bashed apartment doors open with rifle butts. The Germans immediately shot and killed anybody who resisted.” Emanuel Elbinger

By the decree of the Warsaw District Governor, Ludwig Fischer, the Warsaw Ghetto was established in the (mostly Jewish) northwestern part of the centre city on 2 October 1940. The Germans began isolating this part of town during the winter of 1939–1940, placing signs on the streets delineating the Ghetto and warning people that they could contract typhus if they entered the area.

By springtime they started enclosing the “epidemic area” with a three-metre high wall topped with barbed wire in order to “protect” the other inhabitants of Warsaw. When the Jewish district was created, a quarter of a million Warsaw inhabitants (approximately 138,000 Jews and 113,000 Poles) had just a few weeks to move. The gates of the Ghetto were closed on 6 November 1940. That same day the Germans began searching for and capturing Jews who remained on the Aryan side. Over 11,000 people were sent to the Ghetto as a result of this operation. By April 1941 the Warsaw Ghetto had become the largest in all of occupied Europe. Approximately 450,000 Jews from Warsaw (and its surrounding areas) lived there. In January 1942 approximately 35,000 children aged 7 and under and 50,000 children aged 7 to 14 were living there. Administrative functions in the Ghetto were performed by the Judenrat, while order was maintained by the Jewish Ghetto Police.

Nine-year-old Henoch and his family were forced to move from Kalisz to Warsaw. Upon arrival they stayed with friends on Zamenhof Street. Soon afterward their father left to plan an escape route eastward for the entire family. Meanwhile, the Warsaw Ghetto was closed off.

“The creation of the Warsaw Ghetto completely shattered our family plans. We were forced to leave the flat on Zamenhof Street (I don’t remember why). We moved in with another friend at 9 Pawia Street (opposite the Pawiak prison). When they first closed off the Ghetto we had no idea how terrible things would get. Trade still flourished, shopkeepers invited passers-by to come in, people went to work, the dead were buried solemnly. The mood was still festive during the Sabbath. This changed very quickly.

“Diseases (typhus) began to spread. Produce disappeared from shop windows because the food was stolen by hungry crowds who smashed the windows. People would dramatically lie next to dead bodies on the pavement, pretending to be sick and fainting and begging passers-by for food. I also took advantage of this and fed myself this way.

“One time, when I was lying on the pavement, a stranger took me away to the basement of a bombed-out house. I don’t remember what street it was on, but it was an orphanage run by Mr. Korczak. Many children there were my age, and there were some younger and older ones as well. They would look after us and feed us during the day, and we would go back home at night (though this wasn’t always possible). The Ghetto curfew was rigorously enforced and announced by sirens. This meant that anyone who was still on the street had to disappear immediately. In such cases the Jewish Police took people to night shelters, gateways, stairwells, and other areas where they could hide during the curfew. Getting home to their families was out of the question. My brother and I were very often forced to stay in those areas. In the mornings we would go back to the shelter or to our mother.” Henoch Rafael Lisak

Eight-year-old Wiktoria’s parents’ flat was located on Elektoralna Street in Warsaw (which was part of the so-called Small Ghetto); therefore her family didn’t have to move and they managed to hold on to all of their belongings.

“Our family occupied the entire floor in the annexe: my mother’s relatives (Aunt Ela and Uncle Mitek) arrived from Łódź and occupied a room in our flat, as well as two rooms with a kitchen next door abandoned by our neighbours, who had fled beyond the Bug River (Uncle Ignacy Fryszman with his wife and daughter Anka). My father’s sister, Teofila, nicknamed Tetka, lived on the mezzanine with her son Jerzyk. My mother ran a joint household and Tetka was a brilliant chef, conjuring up amazing dishes from any ingredients we could muster.

I remember czernina [soup made of blood and broth] and horse meat as the greatest of delicacies. We spent two winters on Elektoralna: from 1939 to 1940 and from 1940 to 1941, (We counted the occupation years in winters.) The first one was especially difficult.

“We lacked fuel and slept in socks and caps. Tetka exchanged her fur coat for a tonne of coal, which she and my father carried up to the fourth floor. The basement would be way too dangerous to keep such a treasure trove in! We also used the planks which originally separated the attic from the mezzanine as firewood. I have painful memories of frostbitten hands and feet and of constantly rubbing them with Ichthyol black ointment, which stained the sheets, even though we wore socks and gloves. Then came the nagging ulcers and neck and leg boils, which we wrapped in aloe leaves that grew in pots on the windowsill. Everything else, however, quickly returned to normal for my group of peers. It was incredible, something I still can’t fully comprehend, but this is what happened. A real school formed very quickly in our house: we had groups of pupils in shifts and individual lessons taught by my mother. (...)

“We children spent incredibly busy and energetic days. Everyone got up early since our morning routines took a long time: washing, combing our hair and weaving daily pressed (!) ribbons, which matched the colours of our dresses and tops, into our braids, which were freshly braided every day. We ritually brushed our hair with thick brushes. We constantly battled insects in the house, but I don’t remember our flat being infested with any bugs until July 1942.

“Meanwhile, my father stoked the furnace. That was his chief winter duty. It was a tricky and daunting task: using a minimal amount of coal to start and maintain the fire, so that it could smoulder and give off the greatest possible amount of heat. It definitely wasn’t easy. My father’s second duty was waxing and polishing floors. While stoking the furnace and polishing the floor, he would sing constantly, humming Russian romantic songs and songs from the Polish cabaret group Qui Pro Quo.

“The flat on Elektoralna Street always reminds me of my father’s morning humming while he went about his different daily activities.

It soothed everyone and was unchanging, even in the most difficult of moments. We would polish the floors every day with a heavy iron brush on a stick (which nowadays has fallen out of favour but was once in any decent home). It was an additional attraction for us, because we would crouch and ride on it, or rather would be driven around the room on it.

“Until the end, until the very end of July 1942, the floors in our flat sparkled like they did in the best of pre-war times. And not just the floors. I don’t know where we got our soap, because there weren’t any powders available at all, but something was always soaking in the basins, and there was constant laundry, ironing, and cleaning being donein the kitchen. Tetka polished pots after every meal till they shone. When we told her to save her strength, she replied that they couldn’t opress or humiliate us as long as we ate on china plates, the pots sparkled, and the tablecloth was freshly pressed. We ate oat soup and other similar dishes on these tablecloths and dinner sets in a direct challenge to the humiliating occupation – a family banner of sorts. As children we didn’t realise the amount of effort it took to keep all this up, we simply felt that we lived in a normal house and that it was safe and warm there, even if the water in the bucket froze in the morning. (...) “In July of 1942 true disaster came upon us. Deportations began, called ‘Aktions’. Every family was in jeopardy and in grave danger. From that moment on a choking, numbing fear barged into our house. (...) The Ghetto was shrinking. We moved around from place to place, from flat to flat. Various abandoned items lay around, including toys. The kinds of toys that I had never had. My parents let me take them with me. We roamed from place to place with bundles that rode on something with wheels; I pushed a doll buggy that was full of treasures: plush bunnies, dolls, etc. We also dragged along bags that kept getting smaller; they were full of books that we kept repackaging. My father was unable to part with his beloved books until the very end; he was a bibliophile to the bone.” Wiktoria Śliwowska

Fourteen-year-old Hania and her mother moved to the Warsaw Ghetto when it was created in October 1940 (her father had already left Warsaw due to Colonel Umiastowski’s command to evacuate the city). They moved in with her deceased uncle’s widow.

“Towards the end of the first year of the occupation, a Jewish district was organised in Warsaw. Jews living outside the Ghetto’s designated area were forced to move there while Poles had to move out. After a month the walled-off Jewish quarter was closed. Only a few gates led to it (so-called wachs) which were guarded by German military police and Polish and Jewish policemen. Barbed wire was installed and broken glass was placed on top of the walls, but this didn’t impede smuggling, which took place on a large scale for most of the Ghetto’s existence. In some places signs which read: ‘Avoid dirt, stay clean and nice; / Lice come from dirt, and typhus comes from lice’ were hung up. This ‘poetry’, which contained false statements about spontaneous generation, was supposed to justify disgust towards Jewish people.

“After the order to move to the Jewish quarter was issued, it never occurred to my mother and me to disobey it. We moved into my uncle’s widow’s flat. The Ghetto was soon closed, though we never believed anything bad would happen to us there. After all, the War would soon end and Hitler would be destroyed. We lived from savings and what my grandmother (who died right before the War) left us.

“The window of the Ghetto flat where I lived faced the Pawiak Prison walls – strictly speaking the so-called ‘Serbia’ women’s prison. (...) The street was noisy and crowded in spite of it being inhabited on only one side (Pawiak was on the other side). Large numbers of Orthodox Jews dressed in long black coats roamed the street. After the Warsaw Jews were sealed in, increasing numbers of inhabitants of the surrounding villages were resettled to the Ghetto. They were settled in hastily organized ‘points’. There wasn’t even enough work for the district’s local inhabitants, let alone for the completely destitute newcomers.

“The streets were full of trading and begging. ‘Oc rachmunes, oc mytlajt!’ (‘Have mercy!’ in both Hebrew and Yiddish). ‘Spare a piece of bread, Spare a piece of bread!’. These words were heard from every direction, spoken in different voices by people of all ages, loudly and quietly.

“A unique brand of macabre humour was expressed by children in the street singing mixed Yiddish-Polish songs. They sounded something like this: ‘The manager lady machts a ondulacje/ Jewish kinder can’t afford dinner / fa wues? Mues. Mues is a hajlige zach’ (‘Why? Money. Money is a sacred thing’). The following song made its way into history: ‘Oh, give a bona / I won’t give away my bona / Because Pinkiert is hell/ and he takes everyone’s bonas’. This song must be explained: ‘Bonas’ were vouchers for the allocation of a (very) small amount of food. Giving up one’s bona in the Ghetto meant dying. Pinkiert was the owner of a funeral home.Dying of hunger kept getting more common. And the dead often lay naked on the street and covered with something random because their families couldn’t afford to bury them. They were picked up and carted off to the cemetery at the municipality’s expense, just as in the Middle Ages during the bubonic plague.

“There was no Ghetto sentence less harsh than the death penalty. One could get the death penalty for many different things, for example, possessing a fur coat (not to mention a radio), and many other large and small offenses. One could obviously get the death penalty for being outside the Ghetto, which is why so many minors who smuggled food were killed. Sometimes they supported entire families in this way, sneaking out of the Ghetto for commodities. The penalty could also be imposed for no reason at all. A policeman could just shoot someone on a whim. A man nicknamed Frankenstein gained exceptional notoriety: he shot people for entertainment. The Ghetto consisted of two parts in the first period. The so called Small Ghetto was on the south end, and one could get to it by a bridge over a street that wasn’t part of the Jewish quarter. Later on, the Small Ghetto was liquidated, further crowding the Jewish district. The Ghetto was teeming with life. It contained everything from the most abject poverty to relative wealth. The Germans loved to photograph these contrasts, which were supposed to show what a vile nation this was, the one that they kept imprisoned behind walls.

“Public transport operated, including rickshaws that were benches on wheels and were powered by a man pedaling. The rickshaw drivers loudly advertised their vehicles: ‘Leszno, Solna, rickshaw available!’ There was also a tram, the so-called konhellerka, named after businesses that profited from it. It was said that they collaborated with the Nazis.

“Although it may sound strange, I honestly have to admit that in the Ghetto’s early stages, the other children and I led fairly typical youthful lives. We were growing up and curious about everything, I had just started reading a lot. We were taught in groups of pupils by teachers of renowned pre-war Warsaw high schools. There were also different courses in the Ghetto, in chemistry, medicine, and other subjects, which were taught by Hirszfeld, Centnerszwer, and other noted professors. We tended a few very small Ghetto gardens and we played volleyball. We lacked adequate nourishment but none of us went hungry. And none of us expected anything terrible to happen.” Hanna Wehr

Marian ended up in the Warsaw Ghetto at the age of 10. He lived in a small rented room on Gęsia Street with his mother. “The difficulties began pretty quickly. The electricity was turned off. The tram stopped running and was replaced (not for long) by a horse omnibus. To keep me occupied my mother bought a place in the Jordanowski Garden, which I commuted to on this omnibus. The Garden was somewhere in the so-called Small Ghetto. It was just a slightly bigger yard with sand and perhaps one tree in the middle. It was full of kids (rather wealthier ones) whose parents could afford to pay for such a ‘luxury’. But this lasted for a very short time, because this area was soon outside the continually shrinking Ghetto. (...) Food-supply difficulties began. Portions, which could sometimes be acquired for so-called ‘bonas,’ or vouchers, were probably of Lilliputian sizes, not to mention their quality. It is true that you could hear: ‘Oh dy bone, Oh dy bone, I won’t give up my bona, because Hitler is horrible and takes our bonas’, but did these bonas actually protect us from, if not death, then at least starvation? I rather doubt it. My mother really tried hard to get food. She mostly brought it in from outside the Ghetto. Normally we ate millet, but other items were difficult to acquire, not only because of their cost but mainly because they were in short supply.

“In 1941 a large commercial building was adapted for use as a modern market quite near us on Leszno Street. This place really dazzled me! It had nice, clean wooden stalls. Sellers wore white aprons. This was a surprising enclave In the Ghetto landscape – quite a strange one due to a relatively normal range of goods and supplies. There was a variety of foodstuffs, like cheese, butter, poultry, and even meat and cold cuts. All of these items were probably smuggled in. Prices were definitely sky-high.

I don’t think my mother shopped there. She showed me this place as a kind of museum. I remember once though, I went to the grocery shop near our house with my mother: in an unprecedented move she bought me a bread roll with a thin slice of ham. The tenants in the house we lived in were quite wealthy anyway. I remember an unbelievable visit to my neighbour, who offered me a tiny piece of roast turkey. We mostly ate noodles kneaded with coarsely ground rye, some beetroot, potatoes (frost-damaged sweet ones during the winter), and those godforsaken yellow millet groats, and even some cornflour porridge – hard to know how it even surfaced in Warsaw. (...)

“The Ghetto street images are so deeply embedded in my memory that I see them in all their tragic details when I close my eyes. The most startling view is one of corpses covered with newspapers or other paper. Crowds passing by skeleton corpses, basically pushing their way through with indifference. Hundreds, maybe even thousands, of beggars who were tragically malnourished. The whole street was essentially screaming and pleading: ‘A sztikełe brot, a sztikełe brot, gib a sztikełe brot.’ (‘A little piece of bread, a little piece of bread, give a little piece of bread’) This was all you could hear. Every few metres a child was begging, or rather a child’s skeleton, and dozens of people were lying in the street with feet swollen from hunger, graphically exhibiting their diseases. Their sheer numbers were terrifying. All of this in addition to children desperately selling anything they could get their hands on and performing street entertainment.

“I remember a haggard little girl, perhaps 6 or 7 years old, sitting on the steps of a closed shop on Miodowa Street in the winter with a few inserts for shoes placed on a spread-out piece of paper. I can still hear her doleful and sing-songy voice: ‘Warm linings, men’s and ladies’, repeated over and over, almost without interruption. I never noticed any customers even though I often stood there, since there was a café across the street with a showcase window covered by a dark black concertina window. The blinds had a cut-out of a little man wearing a fez. Brown celluloid was glued to him, while his fez was red. A sign was also cut out that said ‘coffee, tea’ also with colourful tape. The sign was lit from the inside.

“This display fascinated me. It could have been the surrounding dirty-grey colour, maybe the character was so exotic, or maybe just because such an abnormal environment contained something normal. (...) About a week or two later I walked past there again, but the shop steps were now empty, the girl was gone...

“There was a skinny girl around 12 in a striped blanket who performed classical dance routines on Leszno Street behind the courthouse (going towards Żelazna Street). She was dressed in a bodysuit and a tulle skirt, and wore ballet shoes so she could dance on her toes. Someone next to her was playing the violin, probably her father. She was probably a ballet school student. On the court side of Leszno Street but in the ‘13’ tram direction, a boy (perhaps even younger than me) played the violin. I didn’t see any of the onlookers put any money in the donation cans.

As I recall these scenes, I see resignation and hopelessness painted on these children’s sad little faces.” Marian Kalwary

Nine-year-old orphaned Kasia spent about half a year in the Białystok Ghetto after she lost her parents. Her mother’s relatives then brought her to Warsaw.

“I saw dead bodies on the streets covered with paper. They were a permanent fixture of the landscape, and it didn’t surprise me at all. I didn’t have to close my eyes or hold Grandma Michelina’s hand...I had already lost both parents. Seeing people disappear was so normal for a 10-year-old girl that I didn’t even object! The worst possible things hardly moved me. My relatives tried to live as ‘normally’ as they could until the first Aktions. They sent me to learning groups; I studied, I discovered books. There were plenty of weeds in the burned-down wing of the Holy Spirit hospital (where the roof had been missing since September 1939); the winds had blown in earth and sand. I farmed patches along with Krysia Sigalin, and we raised fragrant nasturtiums. In May 1942 the uncle who replaced my father arranged a birthday party for me.” Katarzyna Meloch

On 15 November 1940 the Germans established the Ludwisin Ghetto (currently Legionowo near Warsaw) and gathered over 300 Jewish families there. Leaving the Ghetto was punishable by death. Ten-year-old Josek lived there with his mother and sister Fejgele; his father was murdered by the Germans in Palmiry.

“All of us wanted to live, but faced with hunger most families had to sneak out of the Ghetto and keep in touch with Poles. Many Jewish artisans continued to provide their services to the local Polish population. Many Jews (most often Jewish women) would sneak out of the Ghetto almost every day through secret passages that only they knew about, because they were forced to keep their starving families alive. Our mother and our cousin Buba Gleichgewicht were among them. My mother would mostly visit people she knew in and around Henryków. In Henryków my mother would sell shop goods and valuables. She mostly bought food with what she earned. Janek (the Lisowskis’ eldest son) was a frequent visitor to the Ghetto. He was sympathetic to our distress and would sneak into the Ghetto, bringing mostly bread, groats, flour, and grain. (...)There were no schools in the Ghetto. Everyone fought for survival, for food. Children had to collect firewood, which was needed for heating rooms and cooking. Our mother believed that we would survive, however. She was probably thinking about our future when she hired Mrs. Finkelstein to give us Polish and English language lessons.” Josef Carmeli aka Josek Inwentarz

Ela’s mother was Polish, and they both hid in a rural area of Białołęka with their pre-war maid, Jasiowa. Her father stayed in the Warsaw Ghetto and then in Ludwisin near Jabłonna. Ela was 10 years old when her mother died. “My mother is dying. She literally dies within two weeks, leaving me all alone. This elderly Jasiowa tells me that she won’t take care of me, and I don’t even know how I got to the Ludwisin Ghetto to see my father. There was a forced labour camp for Jews there. They worked draining fields. I went and worked there along with my father.

“What could I do there? But I was there, I had to be there. The conditions were terrible because the Germans cut down all the trees, and the houses stood in a place that was bare and exposed. The entire area was fenced in. There were young birch and pine forests outside the Ghetto. Each of these homes housed up to forty people. It was really filthy.

“The conditions were horrible, even unimaginable: lice, hunger, lack of water, altercations between people. There are bound to be disagreements when so many people live together in one house. It was as if my father could sense something; he couldn’t adapt. He had always lived in prosperity, so he couldn’t adapt to the prevailing conditions. He couldn’t adapt to this work. He was completely unfit for manual labour. He kept feeling worse, his health suffered, and it really pained him that I was so thin because there was nothing to eat. He would even give me half his ration. It tasted bad so I ate it reluctantly, but he explained that I had to eat it to live.

“One evening my dad makes contact with a man who had come over. There is a tunnel in the dirt under the wire and I slip through under it. Thin and tiny, I slide through under the wires like a snake and pass through to the forest on the other side. A man waits for me in this forest, gives me his hand, and walks into the night with me, into another world.” Ela Waśniewska

Before the War approximately 110,000 Jews lived in Lwów. Their numbers later increased since they were joined by refugees from the General Government area. On 23 September 1939, according to the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact, Lwów was annexed to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic and occupied by the Soviet Army.

Eight-year-old Leszek’s family managed to secure a roof over their heads. They lived on Zamarstynowska Street, a dozen people in one room. “I was an only child. I attended a private Jewish school, and after Soviet troops invaded Lwów I went to a state school. My father no longer practised law, he worked in a toy factory. My mother was a housewife. Nobody in the family was either socially or politically active. My entire family in Lwów ended up under German occupation [2]. For me, it began quite cheerfully. Early in the morning our maid Marysia brought a suitcase full of candy and said that the Russians had fled during the night: the city of Lwów was empty and the shops were destroyed. A few days later my father and I were driven on foot with a whole group of captured Jews towards so-called ‘Brygidki’, a prison full of corpses.

We moved through Kapitulny Square on all fours, then ran, then crawled again. In front of the building I got kicked in the stomach and was told to run. There was a hostile crowd around us who threatened us and threw stones.

“My father returned that night beaten up and bleeding. In a few days my grandfather was taken to the Gestapo. Two officers arrived by car and ordered him to get ready. My grandfather was a well-known law professor, a member of the State Tribunal. Long before that he had been head of the Jewish community. The Germans offered him the Jewish Council (Judenrat) chairmanship. He refused. Two days later the Germans ordered us to leave the flat immediately. We packed in a panic, taking only bare essentials with us. Our paintings, crystals, bronzes, carpets, and book collection numbering in the thousands all stayed behind. Our family separated. My grandparents moved to a separate location, and I moved to our second flat on Sobieski Street with my parents.

“There was a synagogue across from the building that we moved to. It was soon set on fire. The Germans ordered us to stand by our windows and watch it burn. Dozens of Jews surrounded the burning building. I was close to suffocating. After that it was relatively calm. Our Polish friends started visiting us in our new flat. They were pleasant and polite and they were all ready to store what was left of our possessions. We distributed what we could. I was running around all over town without my armband. We would gather firewood with a group of pals, we bought white bread from privileged individuals, I sold newspapers. I would spend all day outside the house.

“In the autumn of 1941 we were ordered to go to the Ghetto. I remember the line that stretched out several kilometres, consisting of several loaded carts, wagons pulled by people (very rarely by horses), hordes of people with bundles on their backs, and sick people carried on chairs and beds. The crowd became denser the closer it got to Zamarstynów. We watched crowds of passers-by – I don’t remember anyone extending a hand to us. There were taunts and smiles, most often silence.

“We moved in on Zamarstynowska Street, a dozen of us in one room. Two or three people in one bed, with makeshift bedding spread out on the floor. Every day we talked about work that could save our lives and struggled to obtain further stamps in the so-called Judenkarten, which allowed us to stay longer and rescued us from roundups. Hunger, bribes, lice, and dead bodies.

“I was unable to sit at home. I chased through the streets, trading whatever I could: vegetables, potatoes, wood, beetroot spread, bread. No...I wasn’t a smuggler, everything I did took place inside the Ghetto. I often came home bruised and bleeding: I was struck by rubber truncheons many times. And I didn’t actually have to do any of this. We were still rich. We tried to maintain somewhat of a household. But I liked beetroot spread, packed in buckets, and earthen-dark bread. I fell in love with a girl from our floor. Her name was Ania. We chased each other, and in the evenings we sat on the steps and held hands. In August 1942 they hanged her and her entire family near the railway embankment. Apparently they found something in her flat. I cried for a long time. I was only 10 years old.” Leszek Leon Allerhand

The Germans entered Białystok in the first weeks of the War, and later the town was under Soviet occupation. Germany reoccupied it on 27 June 1941. The ghetto, located on both sides of the Biała River, was fenced off and closed on 1 August 1941. Approximately 50,000 Jews lived there.

The outbreak of war prompted the parents of 6-year-old Haneczka to escape to the East, to territories occupied by the Russians. “We settled in Białystok. As a result, we lived in relative peace until June 1941. The Germans almost immediately created a ghetto in Białystok: by late July 1941 it was already in place. We lived outside the ghetto on Warszawska Street, so we were forced to move. The Germans arrested my mother while she was transporting things to the Jewish quarter.

“The Polish cart-driver who brought our things to the given address told us that a woman pointed out my mother to the Germans, saying: ‘She’s a Jew and a Communist.’ That was enough. We never saw her again. To this day we don’t know how she died. We suspect that she was shot. My mother never belonged to the Communist Party, she was only a member of the so-called MOPR (International Organization for Aiding Revolutionaries). The loss of my mother was a very painful experience. I always missed her. I was jealous of my girlfriends who had mothers, and I think I didn’t stop suffering until I became a mother myself.

“We lived at 22 Nowy Świat Street in the Białystok Ghetto with my mother’s sister, Regina, called Renia. Her husband was drafted into the Soviet army. She was eight months pregnant, and in August 1941 she gave birth to her daughter Danusia in the Ghetto hospital. Our flat had three rooms and a small maid’s room. Between four and nine people occupied each room. My dad and I lived alongside Danusia and Renia in our room. The neighbouring maid’s room was dark and occupied by my second aunt Henia, her husband Zygmunt, and her son Marek (who was four years younger than me). Both aunts did everything they could to take the place of my mother. Edzia Nejman and her son Janek also lived in the same room with us. She was a teacher who worked as a maid at Dr. Kierszman’s office (a great Białystok optometrist). Because of this she always had food, although she kept it locked in the closet. The Trachimowski family lived in the other room: the parents lived with their three adult sons and two daughters-in-law, one of whom had a small child. The fourth room was occupied by a family whose name

I don’t remember. There were three children who were my and Marek’s ages. On account of this we always had someone to play with. There was no way to avoid strife and quarrels, however, because women would look into each other’s cooking pots and not everyone’s pot was stocked equally. Children also looked at each other’s plates. After a while a stove was placed in each room which was used both for cooking and heating. A pipe connected the stove to the chimney or window.

“My father worked in warehouses outside the ghetto. He left home every morning and returned late. He brought food home from the warehouses: the Germans would let us take burnt sugar caramel. He also regularly acquired millet, potatoes, and other foodstuffs. There were shops in private homes in the ghetto. Very small amounts were bought. I remember that Renia would send me out for 200 grams of butter or sugar.

At the beginning (during the autumn of 1941), life was hard in the ghetto, though it was still possible to get by. People believed that all of this would be over soon. After the 1942 Warsaw round-up, the liquidation of Jews was spoken about plainly.” Hanka Grynberżanka

Kasia became an orphan at the age of 9. Her father died in the first days of the German-Soviet war in 1941. Her mother died that same year. “I lived in two different ghettos. I spent about half a year in Białystok and about eight or nine months in the Warsaw Ghetto. It started with Białystok. I was alone there, on my own, 9 years old but already grown-up, probably more responsible than I later was in the Warsaw Ghetto.

“I was always hungry as one of the dozens (or even hundreds?) of children from the Jewish orphanage in Białystok. I went ‘to the city’ almost every day, though I never left the Jewish quarter. I wandered through the Small Ghetto streets, without a plan, seemingly without purpose. I would meet my mother’s friend, a teacher, along my route. She lived alone and would invite me over, preparing cabbage stalks, which were a ghetto delicacy. It turned out that Lenka lived across from the orphanage. She had been my first childhood friend and a pre-war neighbour from 49 Królewska Street. Her parents were no longer alive and she was raised by her uncle (a doctor) and his wife.

“At Lenka’s I ate pre-war style dinners, small portions which were elegantly presented on good china. People didn’t throw themselves at food in this house, and just as in our factory we didn’t discuss food. I ate dinner at Lenka’s, cabbage stalks at Marysia’s, and ran to the orphanage for watery soup at midday. I was still hungry after these three meals.” Katarzyna Meloch

On 24 June 1941 German troops invaded Vilnius (which belonged to Lithuania after 17 September 1939). There were approximately 57,000 Jews there. In July mass executions of the Jewish population began: the Nazis murdered about 13,000 people with the help of Lithuanian volunteers in the Ponary forest. On 6 September two ghettos were established: the so-called Large Ghetto, one enclosing people fit for work (approximately 30,000), and about 10 thousand people who were deemed “unproductive” were sent to the Small Ghetto. The Small Ghetto was liquidated in October 1941 and its residents were killed in the Ponary forest. Extermination of the Large Ghetto’s inhabitants soon began as well. By the end of 1941 approximately 33,500 Jews lost their lives in Ponary. The Ghetto became a labour camp with approximately 12,000 people legally remaining and an additional 8000 thousand in hiding. The Vilnius Ghetto was liquidated in September 1943. The sick and elderly were sent to the Sobibor extermination camp or killed in Ponary; the rest were sent to labour camps in Latvia and Estonia.

Adaś was 10 years old when he entered the Vilnius Ghetto. He lived there with his parents and his brother, four years his junior. Adas’s father was deported to a camp in Estonia in 1943 and died there. His mother managed to escape to the Aryan side with the boys. “From 6 September 1941 they started to drive the Jewish population into the Ghetto. A continuous stream of people flowed along, filling the roads from pavement to pavement.

I remember a Lithuanian police officer mercilessly and groundlessly clubbing a young woman with all his might; she had a baby in her arms. There were ten of us in a medium-sized room, including Mr. Lehmann, who was resettled from Germany. He was always smiling, attentive, and polite. He didn’t know either Polish or Yiddish. We listened to his literary German (my father was fluent, he could therefore judge him) with mixed feelings. He had German medals from World War I that he was really proud of. He was (in spite of everything, no matter how strange this sounds) a true German patriot. I remember him browsing through the issues of the Signal illustrated magazine from Berlin with satisfaction, emphasising the quality of the publication. Mr. Lehmann became ill with typhoid fever and he lay alone on his bunk at first (we moved to the neighbouring room). Finally he was taken and transported in an unknown (actually well-known) direction.

“There were no schools in the ghetto, though my parents found a young man (not much older than I was) who taught me a few basic subjects. I learned English from Mrs. Kapłańska, who lived in the next room. Learning English then was a clear challenge aimed at the Germans. Mrs. Kapłańska had studied in England before the war and had a beautiful Oxford accent. When my mother mentioned that, in German hands our fate was sealed, Mrs. Kapłańska replied indignantly: ‘Don’t you dare talk like that! Germany is a civilised nation.’ If she had survived the ghetto, she would have been one of the leading post-war English philologists. Like almost all the rest of the ghetto inhabitants, she was shot dead in the Ponary Forest near Vilnius.

“The ghetto wasn’t separated from the rest of the city with a wall (as in Warsaw) but with partitions of boards marking the limits of the ghetto. One could observe what was happening on the other side through gaps between the boards. I admit that I would watch the view from behind the cracks with bated breath.

“I never envied anyone so much, and never coveted anything more powerfully, than this open space and the possibility to move from place to place, walking wherever one wanted in any chosen direction. I was overwhelmed by an immense piercing longing to be able to go into the town, the meadow, the field, the forest, or the river; I wanted to lie down on the grass with a newspaper or book or simply stare at a sky that wasn’t blocked out by the roofs of houses, where people stayed cooped up like insects. People from the other side seemed like heroic characters from some land of paradise to me, full of unadulterated bliss, when in fact they were impoverished, harassed, and war-tormented city residents. This could be my most emphatic illustration ever of the relativity of our feelings and assessments.

One single tree survived on the entire terrain of the ghetto. It grew in the library yard. There was still a patch with a little grass on it under the tree. This tree with its patch of grass became the object of a kind of religious adoration. Both adults and children alike would come and look at it reverently, with delight, as people do today in St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, staring at the beauty of the Pietà carved by Michelangelo. In addition to the lonely tree there were a few bushes surrounded by a metal fence in the Judenrat yard. It was a Ghetto park with a crowd constantly revolving around it, yearning for any kind of contact with nature. And that was it. (...)

“Shortly before the liquidation of the Vilnius Ghetto (23 September 1943), when we could feel the tension within clearly increasing because the Germans and Lithuanians started undertaking pacifying-liquidating test Aktions, we hid in a large well-concealed basement for a few days. Men from our building had previously prepared it in case something like this were to occur. A dozen families – mothers, fathers, and children – all stayed there. There were no seniors, everyone over 60 had been taken to Ponary and shot during the memorable massacre on 22 December 1941.

“We lay huddled on the wooden bunks; some were dangerously overloaded and cracking. It was almost completely dark, as there were only a few carbide lamps. I remember reading English fairy tales by the flickering flame of these carbide lamps! The sanitary conditions were appalling. The odour of excrement from the half-open privy overwhelmed the musty basement air. My mother even ordered my father to take out and empty the excrement-filled buckets. We subsisted mainly on dry biscuits, that is, wholemeal bread: it was so old and dried-out that it had to be soaked a long time in warm water before it was edible.

“When the rifle shots ceased after some time we decided to come out of hiding and return to our flats. The neighbour woman then offered me a slice of bread spread with margarine. After eating the above-mentioned biscuits, I have never since experienced such a gustatory revelation.

No delicacies, gourmet cuisine, or exquisite dishes I was ever served, in Poland or abroad (especially in post-war Germany, where we were almost treated as guests of honour), ever even came close to the taste of that piece of bread, which wasn’t even very fresh, spread with a thin a layer of fat. It was an indescribable moment of culinary ecstasy.

“I have remained deeply grateful to this woman for all the decades that have passed since then. Not everyone could afford such a gesture, seemingly small yet so significant in those times at that moment.

“Sometimes they even sold chocolate in the Ghetto. Not entire bars of course, but the tiny rectangular bites that they’re composed of. I once gave in to temptation and bought one piece; it cost a small fortune. I later bitterly regretted it because I experienced an ineffable fleeting pleasure followed by an overwhelming unfulfilled desire to swallow many more such pieces.” Adam Nowicki

At the end of June 1941 Germany occupied Borysław [3]. A week later Ukrainians (in the service of Germans) arranged a Jewish pogrom. In subsequent Aktions 1500 women, children, and elderly men were killed. Józio was 10 years old then.

“One early morning, around five o’clock, we heard yelling, cries, screams, shouts, and calling... commands in German: ‘Los, schnell, verfluchter Jude, du schweine Jude!’ (Hurry, cursed Jew, you Jewish pig!). As a precaution we went to our cubbyhole, created immediately after we moved to the district. My father was a builder, so he was able to find us a good place quickly. The Aktion (fourth pogrom) lasted a week. We went the whole time without eating or drinking. Not drinking was the worst. I chewed a handkerchief and then sucked on it as a substitute for water. And we didn’t even feel like eating, there wasn’t the slightest need. After about seven days, absolute peace set in on the street and all around. This emboldened us enough to leave the cubbyhole. (...) We soon learned that the ghetto had been established. We were now closed in and not allowed any contact with the Aryan side or Aryans. You could leave the ghetto to work in a dense column, or individually with a special pass. Life in the ghetto became an ordeal. When autumn and winter arrived, rain and frost (about 15 and 20 degrees below freezing) wreaked havoc. There was an almost complete lack of any food or fuel, because everything that could be burned or was edible had already been burned or eaten. Many people got sick with tuberculosis or typhus or starved to death. The red warning poster ‘Feckenfieber’ was posted on buildings where people were sick with typhus. Looking at it from the outside, it seemed like the house itself was sick: dark windows, closed doors, silence all around and terrible emptiness. Such a house exhaled death.

“Carts drawn by gravediggers circled our street several times a day carrying corpses, sometimes whole dead families. But the most terrible sight was of begging children barely clinging to life. They cried quietly in Yiddish: “Frau, gibts epys esen, ich bejtach!” (Lady, give us something to eat, please!). I will not forget this plea until my dying day. Disease, hunger, and death were everyday occurrences, in addition to street and house arrests, ‘Aktions’, and hundreds of people being deported. Captured Jews were rounded up in the former cinema until a certain number were gathered. The entire group was then transported for annihilation to Belzec or the Branicki Forests. My family also kept getting smaller. My mother’s family was almost entirely murdered as well as much of my father’s family.” Józef Lipman

The Litzmannstadt Ghetto was created on 8 February 1940 in the poorest and most neglected northern part of Łódź, including Bałuty and the Old Town. The boundaries of the Ghetto were fenced in and closed on 30 April. Approximately 160,000 Łódź Jews lived there. In 1940–42 the Jewish population from across the region were resettled here, as well as from ghettos liquidated in Warthegau (Polish areas annexed to the Reich). Roma and Jews from Western Europe were also transferred there. Altogether approximately 200,000 people lived in the Łódź Ghetto during the time that it operated. The Litzmannstadt Ghetto was a hermetically-sealed forced labour camp; in 1943 more than 70,000 people worked for the occupiers. In January 1942 deportations of Łódź Jews to the extermination camp in Chełmno on the Ner began [4]. By May 50,000 people (including 5000 Gypsies) were put there, and in September 20,000 Jewish children were sent there. In the summer of 1944 over 7000 people were deported to Chełmno, and more than 76,000 inhabitants of the Łódź Ghetto were taken to Auschwitz.

Twelve-year-old Diana was an only child born in Łódź. Before the War broke out she managed to finish sixth grade in a private Jewish school.

“We moved to the Ghetto as soon as the Germans announced that Jews were not allowed to live ‘on the Aryan side’. My father and uncles found a fairly decent house in the planned ghetto area, and we all moved there: both of my mother’s brothers and her sister with her children. Every part of this large family had its own room with a kitchen stove. The water was in the hall and the bathroom was in the yard. I still went to school in my first two years in the Ghetto. Then I had to work, first in an embroidery shop and then a tailor shop, but not for long because my father arranged for me to work in an accountant’s office. We all had to work, otherwise we didn’t get bread vouchers. Even our old grandmother worked; she sorted the clothes of Jews deported to concentration camps.

“Things still weren’t so bad for some time, probably around two years. The vouchers bought us small amounts of black bread and artificial marmalade, and we got soup from a kitchen run by the municipality. There was still food on the black market, which of course cost a lot of money. There was also some kind of ‘social life’. After work people met, played cards, talked, and even sang. It seemed that somehow they would manage to survive this war, especially since the Łódź Ghetto was productive, operating for the Germans. The so-called ‘departments’ provided Germans with a wide variety of articles. I embroidered insignia for officers’ uniforms. But I already saw people begging on the streets who were hungry and dying, because there was no work or bread for them. The notion that we would somehow manage to survive ended abruptly with the first roundups and deportations. My father was protected for the time being; he worked as the head of a sewing company, but he hid my mother, my grandma, and me in an empty house. (...) I was deported with my entire family to Auschwitz in August 1944.” Diana Russ

Zosia stayed with her parents in the Łódź Ghetto for four years. From there, she was taken to the Ravensbrück camp with her mother. She was 11 years old. “When news spread that children under 10 would be moved, my birth certificate was changed to add a year and a half to my age. As a result I could start working, initially in the straw department. Protective straw boots for German soldiers were sewn there, but I wasn’t strong enough for the job. Some merciful soul transferred me to the office, where I served as an office girl. And when I proved to be of little use there as well, my parents tried to find me a place in the tailoring department.” Zofia Lubińska

The Płock Ghetto was established on 1 September 1940. It wasn’t fenced in, and German sentries guarded the entrance gates. By the end of 1940, there were 10,000 people living there. In February 1941 the Germans began to liquidate the ghetto. The crippled and sick were murdered on the spot, and the remaining population was transported by truck to the camp in Działdowo. From there they were deported to different cities in the General Government. Eight-year-old Swen and his family were expelled from Jabłonowo near Grudziądz. They were loaded on to a train which went off in an unknown direction.

“They unloaded us in Płock. There was a ghetto close to downtown, along Szeroka Street. When the extremely cold winter of 1940 began, life became extremely difficult. Hunger was the biggest problem. My father went out every day to search for something to eat. He slowly sold off all the valuables that we were able to salvage. It was amazing that there were people around to buy them. The problem was how to buy food for the money. Thousands of people who lacked normal economic activity resided in the ghetto. There was no work or supplies or resources. This isolated mini-society survived in limbo, living day to day and anticipating the worst. The only existing institution in operation was the Jewish council transmitting German regulations. The municipality dealt with the distribution of the rations that reached the ghetto. It also organised worker squads to carry out the German demands and regulations: their main aim was to harass the residents.

“In a bout of complete desperation, my parents asked me to go out and buy food one day. This really affected them because Jews caught outside the ghetto, with or without the armband, were shot. However, they decided to send me because I didn’t look Jewish. I left the Ghetto and went to a nearby shop. I stood in the queue and soon found myself in front of the counter. ‘Two loaves of bread and a quarter kilo of butter please.’ ‘Right away, but would you happen to be a little Yid? Well then, cross yourself!’. I didn’t know how to do it, what the correct sequence of moves was. I felt a fear I will never forget!

I didn’t know what to do. Run away? Impossible, there was a crowd of people in the shop. For a moment I stood confused, not knowing what to do.

“‘What’s going on?’ someone from the back asked. ‘Some little Yid sneaked into the queue. Somebody go get a cop, I’ll hold him here.’ I was petrified with fear. Suddenly an older woman pushed through from the back. When she got close to the seller, she said, ‘What’s going on here? What do you want from this little boy? Can’t you see that you’ve scared him to death! What do you want, boy?’ ‘I wanted to buy some bread and butter.’ ‘It seems to me he speaks perfect Polish. Give him bread, and don’t waste time. I wouldn’t want my son to have to hear about how terrible the service is here.’ I never found out who this lady or her son was. I held the goods in my hands and with shaky legs I tried to walk slowly instead of running, the paralysing fear slowly disappearing from my face.

“My most vivid Płock Ghetto memories include an all-encompassing daily hunger and my father returning home in the evening, holding in his hands whatever he was able to acquire that day. He would place the bundle on the table and wait hunched over for what my mother would say about it, his eyes downcast. Whatever he brought was our only meal for the entire day. We always went to bed hungry.”

Swen and his family were taken to the Drzewica Ghetto. “In Drzewica about 2000 people were crowded into a small area. We were allocated a room, while my grandma and uncles received a corner in the synagogue. The ghetto wasn’t guarded. Its borders weren’t even marked. Later, when a typhus epidemic broke out, signs were set up along the perimeter: ‘Danger! There is a typhus epidemic in this area.’

“A mini social structure formed in the ghetto. It included the rich, the ‘middle class,’ and the poor. The wealthy had things to exchange for food, brought in through the magical, invisible ghetto boundary. Those of average wealth (craftsmen and individuals providing various services) somehow fed themselves. Poor people like us (who were mostly immigrants from other ghettos) would die. A horse-drawn wagon that went back and forth between the town and the cemetery was a daily sight. It was loaded with the bodies of people who had starved to death. The Drzewica Ghetto was slowly dying.

“In addition to seeing dead bodies every day, which we eventually got used to, some scenes were dramatic. A man lived in an abandoned freight car standing next to our house. I saw him often, always alone; apparently he had already lost his entire family. He aroused my curiosity because he was lonely and lived in a railway carriage. One day I saw him sitting at the entrance to the carriage. There were all kinds of food set up in front of it. He would eat and drink ostentatiously making sure that everyone could see him.

“Two days later, a car collecting corpses stopped in front of the carriage. His body was thrown into a pile of corpses. We found out that he had spent the last of his savings on food, and finally feeling satiated, he hanged himself after his last meal.” Swen Sonnenberg

EDUCATION

In December 1939 a decision by the German authorities forced all Jewish schools to close. In some ghettos they opened again in the summer of 1940; in Warsaw they opened in the autumn of 1941. Shortly after the ghetto gates were closed, teachers began to organise primary-level secret teaching. There were close ties between educational activities and day care, as the number of orphaned children grew by the day. The youngest ghetto inhabitants were cared for by the Centos social organization [5] acting under the cover of the Jewish Social Self-Help (Stewards) Institution which operated openly. Secret teaching was carried out in Centos agencies: kitchens for children, halfway/boarding houses, and day centres for displaced persons. The curriculum was adapted to the prevailing realities. Particular attention was paid to the appeal of the courses; learning was combined with fun and singing. There were also private schools and teaching circles in the ghetto [6].

Nine-year-old Wictoria was home schooled. “A real school very quickly formed in our house. There were several shifts of pupils in learning circles, and my mother also taught individual lessons. This school, which operated on Elektoralna Street for the first two years and then on Chłodna for the third year, formed the core of our entire existence under occupation. It infused our daily lives with a certain rhythm. Other activities were scheduled around schooling. Half a floor below on the same stairwell there was a kindergarten as well as a lending library run by Stefania Wortmanów and her mother (my cousin Jerzyk attended it every day). We also visited Stefa to listen to her wonderful storytelling. The school was clearly well organised, because no pupils ever went missing till the very end. We had old textbooks that were respected and bound like library books. Reading was one of the greatest pleasures aside from cutting things and using modeling clay. We did this both in the classroom and outside it. The whole family taught us: Mum, Aunt Ela (a teacher by profession), Cousin Irka Perelmuter, Tetka (biology and needlework), and my father (geography). We were constantly busy: darning, embroidering, crocheting, drawing, etc. We would unravel old socks and mend clothes with the threads. Tetka would knit, both for us and for a living: it supplemented the classroom budget. The three of us were immortalised in a photo on Elektoralna Street in 1941 in those lovely sweaters. Looking back at that photograph, it’s hard to believe that it depicts inhabitants of an ‘enclosed neighbourhood.’

“We even had our own puppet theatre made from cardboard and coloured tissue paper with plays based on texts from Baj (for example ‘About Kasia, who lost her goose’) which was our main source of entertainment in the autumn and winter. We held the closing ceremony of the school year in June. We received report cards with grades and put on a performance for parents and children. I remember one of them, based on the motifs of Maria Konopnicka’s ‘The Dwarfs and the Orphan Marysia’. We would stage various scenes from the book. We had wonderful costumes! I played a rat, and when I was asked why I stole corn from a poor man, I would drawlingly answer: ‘Huuunger, huuunger’ with the amount of passion and conviction one would expect from secret schooling in the Warsaw Ghetto...The audience was moved to tears. We also celebrated birthdays in addition to the end of the school year. We drew congratulatory scrolls, best wishes were bestowed, parties were even arranged for the children (some delicacies with saccharine, water pudding we called ice cream, and so forth). When I remember all this now, I can appreciate the amount of wisdom and fortitude needed to organise home life like this, in the very heart of the Nazi occupation.” Wiktoria Śliwowska

Six-year-old Chana, called Haneczka at home: “I went to school back then, in fact, it was a kind of secret school. It wasn’t regular schooling. I barely remember writing or arithmetic. Our teacher, Renia (unfortunately I forget her surname), usually read us books, such as Amicis’ ‘Heart’, and ‘Among our Meadows and Forests’. She also taught us to memorise poems that were very serious for our age, for example ‘The Father of the Plague-Stricken’ by Słowacki, or ‘The White Robe’ by an author

I didn’t know, or Adam Asnyk’s ‘Wandering Sun’. She also organised various games, and we would occasionally perform plays or walk to the Pragi Garden to look at trees and plants. Nowadays, thinking back, I marvel at this woman who was trying to instil fortitude into little children. Listening to Slowacki’s ‘The Father of the Plague-Stricken’ we understood that we had to move on despite the great pain of losing loved ones.

“Renia also taught us to lie. Yes! She told us to look her straight in the eye without blinking or averting our gaze and repeating: ‘I am not a Jew.’ She already knew then, and would often repeat, that most of us would die, but someone had to survive, and these survivors should tell the world what the Germans did to us. The children talked amongst themselves about who had an ‘Aryan’ face, and who didn’t, and who could survive and who couldn’t. ‘Courage is the most important thing,’ Renia would say. ‘You have to lie, not admit to being Jewish, because this means death.’ I think that I survived the War thanks to this wise woman who taught us how to behave in those terrible times. At the beginning of 1943 my father found Poles who agreed to take me to a village as an orphan – a Catholic from Warsaw.” Hanka Grynberżanka

Seven-year-old Margarita was homeschooled for two years. She was taught by her brother, who was seven years older. “Now, when they lived with us, Jerzyk became the older brother that I dreamed of and never had. Once we settled into our new place, Jerzyk began teaching me, because I should have already started first grade, but there wasn’t any school that I could attend. Jerzyk was patient and kind. He was cheerful and able to make every lesson fun, and I adored him. In less than two years, I could go to the third grade of primary school, which was established in the Ghetto for children whose parents could pay tuition (and who could be trusted not to reveal the existence of the school to the authorities). We were trained in hiding books and notebooks in case uninvited guests were to arrive. If this occurred we were to pretend that it was a play centre, which was then legal. I liked school. Learning came easily to me, and I made friends with some girls from the class whom

I played with after school. I knew that we were living in conditions that everyone considered depressing and dangerous, so for Hitler’s birthday I wrote a poem: ‘Hitler, Hitler, / wild nasty beast, / we’ve had enough fighting! / We want a little peace. ... / Enough of this struggle / between Poland and Germany / be our brother! / Make up with us …’

“I led a relatively normal life for an 8-year-old girl, or at least I appeared to. In this respect my mother was successful, at least until deportations began. In June 1942 I went to school one day as usual, but the teacher greeted me with worry and my friends were restless and anxious. Simona Chanarin, who lived across the street and was always the first to get to school, wasn’t there. One of the children went to check on her and found out that the whole family was gone. (...) I never went to school again and never saw my best friends, classmates, or teachers again.” Margarita Turkow

At the beginning of 1942 a textbook was released, a reading book for Warsaw Ghetto pupils [7]. It included texts from famous Jewish, Polish, and Western European writers, for example: Shalom Aleichem, Maria Konopnicka, and Leo Tolstoy. It discussed nature and noble feelings. It showed what the world should look like and taught camaraderie and friendship. On 22 July 1942 the liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto began. Approximately 254,000 Jews were taken to the Treblinka gas chambers. By September there were no longer any children in the Ghetto.

HUNGER

The sanitary and housing conditions were appalling for the Jewish population enclosed in ghettos. The ghettos were located in the poorest neighbourhoods, and many homes lacked sanitation, electricity, and gas. Epidemics spread because of cramped conditions and lack of access to cleaning products. However, the biggest problem was hunger. Masses of people died in the two largest ghettos (located in Warsaw and Łódź), which were sealed and strictly guarded by the Germans. In the Łódź Ghetto more than 45,000 people died (24 per cent of the population). Within two and a half years hunger and disease killed 100,000 people in the Warsaw Ghetto (27 per cent). Vouchers provided products with an average daily nutritional value of 230 calories per person. The physiological minimum for an adult human is 2400 calories.

“I felt crippled by my never-ending hunger pangs when I was in the Ghetto,” Vilnius Ghetto resident Adaś recalls. “When my mother sent me to the bakery for rationed bread, which was never enough, I would always nibble around its edges so as not to arouse suspicion. “I made my younger brother (I was 10 at the time and he was 6) the following proposition: ‘Take a piece of bread (with bacon and onions) and put it in your mouth, then remove it and I’ll eat it.’ Once or twice my intrigued brother agreed, but because he was just as hungry as I was, I quickly lost this additional source of nourishment.” Adam Nowicki

Seven-year-old Aleksandra’s family lived in Zamenhof Street in the Jewish quarter of Warsaw. The house was within the Ghetto’s borders when it was formed. “Shortly before the Ghetto was established, my father returned from a POW camp in Laufen. The house was relatively well stocked with biscuits, beans, and kasha. In addition, Mr. Wacław Nowiński, working for the river police, entered the Ghetto in police uniform and brought bread, onions, and vouchered marmalade (which I still remember as an unforgettable delicacy). The flat quickly became more crowded. Closer and more distant family deported from both Łódź and smaller towns constantly kept arriving; we no longer even closed the door. Typhus raged, everyone but my father was sick.

“On the streets both adults and children were already dying from hunger, cold, and diseases. Some people wore paper tied with string after selling off the last of their clothes for food. Pinkiert’s Funeral Service couldn’t keep up with clearing up all the corpses, so the dead lying in the street were also covered with paper, held in place with stones. I often saw Pinkiert’s hearses filled with bodies of infants and older children. Sometimes the dead were also kept at home as long as possible, so that their food stamps could be used for even a few days longer. And the children sang: ‘Oh, this bona, I don’t want to give away my bona.’ The famine was terrible. Children wearing rags brought home watery soup issued by a charity. If you happened to be unlucky and spilled your soup, the potatoes were picked up immediately, and other children licked the remnants of kasha up from the pavement.” Aleksandra Berłowicz

Eleven-year-old Sabinka lived with her parents and sister in Łódź when the War broke out. “In late autumn 1939 or at the beginning of 1940 (I don’t remember), we were forced to leave our flat because a German family was moving into it. We took our bedding, personal items, and a few other things with us. Everything else stayed behind. We settled in Warsaw at 20 or 22 Twarda Street. Poverty, famine, and disease: conditions kept getting more difficult. I think we moved to 5 Twarda Street, because this building was now in the Ghetto.” Sabina Wylot

Wandzia was 5 years old when the War broke out. She remembers only a few images from her stay in the Warsaw Ghetto. “Looking into my childhood feels like I’m peering into the darkest of wells. I’m trying to piece together what I long ago erased from my memory, since it isn’t possible to live with such baggage. (...) I must have eaten something in the Ghetto, but I only remember having two meals. The first one is probably from an earlier period, because I was being fed by my grandma. A horse fell down in the street. I ate coagulated horse blood, cut into pieces and then pan fried. It tasted like sand and looked like a black sponge. I was the only one eating – many people around me watched me closely but no one else ate. My mother curled up against the wall hugging herself. I remember her hands but not her face. The second meal I remember was in an empty office.

My father got me out of a cubbyhole which was behind the wardrobes, set me behind a high desk, and served me a can of thick soup. While I was eating I found a thin sliver of meat fibre. And then my father started crying. It was the only time I ever saw him cry.” Wanda Ziemska

The grandmother of 14-year-old Alina worked in a soup kitchen in the Warsaw Ghetto. “My grandma worked in a Ghetto soup kitchen, serving soup every day, though she cooked us separate meals. Taking care of three children got harder and harder. We had to face our poverty head on. Then my grandmother put Jakub (who was the youngest) in an orphanage run by Janusz Korczak and decided to hide Szmul and me on the Aryan side.” Alina

Warsaw Ghetto residents were allotted monthly vouchers to purchase 2.5 kilos of bread, 20 grams of sugar, and sometimes potatoes, turnips, sauerkraut, jam, and soap. In many ghettos Jewish administrations and social organisations were formed in so-called ‘people’s kitchens,’ which served free soup (or charged minimally) to the neediest residents. In Warsaw children were fed in schools and day-care centres (120,000 portions of soup a day were served in the autumn of 1941). It was the only daily meal for many of them.

In the Warsaw and Łódź Ghettos tenants of individual houses formed Home Committees [8]. They organised their local societies efficiently. They were led by Dr. Emanuel Ringelblum in Warsaw [9]. These committees were in charge of helping the most impoverished residents, taking care of children, and feeding starving tenants. As part of the ‘one spoon’ programme a bit of soup was added to a communal pot. Individual potatoes or spoonfuls of porridge, flour or sugar were collected and donated to the neediest residents. “Children’s corners” were organised where children were could play and eat hot meals under supervision. The children’s parents paid for a place in the “corner” while the committee sponsored the poorest ones.

No one could survive on rationed food portions alone. One had to supplement them with products smuggled in from the other side of the wall. Children played a huge role in supplying the ghettos with food. “These children prolonged half a million district residents’ lives for a year. If a monument honouring the dead is ever raised, these heroic children deserve it the most,” wrote Professor Ludwik Hirszfeld, recalling the Warsaw Ghetto.

Nine-year-old Henoch crept over the wall and smuggled bread into the Ghetto. “We found ourselves in a very difficult situation. My father was outside the Ghetto, but my mother was in the Ghetto with her children but without a flat or means of support. In these conditions my brother and I continued selling bread and other produce that we brought into the Ghetto from the Polish side. This was done by sliding under the wall through the gutter to the so-called ‘Aryan side’, going shopping, and then coming back the same way. One time we were caught with bread on the Polish side by an undercover German. He led us to a guard standing a little further away from the wall. They beat us thoroughly, took our bread bag, and ordered us to slip back under the ghetto wall. The Germans photographed the whole thing.” Henoch Rafael Lisak

Children were occasionally the only ones providing for their families. Whether their loved ones survived or starved to death was entirely dependent on them. Thirteen-year-old Sabinka, who came to Warsaw from the Łódź Ghetto, smuggled food in for her mother and sister.

“Poverty, a lack of everything, exhaustion, and shortages in my family and others. Every day I would see people vegetating and dying, and people dead from starvation scooped up off the street. Day in, day out. Corpses, corpses, corpses. My father died of starvation. He wouldn’t even touch our food so our family could have a little more. And these were cooked peelings, which were very tasty indeed. Food was sold from trays which were fenced in by a wire (a theft protection system). The sellers suspended the trays on their shoulders, yet people still stole, because hunger is terrible. I was left with my mother and sister. I began to go under the Ghetto walls to bring food in. I was 13 years old then! I would crawl under the wall to the ‘Aryan’ side to get flour, groats, onions, and potatoes with money I collected from begging. There wasn’t all that much. I would return to the Ghetto carrying bundles and bags.

“My mother got sick with typhus. She was taken to the hospital and came back shaved and miserable, a shadow of her former self, although she was still alive. We were moved to common collective rooms on Krochmalna Street. I went back through the trenches, under the walls, to the ‘Aryan side’ to procure items. And when I returned from shopping, that was the last time I ever saw my mother and sister. I got caught along with a few other children in the Żelazna/Chłodna Street areas. The military police ordered all the children to stand by the wall and scatter their purchases. I was probably the only girl among a group of boys. I survived thanks to a Blue policeman who persuaded the military police that I wasn’t Jewish. He kicked my backside and said, ‘Run along, you little rascal! I’d better never see you here again!’ And that is how I survived. A moment later you could hear gunshots and I don’t think any other child survived. You can never forget a moment like this. I never went back to the Ghetto, I couldn’t, all the crossings were guarded. There was no way I could slip under the wall. I was left all alone, hungry and without money. I began to wander the streets.” Sabina Wylot/

Twelve-year-old Jakub had to support his mother and brother. He worked as a messenger for the Warsaw Ghetto Jewish Community Schooling Department. He delivered payment orders and then sold cigarettes on the street. “I began selling cigarettes to support myself. I stood in the Muranowska 44 gate from sunrise to sunset with a few packs of cigarettes and matches. I bought cigarettes in the evening when the Jews employed outside the Ghetto returned, the so-called ‘outposters’. I sold individual cigarettes during the day. Earnings were minimal, but they kept my mother, brother, and me alive.” Jakub Gutenbaum

Marian was 11 years old when the War broke out. His father was killed during the siege of Warsaw, and his mother, deprived of a livelihood, sold off all their household possessions. When the Otwock Ghetto was established [10], there were more sellers than buyers, and they had to look for buyers on the Polish side. “Starting in the spring of 1941 I took up buying and selling individual items, making these transactions outside the Ghetto. Encouraged by my achievements on the ‘other side,’ in June I started going to the countryside for food. My so-called ‘good looks’ (or non-Jewish appearance) and good pronunciation (I didn’t have a Yiddish accent) helped me out. Posing as a Polish Catholic boy I did well in the countryside. I also realised that if you want to spend the night in a village, you need a note from the mayor. The host wouldn’t ask too many questions once you showed him the note. He would serve dinner before bedtime and a rich breakfast in the morning. There were important rules of etiquette in the countryside which I quickly learned, so I didn’t have much difficulty. In spite of the great danger, I went back and forth as a smuggler between the Otwock Ghetto and the surrounding villages. I brought things the villagers desired in exchange for food.” Marian Finkielman

Little smugglers were often caught by the German or Polish police. They were then searched and beaten. Many children lost their lives smuggling food. Jadzia was 6 years old when she ended up in the Warsaw Ghetto. She would pass to the Aryan side and bring back products which her long-time family servant gave her. “We had to move to the Jewish quarter when the War broke out and a ghetto was established. I don’t remember actually moving, I was still too little. I was there from the very beginning until January 1943. I was an active smuggler: I supported my entire family; everyone waited for me to bring something from the Polish side. (...) They wrapped me in various things: shirts, blouses, sweaters, and bandages, and then I sneaked out of the Ghetto. If the guards were nice they let us pass, if not, then we wouldn’t. (...)

“I saw a TV movie...It shows several children in the Small Ghetto: we go past the guards. At that moment we’re caught by a Jewish policeman – there is such a scene. I didn’t even know such a film existed, and I recognised myself in it! A Jewish policeman beats me with a truncheon and scatters my potatoes and flour (or sugar). I don’t remember any more. That’s the first scene. I am absolutely sure that was me in that group of children. The second scene is of my aunt and me in the Ghetto, on the inside. It’s the Small Ghetto, and we’re begging, asking for alms. (...) I kept arranging to meet our maid somewhere near downtown and she kept on promising: ‘Jadzia, don’t worry, I’ll take care of you.’ My uncle would go with me (my father’s biological brother). He was 11, 12, maybe 16 years old at the time, I’m not sure. I passed through, but a Polish policeman caught him on the Aryan side and banged his head on the edge of the pavement for so long with blood pouring out that he definitely killed him, and then he opened the sewer and threw him in. I was hiding and I saw everything with my own eyes. It’s hard to talk about... I know for sure that he died. (...)

“I’ll return to the matter of smuggling. I was afraid. I was really scared. Other children were doing it, I saw them do it, the initiative wasn’t mine. I’m pretty sure Daddy and our former maid agreed that as I was a child I could get across easiest, and I’d bring something back soon. Not just me, my dad would also go over to the Polish side. In fact, in the meantime he tried to acquire Aryan papers for us. I was the main supplier. Other children also left. Groups of four or five people would go out, some didn’t come back, we never waited... (...) We would of course go if an opportunity arose, but the next day, or earlier from other children in the yard, we might learn that one of the children had been caught, killed, attacked, or taken away during an action. There were never any permanent groups. I always arranged to meet my ‘mother’, that is, the servant who waited for me on the Aryan side. She led me to her friend’s flat, the Dworakowskis’. I think... (...)

“I had moments of fury at my fate when I crossed over to the Aryan side, mostly when I was caught and beaten. This happened three times. Naturally, nobody in my family forced me to leave the Ghetto. (...) It was getting worse, harder and harder to leave and harder to acquire things. The hunger was terrible.” Jadwiga Kotowska

Maksymilian (surnamed Ścisłocki before the War) was born in 1928. He lived with his parents in Warsaw at 9 Miła Street. The house was later within the borders of the Ghetto. “I would slide through the gutters to the Aryan side when they put the wall up. There were walls with gutters underneath; little hiding places that a child’s head would fit through. I was slim, so I was able to fit. I left the Ghetto every day and usually spent time on the Aryan side. I was at Lisowska Street at Schroeger in Bielany...I no longer went to school during the occupation. I would bring carrots and potatoes...I would go and simply beg.

“I always got something, since I didn’t look or sound Jewish. And it lasted a good few months. I would go every other day, not daily. I would spend the night in pipe-like well bases in Bielany. Everyone knew me there, they gave me clothes and other things, and I would bring them home. My father was sick at the time and died of pneumonia and meningitis. We sold off everything we had and we weren’t so wealthy. My mother had a sewing machine, so she began to sew. She’d sew something to get some soup. I remember bringing potatoes home and my mother would even cook the peelings.” Czesław (Maksymilian Ścisłocki)

Along with her parents and siblings, Sima (called Buba) stayed in the Ludwisin Ghetto close to Warsaw. As soon as the occupation started the girl became the family’s supplier.

“Getting food was becoming more and more difficult. Huge queues formed for bread and other produce. The Jews were in a losing position in this daily struggle for survival. Back then I had a number of indispensable advantages: full Polish fluency, an Aryan appearance, and numerous Polish friends. Owing to this I felt safe on the street queuing for food with Poles in my age group. When the shops finally ran out of goods I would go to the nearby village with my Polish friends. (...)

“The circumstances were dramatic: I became solely responsible for providing food for my family, just like when the occupation started. I became a ‘professional’ smuggler. I was well aware of the burdensome responsibility that rested on me. I also knew that I risked death every time I left the Ghetto. Yet two or three times a week I sneaked across to the Aryan side because my hunger became stronger than my fear. My mother sewed special shirts for these expeditions with numerous large pockets where I would put the food I bought.

“I got to know many people from the smuggling circle after a while. They were mainly Poles who knew how to get into the Warsaw Ghetto through secret passages. Through old friendships I also became part of one of these groups. Typically, I would take the first morning train from Legionowo Station to Gdańsk Station. From there my Polish friends and I would enter the Warsaw Ghetto through hidden passages.

“Heavily loaded with food, I always went to the same address at 35 Gęsia Street. My parents’ friends, Mr. and Mrs. Eisenkeit, lived there. They bought meat, kasha, flour, sugar, and fat from me. We never sold our goods at inflated prices. We were accepted very warmly thanks to this, and even shown gratitude. With the money I earned in the Warsaw Ghetto I bought food on the Aryan side and would take it to my family in the Ludwisin Ghetto. Without such smuggling expeditions many people would have probably starved to death. One day my father was taken to a forced labour camp. Everyone was made to hurry to the embankment construction project on the Vistula River. Famine prevailed in this camp. The prisoners weren’t served any warm meals at all, and they were often beaten and abused.

“We were all deeply affected when they took my father. He wasn’t used to hard physical labour, so we all cried when we realised that this was a burden he couldn’t bear. We decided to smuggle food to him in various ways to save him; he wouldn’t survive without it. My younger sister Pesia took charge of this.

“At some point, almost all the illegal passages into the Warsaw Ghetto had been discovered by the Nazis. These secret passages were holes in the basements and attics of buildings standing next to each other, one of which was still on the Aryan side, while the other one was in the Ghetto. Smugglers probably moved around 80 percent of the rations through these holes, saving thousands in the Ghetto from starvation. Resumed attempts to enter the Ghetto ended tragically for smugglers. I was horrified. How could I secure money to buy food for my father and family? My Polish friends helped me out in these difficult moments. They offered to take me on another smuggling route with them: from areas of the so-called General Government to the so-called Reich. This new German ‘Reich’ consisted of suburban Warsaw towns and villages bordering the Narew and the Bug Rivers and was inhabited exclusively by Poles.

“This population, separated by an artificial border from their home towns and cities, lacked an adequate supply of industrial goods as well as outlets for agricultural products of their own. Crossing the border illegally, hundreds of smugglers roamed to the so-called ‘Reich’, carrying loads of goods on their backs: 30 or 40 kilos in both directions. In return for industrial goods we received meat, fat, flour, cereal, and grain. (...)

“Everyone in my smuggling group knew that I was a Jew from the Ludwisin Ghetto. They would help me out when I was completely overloaded with goods. They also informed me of any subsequent expeditions. We got caught many times by military police and border patrol agents. We were often interrogated, tortured, and beaten and our goods were confiscated, but luckily they didn’t kill us.” Sima Wasser

People who were too poor to buy black market food were doomed; they would slowly die of starvation. A group of doctors working in the Warsaw Ghetto launched a study on famine that was never finished, as both the studied subjects and the researchers were killed during the liquidation of the Ghetto. However, the research results survived the War and have been published [11]. Starvation disease caused a gradual shrinkage of the heart, liver, spleen, and kidneys. In post-mortem examinations, livers of people who starved to death shrank to 56 grams (a healthy person’s liver weighs approximately 2 kilograms), while the lowest recorded heart they weighed was 110 grams (the normal weight is about 500 grams). In the second, fatal, stage of emaciation, hunger edemas appeared. People became apathetic and drowsy but would react aggressively at the sight of food. They would slowly gutter out like a candle flame and go out unnoticed.

DEATH OF LOVED ONES

Many Jewish children saw their loved ones die: parents, grandparents, and siblings. These events have remained in their memories forever. Swen (born in 1931) was moved from the Płock Ghetto to Jabłonowo near Grudziądz. From there he was transported to the transitional camp in Drzewica, from which Jews were sent to Treblinka. Famine and typhus raged.

“My grandmother and uncles died right in front of me. My Uncle Ari died of typhus. My Uncles Alfred and Magnus died of starvation. Their bodies were loaded onto a funeral car that passed by daily. I first saw how they got emaciated and looked like skeletons, and would then get puffy and swell up grotesquely. I don’t know exactly how my grandmother died. One day we were told that she was gone.” Swen Sonnenberg

Karol (born in 1931) lived with his parents and brother in Mosty Wielkie in the former Lwów region. “The tragedy began in 1941 after the arrival of German troops. A German passing by our house shot our father for fun, perhaps because he had a beard. My eldest brother Józef was in some camp, probably Zawonie; we had no news about him. My mother and sister were killed the day the ghetto was destroyed. I lived through this slaughter with my brother Abraham, who was four years older. Here is how the day seemed from my point of view: my mother and sister went out early that morning (as they did every day) to forced and unpaid work, while I stayed at home with my brother, since we were minors. Suddenly we heard a bout of heavy shooting. We understood that the ghetto was being liquidated, which we had long been nervously waiting for. There was a small camouflaged hole under the floor in an apartment room occupied by many families. We went into it, placing a lid covered with a piece of old rug on it. We spent all day sitting in this hole. We constantly heard the executioners yelling, children crying, and adults praying and lamenting. Suddenly, we heard someone stopping next to our window, followed by children crying and a male voice saying, ‘Are you coming or not?’ A woman’s voice answered, ‘I’m coming, Panoczek, I’m coming.’ We could tell by her voice that it was our relative who had two young daughters. The older one was 5 years old, while she held the tiny younger baby daughter in her arms. I suppose she paused deliberately, and that was her way of saying goodbye to us. She knew about our cubbyhole. Her mother had just been shot, which I found out after leaving our hiding place. They hid in an attic shed in the backyard. I’m sure the sounds of crying children betrayed them. Their mother was dead in the attic window, while a quilt and pillow lay on the ground. Apparently the old woman didn’t want to jump.

“There was another room next to ours with a basement under it where a large number of people were hiding. They were all led out and murdered. We heard all of this very clearly from our cubbyhole. Another terrible murder occurred in Mosty Wielkie: a large group of Jews were locked inside the synagogue and burned alive. Once all the noise died down in the evening, I left the hole without my brother. I spotted a German just outside the door in the hallway. I was terrified, but I got hold of myself and left. He stopped and looked at me but didn’t say anything. I saw two evenly stacked piles of dead people on the square. I knew that our mother and sister were among them, as well as our relative with her children and (I estimated) several hundred others. I went to get my brother and together we went back to where our pre-ghetto home had been. Our nerves finally couldn’t take it. We were in complete despair. We had lost our dearest mother and sister that day, and now we had just found out that our home was gone. The neighbouring Ukrainians took it apart because it was old, and they moved the new wooden barn to their plot. The boy from the house said with a laugh: ‘Take a look at your stable, too,’ Finally seeing the remains of our house after a full day of fear, grief, feeling the freezing ground, hunger, and thirst caused us so much despair that we cried out loud, no longer paying any attention to danger. We could no longer control ourselves. In any case, today, fifty years later, I’m also crying while writing these words.” Karol Galiński

After escaping from the Sambor [12] Ghetto, 12-year-old Roman and his family hid nearby. Someone informed the authorities, and he witnessed his sister’s death and his father getting shot while trying to escape.

“On 30 December 1943 around ten o’clock, Antoni Łoziński, a Ukrainian, entered our barn, spotted us, and started to dash off to the farm managers in Głęboka to report us. A certain Buszkiewicz, who was then head of Liegenschaft, brought in the Ukrainian police. The police rode into our barn on sleighs before we were able to leave it: about 50 metres separated us. When we saw them we jumped off the hay and began to run towards the forest. I ran away holding my sister’s hand, my parents also fled but were left behind. As he was escaping my father was shot twice in the left arm and fell down. My mother [13] also fell into a ditch filled with snow.

“The police left my father behind, assuming he was killed on the spot, and ran after me and my sister. At some point we let go of each other’s hands and I ran down a path by myself. Meanwhile, it’s hard to say why my sister ran towards the forest, because she created a fresh track and the police rushed towards it. They caught her sitting by the forest and shot her on the spot. My poor sister was 16 years old. Ever since then I have felt remorse, and I will probably feel it for the rest of my life. I ran in one direction while my poor sister ran in a different one, and as I remember, at a certain point I let go of my sister’s hand and said: ‘Run that way and I’ll run this way.’ to which she replied, ‘Why should I run that way?’ and these were the last words that I ever heard my most beloved sister speak. (...)

“I went back to the place where my father died but only found a pool of blood. I later found out that my wounded father had begun to flee towards Sąsiadowice. He was bandaged at the village entrance and then kept going. However, a dirty rat (unfortunately a Pole) caught him, and he was brought to the municipal office. He was taken to Felsztyn by the Ukrainian police, and the next morning, on 31 December 1943, he was shot in front of the police building right before the neighbours’ eyes.” Roman Lewin

In February 1942 seven-year-old Dziunia ended up in the Kołomyja Ghetto with her father and stepmother. “The living conditions in the Ghetto were bearable at first. Then it kept getting worse: we suffered from hunger, lice, and disease: especially typhoid. (...) All of my family members carried poison in case we got taken by the Germans. My father also kept a bottle just for me. I knew about this although no one brought it up. This really scared me because I wanted to live. One day a Jewish policeman in charge of rounding up old people came to our house. My grandpa immediately swallowed his poison and fell over. He died right before my very eyes. This was a sight I’ll never forget.” Dziunia Estera Tattelbaum aka Tajtelbaum

Krysia supported her family in the Warsaw Ghetto. She smuggled food, sold razor blades, owned a rickshaw, and was a waitress in a café on Sienna Street. She was no longer a child at the age of 14. “My beautiful sister Sabina committed suicide in the Ghetto, on the day of her twenty-sixth birthday. She didn’t want to wait for the German ‘final solution’ so she found her own instead. First she swallowed two vials of Luminal...but they were able to revive her. She then found a simpler way – she jumped from the seventh floor of a building in Chłodna Street. Her son, Marianek, was then 2 years old, and unfortunately he was circumcised. (...)

“I think my sister’s suicide was the biggest shock I ever experienced. I decided that I had to save her son [14], though I also lacked everything but a false birth certificate and false identity card. My mother had blonde hair, a straight, small nose, and blue eyes. She could have escaped, she could have survived, if only I had been more mature and less vulnerable to jungle law: we had to save children and not the elderly – although my mother was then only 48! This isn’t a wound that will ever heal. It’s a dark stain on my life story.” Krystyna Zielińska

One cold November day in 1941 will remain in Bronia’s memory forever. She was 8 years old at the time, standing in front of a firing squad with her mother and sister. “I have to come back to describing the death of my mother, sister, aunt, and her two daughters. It was early morning, I think we stayed in the annexe of a large block of flats. Some lorries pulled up to it, and the Germans ordered us out of the flats and loaded us on to these trucks like cattle (naturally with machine guns pointed straight at us). We were taken to a forest near Drohobycz, it was probably Dereżyce (that name is floating around in my head), but it could have also been the Bronica Forest in the direction of Sambor. (...) They lined us up in one long row by the forest, where ditches were already dug. I can’t explain why I wasn’t with my mother and other relatives. I was the last person in the formation. I was the last one, and a young man stood at the end of the line. He wore a German uniform, but not an SS uniform, and was holding a rifle in the firing position. ‘Fire!’ the order was given, and in a split second the young man grabbed my hand, covered me with his body, and shouted: ‘Run to the forest!’ The forest was right there, and the shrubs were so tall that I couldn’t be seen. My will to live told me to listen to this soldier. I think that I saw my mother, I can still see her approving gaze, and then when I ran through the forest I heard only a barrage of shots and some terrible screams. I don’t know how long this crazy running lasted or how I ended up in the city, in Drohobycz.” Bronisława Wajngarten

Malwina was born in 1933, and she spent two years in the Drohobycz Ghetto. In 1943 her mother decided that they would escape. Her father later joined them. They survived the War. “I survived typhus and dysentery in the Ghetto. As a child I was constantly hungry and ailing, so I don’t remember much besides an intense feeling of hunger and constantly thinking about bread. In Drohobycz two Gestapo men named Ginter and Sobota were the most brutal killers of Jews, especially of children. Sobota was particularly dangerous because he hailed from Świętochłowice in Silesia and was fluent in Polish. He would lure children to him, share candy with them, and then shoot them or smash their little heads on the kerbstones. These bestial scenes will stick in my mind forever; even though so many years have passed and I was so small, I can still see them clearly.” Malwina Wollek

On 17 April 1942 Joasia was 6 years old when her father [15] was arrested and shot. “The following is what I remember from that ill-fated day after my dad’s death. I was awakened by loud crying. My mother and grandma were the ones crying. My mother was sitting on my bed, and seeing that I was awake, she kept sobbing and repeating, ‘Papa has gone. Very far! We will never see him again!!!’ over and over. My granny (my father’s mother) circled around the table and wailed loudly. Horrified, I don’t remember who took care of me. After some time they led me to the room where my beloved papa was lying on the couch, dressed in a dark suit. I was shocked, I thought my mother had been joking, she told me he had gone away, but he was still asleep! I wanted to run up to him, to complain to him, to hug and kiss him, but they pulled me away and led me to another room.”

“I didn’t go to Papa’s funeral, my mother thought it would be dangerous, and besides, she was afraid I’d be shocked. Then I stayed with my mother’s friends. When I returned to the funeral home, they put me to sleep in my mother’s bed (I slept with her until 1948). Then someone told me that my mum and grandma were very sad, so I have to a good girl, to keep from crying and to look after my mother.” Joanna Neuding

Twelve-year-old Alina ended up in the Warsaw Ghetto with her grandmother and two brothers. Her younger brother Jacob was placed in an orphanage, and the two older children were placed in hiding on the Aryan side. Alina missed her grandmother so much that she ran away from her guardians and returned to the Ghetto.

“I stayed with my grandma, and my aunt also joined us along with her baby. Her husband was hiding in some village. The Ghetto liquidation began, deportations began. Germans rushed people out of their homes; they could come for us at any time. My grandma was terribly afraid of what could happen to us, every day she would shut us in the cupboard under the window, move the table over it, sit down in a chair and... wait. She was saved by a miracle on two separate occasions: A German soldier entered the flat, but he left after seeing an old woman inside. But miracles don’t happen every day, she was shot by the next soldier who searched her house. She was seriously injured but she managed to crawl to the window and let us (my aunt with her baby and me) out of the cupboard. My aunt tried to stop the bleeding, but she was unable to help. A few hours later my grandma died from loss of blood.” Alina

Nine-year-old Marysia and her entire large family stayed in the Warsaw Ghetto. They were supported by her father. “We had to move from Nowolipki at that time, because our flat was too big for Jews to live in and there were too many people to hide in one place. Hiding was difficult. Mummy, Dad, Grandma Rózia, and I went to the Toebbens residential block on Leszno Street. The others went wherever they could. I never saw any of them alive again. They vanished into thin air and were gone without a trace. Grandma Rózia also died on Leszno Street. Her hiding place was on the ground floor because she had heart disease and could no longer walk, while we hid (until my mother got a number from Toebbens) in another hiding place: the cellar. We once came back after a ‘blockade,’ and the wardrobe in Grandma’s hiding place remained untouched; only the quilt was slightly moved but Grandma wasn’t there...Dad told us, ‘She went to heaven.’ We cried and cried...There were constant alarms on Leszno Street: We had to hide during ‘blockades,’ run to the shelter, stay motionless for many hours waiting for the Germans to leave the house, and were scared to death not knowing if my father had survived. The Germans once burst into our courtyard, and we didn’t have enough time to go down to the shelter. We were backed into the corner by the Germans along with a large group of other people. They shot at us, but neither my mother nor I was wounded. The bullets missed, but we fell and lay under dead bodies and survived. When we returned to Leszno Street there was another tragedy waiting for us. News came that my father’s mother, Grandma Kalcia, and his sister, Mańka Lipszyc, had committed suicide in the Ostrowiec Ghetto, when they realised that all of their relatives in the Ejzen family had been murdered. My father cried so hard. This was the only time I ever saw him crying. Then he gave me poison (a vial of something) because I was hiding somewhere else: with a boy named Mietek in a shelter under an antique shop in the same building.” Maria Leszczyńska Ejzen

Wisia was 11 years old when her mother perished in the Warsaw Ghetto. “It was finally 31 August 1942. We were staying in another flat in Leszno Street: My parents and I, along with Aunt Ela and Uncle Mitek. In the late morning, perhaps at noon, the gate was opened with a thud and the residents were called to come downstairs with their belongings. They were told to leave their doors open so that the Germans could check that nobody was left behind. They announced that they would kill anyone who failed to comply with the order. My mother quickly pushed me under the iron bedstead and slid a suitcase in front of me. She went into the corridor with the others, but she didn’t go down and didn’t open the door. I heard thundering steps on the stairs, then rifle butts pounding on the door, and yelling: ‘da, da, da!’ Then the door being bashed open, then ‘da, da, da!’ again, then shots and sounds of impact, noisy steps on the staircase, shouts in the yard, sounds of people leaving, and then silence finally setting in. After some time I crawled out from under the bed and glanced out of the window. The courtyard was empty: only a stocky soldier stood downstairs in a green uniform, gleefully rubbing his hands in the gleam of sunshine. I can still clearly see him moving his hands, and his piggish satisfied eyes after a successfully executed mission. Then some people came and took me to their home. My mother died instantly in the hallway, a clean shot to the head. My badly beaten up father was taken to Umschlagplatz, where he was rescued by Dr. Jan Blat (who was reportedly shot dead when he punched a German in the face when he pushed a rifle butt into one of his family members). My aunt and uncle perished in Treblinka. The next day, my father’s sister wrote a card to my mother’s friend, Zofia Korczak-Blaton. The card still exists and says, ‘Dear Zosia, Things have changed since the day we received your card. Initially S[ara] really didn’t want to part with Wisia, but later on she felt lucky that it happened. It was just hard for her to communicate. Things are different now: S(ara) is dead, she died on Monday 31 August. (...) Wisia is with me. She knew that her mother had died. (...) The child will only be rescued if she leaves. (...) I’m begging you to answer immediately. Either come here and take her, or give me an address where I can bring her. My phone is 261-16…’ and a few days later I was indeed on the ‘Aryan side’, starting my life anew as Wiktoria Załęska born in Lwów.” Wiktoria Śliwowska

Maksymilian (then surnamed Ścisłocki) was born in 1928, and lived with his parents at 9 Miła Street. The house was within the Ghetto’s perimeters. “My father died in the Ghetto. I took my father in a kind of chest on wheels to the cemetery on Okopowa Street in Warsaw. There are 150 people there in one grave. My father is buried there. I don’t know if there is any record of it.” Czesław (Maksymilian Ścisłocki)

From the autumn of 1940 until July 1942 approximately 92,000 people died in the Warsaw Ghetto from hunger, cold, and disease. The funerals were normal at first, and the deceased were buried in accordance with Jewish religious principles. Soon, however, the number of dead people began to increase rapidly, and families couldn’t afford to bury their loved ones. The dead were therefore placed on the street at night, and then taken in the morning by employees of the ‘Wieczność’ funeral services belonging to Mordechai Pinkiert. The corpses were laid on top of one another in black boxes on wheels and were taken to the cemetery on Gęsia (now Okopowa) Street. They buried them in mass graves there, and most of them were naked (living people needed the clothes) or wrapped in paper: Ghetto rabbis agreed it could replace the traditional canvas shrouds. In 1940 approximately 200 people died per week, while in 1941 the number jumped to 400. There wasn’t enough room in the cemetery, so they began to bury the dead in an area by the Skra Stadium [16].

IN HIDING

The decision to murder Jews living in ghettos in the General Government was made in late September/early October 1941. In that same year a death sentence on all European Jews was issued. The mass killing operation (known as Aktion Reinhardt) was carried out by the SS Brigadeführer and Police General Odilo Globocnik [17], the SS and Police Leader in the Lublin district. The first extermination camp was established in Bełżec (in November 1941), another was established in Sobibor (in March 1942), and a third in Treblinka (in May 1942). They were located on important railway routes near small stations. The Germans were keen on ensuring their Aktions were efficient without impacting their war efforts. Deportation (depending on the size of a ghetto) lasted either days or weeks. In Warsaw they deported approximately 280,000 people to Treblinka within two months. At first the Jews didn’t realise that “resettlement” meant death. Some who were fleeing hunger even reported to the transport themselves. Even when news from Treblinka escapees reached the ghetto, they didn’t want to believe that people were being murdered in camps.

The parents of 11-year-old Wiktoria realised what the term “deportation” really meant. They tried to hide and save their child. “Disaster came at the end of July 1942. Deportations, which were called actions, began. Every family was in grave danger. It wasn’t until then that our choking, numbing, fear barged its way into our household. We learned new words: ‘blockade’, ‘hiding place’, ‘good job’, ‘in the shed’. We were probably still on Chłodna Street when the first such round-up occurred. I don’t know where the adults hid, Jerzyk and I were covered with pillows and duvets, choking from the heat and the terrifying fear that they would find us. We heard steps, the clatter of hobnailed boots, and the noise of the flat being searched. Then everything went quiet and we came out of hiding.” Wiktoria Śliwowska

Wandzia was 8 years old when the Warsaw Ghetto was being liquidated. “When I think of ‘ghetto,’ I hear a strange dull melody. I can’t repeat it, but the sad monotonous melody remains inside me. We changed flats several times, and I clearly remember that they were keeping me in some strange places. A board is removed from the cabinet on the rear wall. I go through the cabinet to the other side: there is a narrow room. I put the board back in place. After some time I go through the wardrobe again. I no longer have a grandma. There’s a bookshelf. There are mortars and pestles and thick books underneath the lowermost shelf. Several books slide out, I crawl on all fours into a dark hole. I’m leaving. Mum, Aunt Pola, Jurek, and Uncle Herman are all gone. My father returned from ‘that side’, from behind the wall; he says they were grouped in tens, that my uncle was supposed to stay, but he joined my aunt and Jurek on his own. For many years I was sure that ‘grouping in tens’ consisted of lining people up single file and selecting every tenth person to transport. (Wandzia where is your family? One, two, three... ten, ten, ten my family is ‘ten’). For a long time these memories of hiding in the Ghetto didn’t seem to fit my knowledge about the War. It was clear and obvious that I should hide on the ‘Aryan side’, but hiding in the Ghetto in a different place each time, that was pretty pointless.” Wanda Ziemska

The deportation Aktion began in Warsaw on 22 July 1942. Soldiers surrounded houses in consecutive order day by day, and the inhabitants were driven out into yards where selections were made. People who held German work certificates were usually left alone, the rest were taken to Umschlagplatz. All of the flats were searched, and people found in hiding places were often killed on the spot. The Jewish Ghetto Police took part in these Aktions [18]. Ghetto police officers received increased food rations, and they were exempt from round-ups and deportations (along with their families). Later they realised that this was only temporary. This unit collaborated with the Germans, diligently and cruelly following their orders. Their actions can be seen as a dark stain in the history of ghettos.

During the blockade 8-year-old Alinka and her mother hid on a house roof near Muranowski square. “The flat had one critical advantage: upon inspection we found a great hiding place there in case of a blockade. This wasn’t some room behind a wardrobe, they didn’t tie a scarf over my mouth and teach me to hold my breath so they couldn’t even hear my heartbeat...The hideout was quite unconventional: it had a small window (I don’t remember whether it was in the kitchen or the bathroom), and you could go out on the roof of an adjacent lower building and hide behind the chimney! Because of this hideout the neighbour girls came to our room. They sat, they talked, one of them filed her nails with a tiny file. (...) I sat next to her, looking alternately at pictures from a Hebrew book and a large book about Snow White...She was slim and tall, her hair was combed like Snow White’s, but instead of two small bows she pinned little combs in it. ‘You’re like Snow White,’ I said. And she laughed, touched the tip of my nose with her finger, and said, ‘and you’re Dopey!’”

“The neighbour woman sitting next to me whispered something under her breath. She kept getting more and more upset, her game of patience wasn’t going well, so she would gather the cards and start over. From the kitchen you could hear my mother as she scrubbed pots, opened the windows, and went out on the stairs, watching intently to see whether the blockade was coming. Everything in the flat was cold, I wasn’t even allowed to leave hot water in the kettle: if they checked the house during the blockade, all signs were supposed to point to no one being there, the tenants were at work in the ‘shed’.

“I remember Snow White bending over her book, pointing at something and asking: ‘What is a sus [19]?’ right when Mama suddenly rushed into the room, shouting, ‘They’re here!’ Each woman grabbed her personal items, I zipped my cardigan, and we all huddled around the window. My card-playing neighbour was the first one on the roof; she hid behind the chimney and remained out of sight. The second girl went out of the window and hid behind a second chimney. My mother pushed me, then got out herself and slid a curtain over the window. I was really scared, but the girl signaled us with her hand from behind her chimney, as if calling us. Pushed by my mother and moving on all fours, I made it to the chimney where the girl was already sitting. We sat on the side so we couldn’t be seen from the flat window.

“I heard amplified shouts through megaphones, and my mother leaned sideways against the chimney and embraced me with her other hand. We were all safe, we couldn’t be seen from the flat windows. Then I heard people speaking German very close by. I looked up and I saw two helmets and two rifle barrels high up on the edge of the roof of our building. They shouted something, and they saw only my mother and me from up there, because we were sitting at the side of the chimney rather than behind it. Sharp-ended golden cylinders suddenly scattered everywhere. They were bullet shells glistening like golden balls in the sun, sometimes flaring up when they hit the roof. My mother and I just sat there, still and silent.

“I no longer looked up. The sun was shining brightly and there were more and more golden balls. They rolled down, they bounced around the roof...I thought I would collect the balls when the shooting was over and show the children in the yard...And suddenly a sharp thought hit me: ‘In what yard? What children?!’ There are obviously no children left in the yard and I’ll be gone soon too... ‘Dear God’ (I prayed in my mind) ‘Dear God, don’t let these bullets hit us.’ I couldn’t see her, but I could hear and sense my neighbour running behind the chimney toward the window, crying, ‘Let’s go back, they’ll kill us here!’ I later heard that the woman had had a panic attack when she was running in a zigzag towards the window. She didn’t make it. There was a terrible scream, then a clatter and then everything went quiet for a moment. We kept sitting there petrified. They shouted something from the top, I heard: ‘Donnerwetter, verfluchte’... My mother (who knew German very well) later told me that they were scolding themselves for shooting poorly, they were running out of ammunition and none of them wanted to go back down for cartridges. Moreover, the blockade was ending, and we and the soldiers were the only ones left on the roof.

“They decided to shoot straighter with their last bullets. They shouted at us again to get off the roof. One of them in particular kept shouting and cursing terribly. He cursed us, his friend, and even himself for being such a terrible shot, he cursed everything and everyone. Bullets whizzed right past me again. Blood suddenly spurted, my arm and leg were both red, blood flowed beneath me, I felt myself sticking to the roof. There were red stains on my white sweater which kept getting larger. My mum hugged me really hard and we remained motionless. For a second I thought that I had just died, though I didn’t make a sound. When I opened my eyes, I was standing in a bowl of water in the middle of a courtyard. My mother was sitting next to me on a chair. The blockade was over. A woman took off my sweater, wiped me off with a towel and kept repeating in amazement, ‘She’s not even scratched!’(...) It turned out that at some point the girl stuck her head out, as if trying to see something or someone. Then her head ended up somewhere behind my leg and hand. The shots hit her in the neck. (...) Looking at her, I suddenly started repeating: ‘What is a sus, what is a sus?’” Alina Parzęczewska

Twelve-year-old Maja volunteered to work in the “shed” (a German workshop producing things for the Reich). “Before Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto were deported en masse to Treblinka, I worked in Schultz’s workshop to help my family in their struggle for survival. Although I was only 12, I claimed to be 14 to avoid being seen as a child. It was known that annihilating children was a priority for Germans, and I really wanted to live. (...) I worked in the ‘shed’ on Leszno Street, in a building which housed a school (and later a hospital) before the War. I felt happy even though the wages were miserable and the working conditions were hard. Possessing a certificate from Schultz’s office during this period offered protection from deportation. Around 600 Jews worked there, many with higher education. But after the Aktions the number of employees increased significantly, because desperate people wanted to get work certificates at all costs, for themselves, their wives, and their children.” Maja Hrabowska

Kraków became the capital of the General Government when the Germans invaded Poland. Jews (who accounted for 35 per cent of residents before the War) were ordered to “voluntarily” leave the city within three months. Of the approximately 68,000 people in Kraków, approximately 15,000 Jewish employees and their family members remained. In March 1941 they were confined in a “Jewish residential area” located in the Podgórze district. The area of the ghetto was approximately 20 hectares and comprised fifteen streets. It was first surrounded by barbed wire and then a high wall. Four gates were guarded by German military police and Polish Blue policemen. The Ghetto’s population increased to approximately 20,000 people when Jews from the surrounding villages moved in.

The liquidation of the Kraków Ghetto began on 28 May 1942. During the first Aktion approximately 5,000 Jews were taken to the Bełżec death camp. During the second deportation on 28 October, more than 7000 people were deported and 600 were killed on the spot. The Ghetto was divided into two parts: Area A (for working Jews) and Area B (for everyone else). On 13 March 1943, eight thousand people fit for work were transported to the Płaszów camp. Children under the age of 14 had to remain in the Ghetto. Amon Goeth (the camp commandant) promised that the orphanage staff would care for them and that they would be brought around later. Some mothers who didn’t want to leave their children moved with them to Ghetto B. Many parents tried to smuggle in children in their luggage. To prevent them from doing so Germans would stab their suitcases and bundles with bayonets. On 14 March over 3000 inhabitants of Ghetto B (the elderly, women and children) were gathered on Zgoda Square and deported in trucks to the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp, where they were murdered. More than 2000 people were killed on the spot, including hospital patients and children from the orphanage. Their bodies were buried in mass graves in Płaszów.

Nine-year-old Janeczka and her sister Ewa, who was two years older, escaped a terrible fate in the Kraków Ghetto. “Immediately prior to the liquidation of the Kraków Ghetto, where we spent two years vegetating, my father (together with a group of other men) walled the three of us in (along with a group of mothers with children and the elderly). My father believed that he would manage to save us this way. The room we stayed in was cramped and dark; we lacked sanitation of any kind, there was no water, and we were constantly hungry and cold. The winter was severe. We were also forced to be completely silent so that the Germans wouldn’t hear us. These scenes were lifted straight from Dante. One of the small children started crying, his mother covered his head with a pillow to calm him down, and the child suffocated to death. Some old people went out of their minds. One of the old men died and remained with the living. My dad and several other men took the wall around us down just before the Ghetto was liquidated. They had already begun transporting men to extermination camps. My dad shared the same fate: He was deported to Auschwitz on one of the last transports and killed after a few months as part of a collective punishment for one fugitive. He still managed to set us free, though!

“My mother and I tried to escape to the Aryan side on our own, as did the other people who came out of our hiding place with us. We ran for several metres under constant fire. A mother was killed while running with a small child in her arms (the child survived). We managed to hide in a wooden privy where my sister and mother held the door closed while I squatted: this lasted for two days; we pretended that the latrine was empty. When my mother looked through the crack and finally saw a Wehrmacht soldier who wasn’t shooting at people, we ran like crazy. She gave him a handful of gold (all of her jewellery, dental gold crowns, and everything else that she had), and then he let us go to the Aryan side.” Joanna Pietrasiak

German troops entered Drohobycz in early July 1941. A ghetto was created in town, many of its inhabitants were forced to work in a local refinery. The first deportation of 2000 Jews to the death camp in Bełżec occurred at the end of March 1942. Another occurred in August (2500 people) and October/November (5800 people). Another 1800 people were killed on the streets during raids and escape attempts. The newly created Ukrainian auxiliary police helped murder Jews [20]. The last Drohobycz Jews were killed in May 1943 in mass executions in the Bronicki Forest. More than 10,000 people were buried in mass graves.

Six-year-old Halinka and her parents ended up in the Drohobycz Ghetto. “I’m picturing this disgusting house, there were bed bugs everywhere. The foul stench of crushed bugs haunted me long after the war was over. I think I spent two years in the Ghetto and I remember it really well. Then my father found a better flat in a larger building, and we stayed there in one room. A Jewish policeman lived on our floor. We were lucky, he knew about the planned round-ups and he would notify us so we could hide. It’s hard to imagine the ingenuity of humans who are being hunted like animals. The first hiding place I remember was an allocated part of the attic under the roof. Many people hid there during round-ups. These round-ups occurred from time to time - people were caught and killed or taken to camps. This hiding place was relatively safe, but it turned out that the house had distinctive round windows. The Germans began to wonder why you could see the windows from the street but not from the attic. Only the Jewish policeman (whose family was also hidden in the attic) made sure we didn’t get caught. (...) We used a second hiding place when we received information that there would be deportations to Auschwitz. Oh, how elaborate it was! A tunnel a dozen metres deep was dug along the side wall of the septic tank, then a passage, then a blind wall again, and bunks were set up next to it. A lot of people from our building hid there. Germans, finding no residents in the houses, started to dig underneath the septic tanks, but our tunnel was by the side wall so they didn’t find us. To this day I still cannot fully comprehend how we managed to get out alive. While we were in hiding we heard the Germans digging and we began shouting and crying, thinking this was the end. That the Germans didn’t hear us screaming... Fortunately they didn’t think to dig up the side, so they didn’t find anything and gave up any further exploration.” Halina Bania

UMSCHLAGPLATZ

In the Warsaw Ghetto Jews designated for deportation waited at Umschlagplatz [21] on Stawki Street 4/6. It contained a railway platform from which trains departed for Treblinka. The transfer site (Umschlagplatz in German) accommodated approximately 8000 people and was heavily guarded by Germans, Ukrainians, and Latvians, as well as Jewish police led by Mieczysław Szmerling who zealously executed the Germans’ orders. The guards and the Jewish police received huge bribes to release prisoners. The price per person ranged from one thousand to ten thousand złotys. Trains to Treblinka contained approximately sixty cattle cars. Each one was loaded with over a hundred people. Approximately 4000 to 5000 people a day were transported. From 6 August 1942, an additional train started operating and the number of Jews taken to extermination camps exceeded 10,000. The journey to Treblinka took dozens of hours, and along the way people suffocated from lack of air and died of heatstroke and dehydration. The last train departed from Umschlagplatz on 21 September 1942. It transported Jewish policemen and their families.

The father of 9-year-old Marysia carried her out from Umschlagplatz. “The Germans got us out from the shelter the second time and I got ‘entangled’ in the group led to Umschlagplatz. I don’t know how this happened, but I ended up alone on the second floor at Umschlagplatz. I was up to my ankles in shit, and suddenly I heard: ‘Marychna!’ It was my darling Daddy! He carried me under his coat on his back and I held him under his arms. I was so small and thin that I couldn’t be seen. He bribed everybody. Sometimes I hear him crying: ‘Marychna!’ And I run to it, but there is no one there.” Maria Leszczyńska Ejzen

Kasia was 10 when she found herself at Umschlagplatz. She was saved by her grandmother. “If it wasn’t for her, I would have been long gone. Jewish policemen suddenly appeared in the courtyard of the former Holy Ghost Hospital. Nobody had expected them there. There was a Ghetto hospital branch at Elektoralna 12. We were under the Judenrat’s special protection. The police entered the ‘protected’ area, maybe they didn’t catch enough people to fill their ‘daily quota,’ which each of them was responsible for. Soon they rounded up children from our territory and they also caught me. I cried loudly and desperately. Grandma Michalina (my mother’s mother) heard my cry and went to the middle of the raid from her safe hiding place. She struck up a conversation with the policeman and gave me a sign to run away. The policeman pretended not to notice my escape. My grandmother was taken to Umschlagplatz instead of me. The next day, though, she returned from there to Elektoralna Street. She was a hospital worker’s mother, so this time around she came back from Umschlagplatz unscathed. If she hadn’t come back she would have perished in Treblinka, but if I had gone to the Umschlagplatz, I certainly would not have returned. When I was still in Białystok I had decided to survive.” Katarzyna Meloch

Eight-year-old Jadzia supported her family by smuggling food. She was captured during one of her trips to the Aryan side and was taken to Umschlagplatz. “There was an ongoing Aktion to catch children. I suspect (I’m not sure) that this was when they were liquidating Korczak’s orphanage, because a whole group of children were caught; I was caught in 1942, if I’m not mistaken. And I have to say that my grandfather had a horse, his last horse, he was allowed to drive it everywhere and collect dead bodies...I don’t know how my grandfather knew...if he saw me...or maybe he just assumed I was there? He didn’t tell me, but at some point I felt someone tugging at my skirt and sitting on me. He took me out of there from among all the dead bodies at Umschlagplatz and put me under his driver’s seat.” Jadwiga Kotowska

Edek was born in Warsaw, four months before the War broke out. The house in which he lived at 13 Nowolipie Street ended up in the centre of the Ghetto. During an Aktion he was taken to Umschlagplatz with his father. “During one of the raids, when the Ghetto was nearing its end, I escaped to the attic with my grandfather during a ‘selection’. My grandfather took care of me while my parents were working in the ‘shed’. (...) My grandfather was praying, he had a prayer shawl on. Patches of sun came through some holes in the roof. The Germans ran in there at some point. One of them was a civilian in a leather coat. The second soldier was wearing a helmet and had a rifle. As I remember, this was a so-called ‘tin man.’ He wore a tin plate on a chain with an inscription around his neck. I later learned that this was a military police badge. He started to beat my grandfather with the butt of his rifle and ejected us from the attic. The next thing I remember is that I was sitting next to my grandfather in a place packed full of people, and at some point someone pulled me away from him and I never saw him again. I still remember that I was lying in some kind of small infirmary, and my father entered it to take me out of there. Later, my mother told me that they had taken us to Umschlagplatz. My parents, who had worked in the ‘shed’ at that time, somehow found out that we were taken during the Aktion. My father ran to the Square to try to get us out. Most of the Ghetto’s Jewish police had been lawyers before the War. One of the most important lawyers in this organisation was a well-known lawyer named Mr. N. My father had known him a little before the War and now he noticed him near Umschlagplatz. First he asked him, and then he bribed him to get us out of there. He succeeded in getting me out. The lawyer said he wouldn’t get my grandpa out for any amount of money so my Grandpa went to Treblinka. I also know that my aunt and cousin ended up in Umschlagplatz two more times during other Aktions and also escaped from there in a similar way.” Edward Mersyk

Jurek lived in the Warsaw Ghetto with his father (his mother had died before the War). By the time he was 12 he had been to Umschlagplatz three times. The first time was with his father, who was a privileged person because he worked as a doctor. The second time he was there alone without his father. “I knew for sure that I had absolutely no hope of getting out of there, since I was a child. And indeed, after I entered the Square, the Gestapo man in charge of selection immediately indicated for me to go towards the train wagons. (...) I was short, so it was very difficult for me to climb the high step on the freight wagon, which was so full that I was only able to get part way in. (...) Some Ukrainian or Latvian passed through all the cars to close the doors before leaving. When he got to me he began to push me inside because it was impossible for him to close the door because half of me was sticking out. Therefore without giving it much thought he violently threw me out of the car onto the platform.”The third time Jurek once again wasn’t alone. This time his father and grandfather were both with him: Józef Glass (his father’s father), came to Grzybowska Street to visit them.

“I don’t know exactly how old he was, but he leaned on his stick when he walked and he was in very bad health. We started to move in the direction of the Gestapo officer who was doing the final selection. I walked on my father’s right side, holding his hand, while my grandfather was on my right side. When we finally got to the German, he gave us a strange look and asked Daddy who we were, and he answered right away. A sadistic smile appeared on the German’s face, and he said that he was willing to release my father since he was a doctor, but he must choose, because he could only take one person with him. Either me or my grandfather ... (...).

“I didn’t even dare look up to see what was going on, although I was quite sure who my father would choose. But when I finally looked up, I saw two things at once: my grandfather walking off in the distance with his cane toward the wagons and my father’s face at the same time, deathly white and streaked with tears, holding my hand firmly, almost too tightly. I didn’t understand all of the horrors of this terrible situation until many years later. To this day, however, I’m still convinced that in the last moment, my grandfather was the one who decided, relieving his son from making an inhuman decision: to send either his son or father to die.” But it wasn’t over yet. Because apart from those three marches, there was a “third and a half” and, as he called it, a “unique and decidedly unusual accident.”

“We were walking along the same route as usual, but this time after a few minutes of walking, almost at the corner of Grzybowska Street and Ciepła, the Germans stopped us for some unknown reason. So I stood there, surrounded by a crowd of people, in front of a gate on Grzybowska, in which several German officers in grey-green uniforms stood, along with a tall SS officer in a black uniform and with a skull on his flat cap. (...) After a few moments of standing and looking towards the gate, I noticed that the high-ranking SS officer (he had two acorns on his collar) was staring at me and pointing.

“At first I thought I was imagining things and I looked in a different direction, but then I gave in to my child’s curiosity and I looked in his direction again. This time there was no doubt, and when he pointed his finger at me again (...) I went up to him, and he forcefully pushed me in the opposite corner of the gate and said, almost in a whisper: ‘Ich habe ein Kind’ (‘I have a child’), and then pointing in the opposite direction, he shouted very loudly, ‘Weg!’ I was convinced that in a moment, when I started to run, he would shoot me in the back. Therefore, in a completely superhuman effort I forced myself to walk slowly. But he didn’t shoot …” Jurek Yehuda Glass

ESCAPE

Operations for rescuing Jewish children intensified after the Germans started deportations. Drugged infants were transported in boxes, bags, and suitcases in the ambulance of the Municipal Institute of Health. They were hidden in the Muranowska Street depot in fire trucks and trams that drove through the Ghetto. Children were led through cellars of houses bordering Aryan-side buildings as well as through sewers.

Elżbieta was born in the Warsaw Ghetto in 1942 and didn’t learn the truth about her rescue until she was already an adult. “After many years, when I already knew my true story, I learned from my mother’s stepson that he personally transported me from the Ghetto to the ‘Aryan side’. He was a building contractor who transported bricks and had a Ghetto pass. He told me about a box which was placed in between bricks with holes in it. There was an anesthetised baby inside: it was me.” Elżbieta Ficowska

Eight-year-old Wandzia was led out of the Warsaw Ghetto through sewers.“I got a birth certificate with all of the first names correct, but I had to forget all the old surnames and dates, and I did so as thoroughly as though I was wiping something off a blackboard. One evening my father took me to a strange flat. Other people came down there, and when night fell, we went out onto the empty street in a small group.”

“I said goodbye to my father [22] over the sewer entrance. He stayed behind. The route through the sewers was quite complicated and resembled a dirty river at times, and then men in high rubber boots took us on their backs and moved us to a dry place. In addition to carrying me (the child) on their back they also carried other adults.

“I still remember how difficult it was to leave the sewer: I couldn’t reach from one holdfast to the other. We were taken to a small waiting room and told to wait and be silent until dawn. A lady came for me and took me with her. The sun was shining and women were selling spring flowers and Easter palms. I don’t remember ever seeing one single flower in my entire two-and-a-half year stay in the Ghetto, though the sun must have also shone there? Why was there no sun in the Ghetto? Twilight, sometimes darkness, but I don’t remember a single sunny day, and here, on the Aryan side, the sun shone all the time.” Wanda Ziemska

Edek and his family lived in the Warsaw Ghetto until right before its liquidation. He was 3 years old when he was taken to the Aryan side. “I only partly remember my deportation from the Ghetto. Apparently they first packed me into a backpack after a large dose of Luminal. I remember that I woke up on the wagon there, under the boxes which I was sure contained beetroot spread. I was very hungry and I was wondering how to get to it. I saw some streets through the cracks in the boards. Then I remember the room in the house on Grójecka Street.” Edward Mersyk

One could also exit the Ghetto through the court building located at 53/55 Leszno Street (currently 127 Solidarności Street). The building [23] stood on the border of the Ghetto and had entrances on both sides; the main entrance led to the Jewish quarter while the rear entrance from Ogrodowa Street led to to the Aryan side. In December 1939, the courts reopened their activity, which was interrupted in September by German air raids. The city court’s civil cases were investigated by Polish judges, though German authorities had to approve the verdicts. Jews had the right to attend court proceedings, but they could stay in the courts only until 11:30 a.m. They had to apply earlier and wear a Star of David band on their arms. Because of bribes, orders were not strictly adhered to, and the building became one of the main communication channels between the Ghetto and the Aryan side. Many things were smuggled through there, including food, weapons, and medication, as well as children saved by Irena Sendler and her colleagues. Blackmailers waited on the Aryan side for Ghetto escapees. They accosted passers-by who had a ‘Jewish look’ and extorted the last of their money through blackmail.

In the spring of 1942, six-year-old Joasia left the Ghetto with her mother after her father’s death. “After a while we left the Ghetto with my mother, leaving my grandmother and Mama’s younger sister behind. My mother’s parents were already dead (they died in 1941 and 1942). I remember our trip out of the Ghetto very well. We were dressed up in many layers. My mother showed a fake court summons to the porter, he let us in, and we went into the court lobby. Hoping for a bribe, the cloakroom attendant ordered us to take off our coats. My mother got upset and gave him her coat, but didn’t let me take mine off, saying that I was sickly and that courtrooms were cold. We walked through the long, wide corridors to the room of the woman clerk who was to take us to the Aryan side. But I absolutely had to see the toilet in this magnificent palace. My mother tried to dissuade me, but our guardian, fearing that I would draw the attention of the wrong people with my weeping and wailing, led me to the dingy, dirty toilets. Disappointed, I returned to the room and our guardian quickly escorted us out of the the courthouse. The next guardian waited for us and took us to her place by rickshaw. From there I was taken by my ‘Righteous woman’, Irena Chmieleńska”. Joanna Neuding

Twelve-year-old Marian escaped from the Warsaw Ghetto one day before the great liquidation Aktion started. “I don’t know if someone told my mother what the Germans were planning or if it was woman’s (or mother’s) intuition, but she crossed over to the Aryan side around 17 or 18 July 1942. I also don’t know what business she had, whether she traded or did something else, but in any case, as it often occurred, I was left alone in the flat with an adequate food supply for a few days. Surprisingly, I heard a knock on the door early in the morning on 20 or 21 July. Upon opening the door, I saw a court messenger in a uniform and official cap, calling me as a witness in a case. With an impish smile, he told me, ‘Listen, get ready as quickly as you can, they’re already waiting for you in court.’ And I took this summons to the court across the street, to the middle entrance of the building accessed directly from the street. It was the only access Jews had to the court. Both side entrances reached through courtyards were walled off from the street. A Polish policeman stood at the entrance, and I remember thinking how huge and fat he was. He checked the summons and looked at me. ‘Why aren’t you wearing an armband?!’ he growled menacingly. ‘Because I’m not 12 yet,’ I replied politely and truthfully.

“I could have actually looked older, I was quite grown. An appointed caretaker who immediately came to me waited inside. We walked through (as it then seemed to me) an endless maze of corridors. Along the way we passed a lot of people, but everyone seemed caught up in their own affairs. Nobody paid us any attention. And this is how he led me close to the Aryan side exit. My mother’s partner was waiting in the lobby at the exit of the other side of the courts. He looked at me in horror because I had a jet-black mane on my head (which would be called an Afro these days). ‘Couldn’t you get a haircut?’ ‘I didn’t know.’ ‘And why didn’t you take your cap?’ ‘I didn’t know.’ He went to the cloakroom and bought a cap with a peak from the attendant, and I placed it on my head. It was a little too big, but it allowed me to exit to Ogrodowa Street on the Aryan side without any problems.

“I suppose that everyone in the courts was bribed. Ushers, officials, even police officers must have all known that these summonses were phony. Or maybe something unbelievable happened and most of them were sympathetic towards us? I looked neither impoverished nor conspicuously Semitic, but my hazel eyes and black curly mop of hair gave me away.

“Immediately after leaving I was escorted to a nearby barber who was instructed to shave me bald (then called ‘zero’). My mother’s partner, who took care of me, looked like a typical Warsaw Pole even though he was dark-haired, and I didn’t look like a kid from the Ghetto. Nothing happened. The barber, as I remember a nice man, smiled knowingly and got to work. Apparently he was well used to such matters, and I wasn’t the first customer with this type of request. As I later learned, the Leszno Courts were already closed for Jews the next day. I think I went on the last possible day. Deportations began the next day.” Marian Kalwary

Every month the Ghetto was becoming increasingly isolated. In November 1940 there were twenty-two gates along the perimeters of the Ghetto, but in April 1941 there were only fourteen. German policemen guarded them. Ten-year-old Marysia escaped from the Warsaw Ghetto with her mother a few days before the Uprising.

“The decision was later made that I needed to go to the ‘Aryan side’ with my mother. It was a few days before the Uprising, my father must have known, because he really insisted. The bribed ‘Wacha’ [24] let me go to the ‘Aryan side’. I had a small bag from the Jabłkowski Brothers [25], and a clay doll without legs from the Ghetto: the only thing from there that I still have. After a short stay on Krucza Street we moved to a flat on Pańska Street.

“On 16 May 1944 I was taken by a representative, probably from Żegota, to see Dr. Felicjan Kaczanowski in a Pruszków hospital because I had got sick again with so-called night blindness”. Maria Leszczyńska Ejzen

When deportations of Warsaw Ghetto inhabitants began, Hania was 16 years old and knew what was going on around her. “As the transportation Aktions progressed, I became more and more determined not to give up and be led like a sheep to the slaughter. It was not just about saving my life, but about dignity. To at least try. The Warsaw Ghetto was doomed. The possibility of rescue was to escape and hide on the Aryan side with false papers. (...) In periods of relative calm escape was well organised, and you only had only to pay for it, though the sum was moderate. The guards shared the money – Jewish police, Polish ‘navy blue’ policemen (and probably also German military police) – for looking the other way. A ladder was placed against the wall and you could cross to the other side in a matter of moments. You had to wait in the nearby gatehouse, where the guard was in cahoots with a group of smugglers. But after the curfew ended and the day began you were on your own.” Hanna Wehr

Eight-year-old Lila left the Warsaw Ghetto in February 1943. Her mother [26] led her towards the gate and told her to keep going. A carer was waiting for the girl on the other side. “I was somewhat prepared to leave the Ghetto. Unfortunately, I don’t remember when I learned this or who taught me. I knew large fragments of ‘Pan Tadeusz’ by heart, the poems of Tuwim, and other authors who wrote for children. Of course I could pray according to the Catholic faith and sing many religious Catholic songs. (...) I vividly remember leaving the Ghetto. My mother led me out of hiding. We were within a few hundred metres of the gate and without saying goodbye, my mother told me to keep going and to profess the Catholic faith for the rest of my life. A guard stood at the gate. He said something to me, but I don’t remember what it was. When I left the gate, I saw my carer standing several dozen metres away in a straight line from me. I didn’t know her. When I approached her, she took my hand and we went to her house on Towarowa Street. I didn’t have any luggage with me. I guess I didn’t understand the entire undertaking. Nobody warned me beforehand. My mum’s friend from work took me in. Before the War they worked at the Schiller-Szkolnik (palmist?) together. She lived with her husband in one room on Towarowa Street. To the neighbours I was my guardian’s illegitimate child. I don’t recall whether any of them commented on my staying with this family, though one of my carer’s sisters threatened us that if her demands weren’t met she would tell the Germans. Luckily, nothing happened.” Liliana Sterling

Adults and older children escaped from the Ghetto, joining groups of Jewish workers employed in so-called “outposts”: places outside the Ghetto where Jews worked. Jewish workers employed in offices, private German companies, and enterprises belonging to the Reich would leave the Ghetto daily in organised groups. For a dozen or more hours of work they received a modest meal, and sometimes a small salary. When the column left the gate, the guards, who had been bribed, would look the other way.

In July 1942 the Germans began the final liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto. Nine-year-old Margarita’s parents decided to send the girl to the Aryan side. “One day my parents told me that I would leave the Ghetto the next morning. I was hardly conscious when my mother woke me up and helped me get dressed. Without saying a word she wept and embraced me as a farewell. She gave me a bag containing a sandwich with artificial marmalade, a notebook, and a pencil. She told me to write when I got lonely and missed her, and that this notebook would be my new friend that I could confide in. Although my heart was pounding hard when I parted with my mother, I remained calm and brave. My father led me before dawn along the dark streets, until a young man emerged from the shadows and told us there was no time to lose. I was to leave with a group of people working on the Aryan side. The guards were bribed and didn’t pay any attention to a girl walking with a group of men. Everything happened so fast, I was still in shock from leaving my father, but was led out from the marching group. They led me to a backyard, sedately at first and then quickly. It wasn’t until some time later that the pain of parting with my parents hit me.

“I wasn’t placed in a convent, instead I found myself among strangers who didn’t love me. Many of them hated Germans, but they were pleased that the enemies cleared the Polish lands of Jewish vermin. A young woman, Barbara, took me to the place I was allocated. We took two trams and then we walked some more, until we met an old lady of around 40 with a small black dog on a leash. The women greeted each other warmly. They introduced us briefly: ‘Mrs. B’ and ‘Marysia’. My name was now Maria Konrad and I was already used to people calling me by the diminutive, Marysia. Barbara said goodbye, promising that she would come back for me soon. Mrs. B. looked stern but she was quite friendly. She told me about her two daughters: Bożenka who was my age, 20-year-old Danusia, and a 15-year-old son named Bogdan. They all knew who I was, though they would tell the neighbours that I was a relative from the country.

“She cautioned me not to talk to strangers. The flat was on the fourth floor of a large building on the corner of Wspólna and Emilii Plater. It contained two rooms. The kitchen served as a dining room and for ‘everything else’. There was a bed I was to sleep on with both of her daughters.” Margarita Turkow

Eight-year-old Izrael escaped from the Warsaw Ghetto without anyone’s help. “Life in the Ghetto was awful. There was no food and the living conditions were terrible. In addition there were various diseases. One day my father decided to escape with me and my mother. We were able to get past the Ghetto walls. But not for long. My mother and I were caught by the Gestapo. They beat my mother badly and took us back to the Ghetto, leaving my father on the other side.

“The second time, I ran away with my brother David, and we were once again caught and taken back to the Ghetto. My mother and I once went foraging for food in the garbage. While searching for bread crusts and potato peelings, I separated from my mother and got lost. I was alone; I didn’t know what to do but I didn’t start crying because I knew I had to live. Winding around the streets near the Ghetto gate, I noticed children my age (and older ones) playing with a ball made of rags. I joined in. We played near the Ghetto gate.

“During this game, we (I mean the children) attacked the gate like locusts and tried to get to the other side. But it wasn’t so easy, because the Germans, Polish policemen, and Jewish policemen guarded it and would beat us with whatever they could get their hands on. I got hit so hard in the back with a whip that I still have marks. However, I didn’t lose hope. I suddenly noticed that in the evening Poles used carts to take trash out of the Ghetto. I came up with a wild idea of escaping. I dug myself into the garbage, and I reached the Ghetto gates this way. Suddenly, the horses stopped and the Germans began to look inside the carts to see if they contained any Jewish children. They performed their search using bayonets and guns. I was lucky that they didn’t find me and I rode on out of the Ghetto. After driving a few hundred metres the cart stopped, the man pulled me out of the garbage, let me ride on the horse and he drove in the direction of the forest. In the forest, near Błonie, he let me go free and I never went back to the Ghetto after that”. Jerzy Frydman

Thirteen-year-old Marysia stayed in the Warsaw Ghetto for a short while. “I left the Warsaw Ghetto in 1940 at the end of October. I call it ‘leaving’ because I didn’t plan to escape. I went with my friend Janina Przybysz from Żelazna Street, a girl who was a few years older than me. We talked together and we walked by the German guards, who didn’t notice us. When we reached the Aryan side we started to wonder what to do with me. I didn’t have any documents, where would I go, who would take me in? It didn’t matter that I had taken the yellow star off my arm in the Ghetto. I wasn’t the only one that could be killed. Everyone who took me in and all the tenants of the building were also threatened. Nevertheless, Janina Przybysz (Ninka) took me to (12? 19?) Dzielna Street, where she lived with her mother, because her father had died.” Maria Teresa Zielińska

A Polish woman moved 11-year-old Krysia out of the Częstochowa Ghetto [27]. She never found out the woman’s surname. “Six of us stayed in one room. It was very cramped. Everyone worked except for my grandpa. I cooked, did laundry, and kept mending the same old torn socks. I stoked the so-called ‘gnome’. It was a small iron stove attached to the tile stove, and it had a cooking surface. We didn’t have any bread. We ate disgusting overcooked millet and turnip preserves for months. But we were all together. And there was a home. On 21 September 1942, just before the liquidation of the Ghetto, a Polish lady came and decided to take me out of the Ghetto. I never learned her surname or address. From now on no one let me in on these matters, so that if I ran into trouble I couldn’t give anything away. We left the house when it started to get dark.

“A familiar Jewish policeman guarding the Ghetto exit turned his back, pretending not to see me. We sat at the train station until complete darkness set in, and then we moved on. We walked down the road for a couple of hours, beyond the city, fearfully looking at the cars passing by, seeing if anyone was noticing a little girl with black plaits. From now on I was constantly afraid. Sometimes I was so overwhelmed by fear that all my nerves were paralysed and I had trouble breathing normally. Finally, we reached our destination. They led me into a garden and told me to wait. The lady went to a nearby house to tell her husband about who she had brought and what they would do with me. Apparently my pediatrician uncle once saved the life of their critically ill child. I waited a very long time.

“It was a dark, warm, September night. The sky was studded with stars. The garden smelled of flowers and autumn. A dog barked in the distance. It never smelled so nice in the Ghetto and there weren’t any flowers. However, it was the worst and longest night of my life. I was alone, all alone, lost in the endless black night. Then I realised it was all over. That my entire former world was gone forever. And no matter what happened, I would remain all alone.” Krystyna Chudy

Seven-year-old Jadzia survived the ghetto liquidation in Nowy Sącz along with her mother [28]: they escaped from a column that was being taken to the station. “In 1942 (it had to have been early autumn because the pears had just ripened) the ghetto was liquidated. Some of the people were transported by lorry, but there were also so-called ‘death marches’: the Jews were herded like cattle through the city and loaded into freight cars. They were shot at and taunted along the way, and those who walked slower and couldn’t keep up were shot at like ducks. Escorts rode on motorcycles, a Polish police car followed them, and further behind them some people, probably Jews, who collected corpses. This death march was the march of salvation for us. My mother fell to the pavement, pulled me away and told me to lie quietly. When the column went away, we crawled towards the bushes near the Evangelical cemetery. I remembered her words that she had no hope of surviving, only that she wanted us to die together, that we couldn’t separate before death. Despite all the horror, I felt safer alongside my mother. In this way, we found ourselves outside the ghetto.” Jadwiga Fiszbain-Tokarz

Eleven-year-old Seweryn and his mother stayed in the women and children’s camp in Winniki near Lwów. His father was in a labour camp in the same village. “We were there for some time until the late autumn of 1942. One day we woke up in the morning surrounded by the police. They ordered us to get ready. They lined us up in groups of three and led us in the direction of Lwów. We knew we were going either to the ghetto or to the Janowski cemetery camp.

“We went in groups of three, I was fourth in a group next my mother. My mother told me to run. I couldn’t, nor did I want to. I was afraid all the time... My mother said, “Run, run…” There was no way to escape. At one point, I saw a wagon drawn by two horses on the road going in the direction we were marching in. That was the moment that I made my decision, since I wasn’t afraid of a horse. I had already known how to move around horses at my grandpa’s place.

“I started walking as if nature was calling. I stood behind the horses pretending I needed to relieve myself. The column went forward, and I inched behind the horses and behind the wagon towards the back. The driver who drove the German officers’ carriage turned around, looked at me, and didn’t say a word. The man who was sitting on the wagon also didn’t say anything. The column passed. All traces of it and my mother were lost as well. I was on the road. It was winter. This was already November 1942. A strange wagon, strange horses, a stranger. The horses turned towards Winniki. I held on to the back of the wagon and I rode in this way. As we drove into town I jumped off so that nobody could blame the driver for carrying a Jew. In Winniki we had once taken a load of firewood to a woman we knew. She fed us then. I went to her. I can finally imagine how horrified she was to see a Jewish child. But she didn’t drive me away. She managed to contact my father, who was in the men’s camp.” Seweryn

Miriam was 11 years old when the Germans liquidated the Grodno Ghetto. “Life in the Ghetto goes on. There are fewer and fewer of us: grandparents, aunts, uncles, and children are gone. Strangely enough, the four of us are still here (my mother, my aunt, my brother, and me). (...) In mid-February 1943 the day comes when they drive us out of the room [29]. My aunt hides under the bed and saves her life for several more days. They drive us to the synagogue. It is terrifying! Every now and then the Germans burst in and start shooting people. They keep us there for two or three days. Finally, they form a procession, they move us out of the Ghetto and we are herded through the streets of Grodno, probably to the station. (...) At night I found myself on a street I knew: Brygidzka, in a cordon guarded by Germans, with dogs at their heels and rifles ready to shoot. Driven by some impulse, I jumped out of the formation, fell into a nearby gateway, and squeezed into a gap between the two houses. The local dog barked, and the owner came out to see what was happening. Fortunately, he didn’t notice anything. I waited till dawn and went to see my dad’s friend, a railwayman, who mediated contact between my parents (my father had escaped from a POW camp and stayed in hiding with Aryan papers). This man’s wife was a German and maintained fairly close relations with Germany, so they couldn’t keep me with them. After a few days I found shelter with a Polish family that kept me almost till the end of May that same year. Then my father’s friend decided to deliver me to him in Warsaw.” Miriam

UPRISING

The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising started on 19 April 1943. There were still approximately 70,000 people left in the Ghetto, and Jewish fighters tried to stop its final liquidation. They formed into twenty-two battalions, made up of members of youth organisations (of different Zionist orientations, the Bund [30], and the communist Polish Workers’ Party). The poorly armed insurgents of the Jewish Fighting Organisation (ŻOB) and the Jewish Military Union (ŻZW) numbered approximately 750 soldiers under Mordechai Anielewicz’s command. They fought against over 2000 soldiers (SS, police, regular army, and Ukrainian auxiliary forces) equipped with machine guns, a cannon, flame throwers, and three armoured cars. ŻOB fighters had guns at their disposal (fifty of them were donated by the Polish Army) about a dozen rounds and four or five hand grenades (mostly homemade), ten rifles, one automatic pistol and 2000 Molotov cocktails. The ŻZW had a machine gun and more automatic pistols.

On the fourth day of the Uprising, the Germans began to set houses on fire, and that marked the beginning of the end. People hiding in bunkers and shelters were forced to come to the surface. Some of them were shot on the spot, while others were sent to concentration camps in Treblinka and Majdanek. Jews who refused to leave their hiding places died in the fire or suffocated from gas. On 8 May the Germans discovered a bunker at 18 Miła Street, where Mordechai Anielewicz was hiding along with members of the Uprising military staff. The insurgents didn’t want to surrender and committed suicide instead. Fighting in the Ghetto lasted until 16 May 1943, the day the Germans blew up the Great Synagogue on Tłomacki Square. The Jewish quarter was destroyed and razed to the ground. During the fighting 13,929 Jews were killed and 56,065 were deported to concentration camps. General Jürgen Stroop [31], who was responsible for liquidating the Warsaw Ghetto, reported to his superiors that 631 bunkers had been destroyed.

The Ghetto ceased to exist, but people were still hiding in its ruins and underground hideouts. Eleven-year-old Hena survived in a bunker for nine months. “From July 1942 my brothers (...) began to organise and build a bunker, dug out below the basement of a house on Zamenhof Street. The construction lasted for several months. Some food and medicine were gathered there, whatever could be secured in a starving Ghetto.

“We transferred to the bunker shortly before the Uprising. There were about twenty people in the bunker in addition to our family. With regard to children, there were just the two of us, my brother (13 years old) and me (11 years old). Three of my brothers were members of the Jewish Fighting Organisation and took an active part in the Uprising. We survived the entire Uprising in the bunker. After it ended my brothers came back to the bunker. Everything around us was burning and the bunker’s temperature was very high, so we entered the sewer to cool off, but the Germans released poison gas. There were corpses floating through the sewers. The first days and weeks were terrible. The Germans went wild and hunted Jews who were still hiding in the ruins. We fled to the sewers many times, squeezing through a narrow tunnel. (I still have nightmares about these escapes many years later).

“At this time there was no light or water in the bunker. Many people in our bunker couldn’t stand it and left the sewers straight into the Germans’ hands, who were waiting to shoot them at the hatch. Finally the Germans calmed down a bit – they were convinced that they had killed off every last Jew in the Ghetto so they stopped tracking and sniffing us out. We got a bit settled in the bunker, the walls cooled off somewhat, and we organised water and even some electricity. Like moles under the cover of night, our lives went on, but we were essentially dead during the day. We survived for a few months this way, but even our starvation rations ended. It became necessary to establish communication with the outside world. One night two young girls went to the ‘Aryan side’ through the sewer. They were supposed to contact some organisation. They were successful. After a few days, the manhole became a point of contact: we received news from the world and a little bit of food. There were plans to gradually leave the bunker (I don’t know what organisation helped us, but it was organised aid).

“Unfortunately, my brother Rafał left the bunker first because he was very sick (typhoid or dysentery). We stayed behind without his leadership and a tragedy happened: the bunker was discovered. I don’t know whether it was Germans or looting Poles. Two of my brothers were killed: Izaak and Chaim, and in the panicked commotion we (my very weak and sickly parents, my sister, my sister-in-law, my youngest brother, and I) were able to take refuge in the sewer. The sewer ’command’ was assumed by my 13-year-old brother, who knew his way around the sewers a little: he would go there often with our older brother. We sat on the boards in the sewers for two days before we made contact with the ‘top’ and informed them of our position. At night people came to collect us, but it turned out that ‘our’ manhole had been soldered shut. You had to go to another manhole, but the water current was fast.

“This current carried us away because it was hard to stand on such weak legs. We tried to brace ourselves with our elbows against the slippery walls of the tunnel, all of this in the dark with only the light of a single torch hanging on our guide’s chest, the small 13-year-old Idełe. My parents didn’t have enough strength; they stopped under the soldered manhole, and my 23-year-old sister stayed with them, because she didn’t want to leave them alone. My mother then said, ‘You go! Rafał is there, he will definitely organise help.’ We failed to organise help: they stayed in the sewer forever. I left the bunker after staying there for nine months. It was in September of 1943. There were four more of us: my brother Rafał, my sister-in-law Anka (wife of Isaac Kuczer, who was murdered in the bunker), my youngest brother 13-year-old Idełe, and me. All four of us were living corpses.

“When they brought us out, none of us was able to stand on their feet. We were packed into sacks and transported like merchandise to our new hiding place. We moved to the basement of a burned house. They began feeding us, but my brother died a short time later (It could have been days or weeks). We even managed to get a doctor, but he called on us too late to help. My brother was too weak and he also had a general infection which he had contracted in the sewer. There were three of us. Rafał engaged in underground work. He had experience, so he began constructing a tunnel to the sewer for a future uprising. Icchak Cukierman or ‘Antek’ was my brother’s superior. I saw him when he came to us and brought us weapons. While performing these jobs my brother was betrayed to the Germans by a Nazi collaborator, a man he had trusted. Rafał died in a torture chamber on Szucha Avenue in January 1944, without revealing the whereabouts of our widowed sister-in-law. My other sister-in-law and I were left all alone. We constantly changed the places we stayed in because after a time each one became dangerous. A woman came, a different one each time, and took us individually: my sister-in-law dressed in heavy mourning attire, and me with my head bandaged, because everything betrayed my origins, most of all my big, frightened eyes. Only once did they take me out into the street from the burned-out hiding place, for a group of children playing started shouting, ‘Oh, look, it’s a Jew!’ I quickly turned back with my carer and spent that night alone on coal in the cellar. I don’t know who any of my many carers were, what their names were, or what organisations they represented. Every month we received a stipend for our livelihood. I have no idea where this money came from.” Krystyna Budnicka

Sixteen-year-old Jakub hid in a bunker along with his mother and brother, but it was discovered after the failed Uprising. “After the Uprising broke out we hid in a Ghetto bunker at 24 Zamenhof Street. It was a cellar with a concealed entrance which had no water or electricity. Our time spent there was dramatic. The house above us burned and a choking smoke made its way into our shelter. We plugged up all the cracks so we wouldn’t get asphyxiated. The temperature rose and we lay naked on the floor in total darkness. At night we went out to search for water and food, wandering among the flames and literally stumbling over corpses.

“Our bunker (in which dozens of people were hiding) was exposed on 30 April (or 1 May) 1943. After throwing in tear gas, German soldiers stormed the bunker with their machine guns pointed at us and forced everyone to leave. Then they herded us with our hands up to Umschlagplatz, among the burning houses on both sides of the street. They kept us in a room in a building on Stawki Street. From time to time drunken Ukrainians from the SS Galizien came by, killed several random people by cracking their skulls open with wooden batons, and demanded money and valuables, threatening that they would kill more people. We were terribly thirsty, because we lacked access to water during our entire stay at UmschlagpIatz. After two or three days of lying among corpses and our own excrement, we were led away to railway cars, where they pushed in as many people as they were able to stuff inside. Many people died during the ride, which lasted for several hours. The train was unloaded at a Lublin railway station where they herded everyone on foot to the Majdanek concentration camp.” Jakub Gutenbaum

[1] Warsaw District governor Ludwig Fischer’s order of 24 November 1939, which commanded Jews 12 and above to wear a white armband with a blue star on their right sleeve. At the same time a higher order act was issued: (the Governor General Regulation) children ten and above had to wear an armband throughout the General Government. In areas annexed to the Reich (Silesia, Wielkopolska, Pomerania) and the lands to the east, the yellow Star of David or a patch sewn on the chest and back area of clothes was mandatory.

[2] Lwów defense commander General Władysław Langner signed a capitulation with the Soviet command. It stipulated that Polish soldiers and policemen could safely leave the city after depositing their weapons. The Soviet side did not comply with the contract: soldiers were arrested and sent into Russia, where the officers were locked up in a camp at Starobelsk and then murdered by the NKVD in Kharkiv. The Lwów police officers were killed with machine guns on the highway to Winniki. On 30 June 1941 German troops entered Lwów, starting the persecution and murder of the Jewish population. In July the city’s military commander ordered all Jews to wear Star of David armbands. In the same months the Germans along with the militia and Ukrainian militants organised a pogrom against the Jewish population, destroying synagogues and cemeteries. The Lwów Ghetto was established in the autumn of 1941 in the northwestern part of the city in Zamarstynów and Kleparów. In August 1942 this area became limited to a couple of streets (including Warszawska and Zamarstynowska) and was sealed off. Many people who were sent there lacked housing and had to camp out on the streets and backyards.

[3] In August 1942 the Germans sent 5000 Borysławski Jews to the Bełżec death camp. This Ghetto was established on 31 December and inhabited by 1500 people (out of 12,000 Jewish residents in July 1941). In February 1943 a further 500-600 Jews were executed. The ghetto was completely liquidated in the summer of 1943 (May 25 – June 2). Jews who managed to escape and hide in the surrounding forests were murdered by the Germans and Ukrainians from Stepan Bandera’s troops.

[4] Chełmno-on-Ner: a camp of Jewish extermination from the Reichsgau Wartherland and Łodź Ghetto. The victims were murdered by truck exhaust fumes and buried in mass graves. In the summer of 1942 crematoria were built where the bodies were burned. The estimated number of camp victims is 150-250 thousand people.

[5] Centos organisation (“Centos” Association of Societies for the Care of Jewish Children and Orphans) founded in 1924, was disbanded by the Nazis in July 1940. It continued to operate as Jewish Social Help, the Polish equivalent of the Central Welfare Council. Centos was funded by the American charitable institution of the Joint Distribution Committee (AJDC).

[6] At the end of the 1941-42 school year in the Warsaw Ghetto, 6700 pupils (16 per cent of school-aged children) were taught in nineteen primary schools.

[7] Texts were selected by the teachers Natan Smolar and Benjamin Wirowski.

[8] Home Committees were also active in Kraków and Rzeszów Ghettos, but to a lesser extent.

[9] Dr Emanuel Ringelblum, historian and social activist associated with the Poale Zion Left Party, creator of the underground archive of the Warsaw Ghetto (currently located in the collection of the Jewish Historical Institute). He was murdered by the Germans in March 1944.

[10] The Otwock Ghetto was established in September 1940, containing (in two years) approximately 15,000 inhabitants. Jewish children brought from the Third Reich were taken there (among others). The Germans liquidated the Ghetto in August 1942. Several thousand Jews were shot on the spot, 7 to 10 thousand were deported to the Treblinka extermination camp.

[11] Dr Teodozja Goliborska was the only surviving medical researcher out of a group who published a scientific paper after the war entitled “Hunger Disease. Clinical Studies on Hunger in the Warsaw Ghetto in 1942.” [with an introduction by Israel Milejkowski, edited by E. Apfelbaum] American Joint Distribution Committee, 1946.

[12] Jews from Sambor had to move to the Ghetto in March 1941. In April 1942 there were 6686 people there. On 4 August the Germans began a liquidation Aktion: 150 people were shot on the spot, a few hundred went to the Janowski Camp in Lwów and 4 to 6 thousand were deported to the death camp in Bełżec. There were three subsequent Aktions. The last Jews from the Sambor Ghetto (1000 people) were shot and killed near Radłowice on 5 October 1943.

[13] Roman’s mother survived and found him in the summer of 1944. They survived together in the village of Biskovychi near Sambor until Liberation.

[14] Marianek survived the War under the care of Krysia and her sister Lunia.

[15] The engineer Jerzy Neuding taught in secret; he was the secretary and treasurer of the Ghetto’s Polish Socialists Organisation.

[16] The stadium was built in 1926 and belonged to the Worker-Academic Sports Club. It occupied a rectangle formed by Okopowa, Mirecki, the Jewish cemetery and the walls of the Lutheran cemetery. Executions of Poles and Jews took place there during the War. In 1945 the remains were exhumed and transferred to the Warsaw Insurgents Cemetery and houses were built on the site of the former stadium. In 1988, hundreds of human bones were discovered during the building works. Excavated remains of approximately 300 people were lodged in a concrete catacomb between the blocks of flats. (based on Donat Szyller’s text in natemat.pl)

[17] The war criminal Odilo Globocnik was captured by British soldiers on 31 May 1945 in the Carinthian Mountains. He committed suicide that same day.

[18] The Jewish Order Service (Judischer Ordnungdienst) was set up by the Gestapo just before the creation of ghettos. The so-called ‘O.D. men’ guarded the gates, escorted displaced persons, engaged in requisitioning, and suppressed smuggling. There were approximately 2500 officers in the Warsaw Ghetto, 1200 in the Łódź Ghetto, and 500 in Lwów, according to the Holocaust historian Raul Hilberg.

[19] Sus (Hebrew) - a horse; one of the first words in Hebrew primers.

[20] Formation created in 1941 in the District of Galicia which replaced the Ukrainian police. It was used by the Germans (among others) to combat Soviet partisans and the Polish conspiracy, to track down Jews in hiding, and to serve during executions, liquidations, and ghetto pacifications. It had approximately 6000 officers. Ukrainian police officers also functioned as guards in concentration camps.

[21] A plaque commemorating the 300,000 Jews deported from Warsaw was unveiled in 1948 on Stawki Street. In April 1988 a rectangular monument by Hanna Szmalenberg and Władysław Klamerus was erected. The space symbolises a railway car. The front wall is white with a black stripe reminiscent of a talit (prayer shawl), and on the inner wall 400 Polish and Jewish names are engraved in alphabetical order. Each name symbolically commemorates a thousand Warsaw Ghetto victims.

[22] Wandzia’s parents, Zofia and Edward Posner, perished.

[23] The Courts building was completed in June 1939. It was the largest courthouse in Europe, with corridors exceeding 15 km in length. The regional court in Warsaw is currently housed there.

[24] Wacha, a Ghetto guardhouse. It comes from Wachman, the German word for “guard”.

[25] The Jabłkowski Brothers Department Store was the largest department store in Warsaw and all of Poland until 1939.

[26] Liliana’s parents: Stefania and Mieczysław Sterling perished in the Trawniki camp.

[27] The Częstochowa Ghetto was created in April 1941 in the area of the pre-war Jewish neighbourhood. It had a population of approximately 48,000 inhabitants. On 22 September 1942, the Germans began to liquidate the Ghetto: 40,000 people went to the Treblinka extermination camp and 2000 were shot on the spot. The surviving Jews worked in HASAG’s defence industry factories. At the end of the War the number of prisoners employed in the Częstochowa labour camps increased to 10,000, but only 5200 people lived to be liberated.

[28] The Nowy Sącz Ghetto was established in June 1941. It was divided into two parts: between the Square and the Castle in the centre and in an area called “Hell”. Jews from the surrounding areas and other Polish regions ended up in the Ghetto. The quarter was extremely crowded: it housed approximately 18,000 people. The Ghetto was liquidated at the end of August 1943. The inhabitants were deported to the Bełżec death camp and killed in the gas chambers.

[29] In June 1941 Grodno (which had remained under Soviet occupation since 1939) was conquered by the German army. That same year in November two ghettos were established: Approximately 15,000 people capable of work were located in the centre around the synagogue (Ghetto No. 1). The other 10,000 Jews were confined in suburban Słobódki (Ghetto No. 2) and then deported in two transports on 15 and 21 November to Auschwitz-Birkenau and murdered there. Another deportation took place in January and February 1943. The last Jews from Grodno were deported in March to the Białystok Ghetto.

[30] Bund: General Jewish Workers Union in Lithuania, Poland, and Russia.

[31] Jürgen Stroop: SS Gruppenführer, a German Nazi and war criminal. He was arrested by the Americans in 1945 and sentenced to death by a US court for the murder of Allied airmen. He was then handed over to Poland where he was again sentenced to death for crimes committed against the Polish and Jewish populations. The sentence was executed on 6 March 1952 in the Mokotów prison.

On the Aryan Side

AMONG THE POLES

When the deportations began it was already known that remaining in the Ghetto was tantamount to a death sentence. Very few Jews sought refuge on the Aryan side, however. The following were crucial if one was to survive outside the Ghetto: a non-Jewish appearance, knowledge of Polish and the Roman Catholic religion, money, and above all friends and contacts among Poles. People from assimilated families and their children met these conditions. There was another skill that was critical if one was to hide successfully on the Aryan side: you had to be a good liar. This skill was already taught to the youngest of children.

In February 1943 ten-year-old Haneczka (Chana) left the Białystok Ghetto with her father. They moved into Jadwiga and Michał Skalski’s home on Rzemieślnicza Street. “We had the following plan: to pass as Polish I would have to learn all of the prayers and how to behave in church. Then they would take me to a family that Jadwiga and her sister Wanda traded with in the countryside. The lady of the house wanted to take in a poor orphan from Warsaw - she already had two sons, but she also really wanted a daughter. (...) Ziutek (her 15-year-old son) went to primary school with Jewish children, knew a few words in Yiddish, and constantly tried to catch me out. I was very careful and pretended not to understand what he was saying. In fact I didn’t know Yiddish, but after staying in the Ghetto for a year and a half, I got a feel for it and understood quite a bit. (...)

“One day Ziutek and I were watching cows graze near a Jewish cemetery and he asked me: ‘Did you know that there is a Jewish cemetery here?’ ‘So what?’ I said, without looking him in the eye or blinking. ‘Did you attend your mum’s funeral?’ Ziutek asked me. ‘Yes,’ I replied. ‘How was she buried?’ ‘What do you mean how, wrapped in a sheet,’ I replied. Coincidentally, I had attended a Jewish funeral in the Ghetto. ‘You’re a Jew,’ Ziutek said with satisfaction. ‘What are you talking about, why?’ I replied. ‘Catholics are buried differently.’ Ziutek then explained what a Catholic funeral looks like, how deceased men and women are dressed up for the coffin. Horrified, I realised that everything had been laid bare. The first thing I felt was how terribly I had disappointed my family and my teacher, Mrs. Renia. I had tried so hard but it had finally come to light after three months...

“When we returned home with the cows in the evening, Ziutek addressed his whole family and said: ‘Halina [1] is Jewish, and we’ll all die because of her.’ ‘What are you talking about?’ Aunt Zosia asked her son. Then he told her about our conversation. The family was terrified. Hiding Jews meant death. ‘As soon as Skalska arrives, we will give her back immediately,’ Aunt Zosia decided.” Hanka Grynberżanka

In July 1942 the Germans began the final liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto. The parents of 9-year-old Margarita then decided to send the girl to the Aryan side. “From that day on, my mother taught me different things every day and checked whether I understood and remembered them. First and foremost I had to forget that I was Jewish. I wasn’t allowed to admit anything, even if the person asking me was very nice and expressed full understanding. While the War was still on and my parents hadn’t come for me (or I wouldn’t be able to move to a free Jewish community) I couldn’t admit that I was Jewish. If I heard Yiddish, or a song, a name, or any mention of the Jews at all, I was to pretend I didn’t understand. I never knew anyone who was Jewish. Even if my parents were pointed out, I had to pretend that I didn’t know them, for their safety as well as my own. The same applied to anyone else that I knew. I was to remember a completely new identity. We chose a name I could easily remember that would be in my false papers. Till the end of the War I was not allowed to speak if anyone called me by my real name. I was to learn other details when my papers were ready. I had to promise that I would diligently learn everything, even when my mother wasn’t by my side.

“My mother told me that I had to learn Catholic prayers and rituals. She announced that it would be a lot to remember, as if I were studying for a role in a school play. And not only did I have to learn it, I had to pretend that I believed everything and that I had known the prayers and rites all my life. The nun who would teach me would know that I was Jewish, but my zeal and dedication towards my new religion would certainly make her happy. A little later my mother said that I mustn’t object if they tried to convert and baptise me. ‘You have to do everything to survive, and never forget us,’ she whispered, crying. And once again she assured me that they would do anything to survive too and see me grow up in a better world.” Margarita Turkow

The family of 3-year-old Edek escaped to the Aryan side shortly before the liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto. His father was killed after he was denounced by extortionists. “My aunt and my mother had to start making money somehow. They began to buy cakes in Warsaw pastry shops and ride around selling them in various towns on the interurban EKD line: mainly to Grodzisk and Milanówek. Sometimes they took me along. I had a ‘good’ Polish (non-Jewish) appearance. My only problem was that upon seeing Germans I would hide under a bench. Moreover, I had difficulty remembering our surname during a particular week. I only knew ‘Edek’, and I would reply. ‘I don’t remember’ if they asked my surname. I was Malinowski, Fabiszewski, and I also had some other names on false papers. I was most often Malinowski.” Edward Mersyk

Ania stayed in the Częstochowa Ghetto with her parents for a year and seven months. After that they hid on the Aryan side in Warsaw. She was 5 years old then. “In the autumn of 1942 just before Rosh Hashanah and the liquidation of the Ghetto, we were able to escape from the Ghetto and go to Warsaw with the help of Polish friends. We were my mum and I, my father and my father’s sister, her husband and his niece (whose parents were killed in Treblinka). Those friends got us ‘Aryan papers’ which were ‘new’ birth certificates with new first names and surnames. I lived with my mother with the Nowak family, who were teachers. My father was placed separately with my aunt, uncle, and his niece (now an Israeli writer named Irit Amiel who writes about the Holocaust) on the grounds of the Warsaw University of Technology.

“I knew that my name was Halinka Gawrońska and I that I had to be a good, quiet little girl. We maintained contact with my father and my aunt and uncle, but we often couldn’t leave the house for a long time, because someone recognised us on the street and blackmailed us, threatening to take us to the Gestapo; in the end they were satisfied with a blackmail payment. During that time we would sit quietly in the flat, and my mother would sit by the open window to give me a little bit of fresh air in the evening, covering me with blankets and turning the lights off in the room. I wasn’t allowed to make noise, run, speak out, or play. After the War my mother told me many times that we wouldn’t have survived if I hadn’t been a well-behaved child. And I apparently felt the horror of the situation, because I didn’t cause any trouble.

“On several occasions because we were blackmailed we changed our hiding place, always with the help of Mr. and Mrs. Nowak, who were ‘Aunt’ and ‘Uncle’ to me.” Anna Goldman

Seven-year-old Wandzia was brought out of the Ghetto through sewers, and her father got her a birth certificate in a new name. She was hidden in many places around Warsaw. “Before the War my guardian had worked with my father and was a set designer in one of Warsaw’s theaters. His wife had a tailor’s shop and employed several assistants. She didn’t have any children, but a man brought his son over for Easter. All of my stuff was taken away, my hair was dyed blonde, we got some toys to play with, and we were instructed ‘only to keep away from the window and learn prayers and everything will be fine.’ It wasn’t. One day I heard a woman scream down in the yard of the building, ‘They won’t give me my child back, but they’re keeping a Jew!’ From that moment on I began to wander around: a few days at a time with girls learning tailoring, in different places in Warsaw, in the Pelcowiźna district, with trusted clients (one of whom particularly influenced my fate, and I remember her to this day). She led me to the attic and showed me a tremendous glow through the window, saying: ‘Look, your father is burning there’. After a few days she showed me a scrap of paper and without giving it to me she said it was a message from my dad in Treblinka, that he was a tailor there and he was doing well. I didn’t know which version was true: was my daddy burning and glowing in the sky, or were there also tailors in Treblinka who were doing well...

“We walked down the street. A woman looked at my birth certificate and decided it was too new. She crumpled it up. The certificate was new, but crumpled. She curled it into a ball and threw it into a drain. My ticket to life. And the last thing I had from my father. This entire period of handing me off from person to person lasted from Easter to the late autumn of 1943. I didn’t know their names or addresses. I don’t know whom to thank for my life.” Wanda Ziemska

Twelve-year-old Heniek and his parents escaped from the Lwów Ghetto on 8 September 1942 (it was closed in October) in a truck belonging to a Polish acquaintance. They went to Warsaw and hid on the Aryan side. His mother was arrested and shot. Heniek and his father frequently changed their hiding place.

“I was so desperate from constantly looking for shelter that I wanted to jump out of a fourth-floor window. My father persuaded me, however, to try to find shelter with Mr. Stanisław Fajkus in Podkowa Leśna. Mr. Fajkus agreed to hide us in the attic, which was accessible by a ladder, but it was frequently checked throughout the day, so we could only sleep there. So we spent nights in the attic while circling around Warsaw or Podkowa during the day. We once heard: ‘Aufmachen, Licht!’ [‘Open up! Light!’] Around three in the morning. I told my father: ‘Grab a crowbar and hit whoever comes in’. My father replied: ‘No, because they’ll torture and torment us’. We heard someone affixing the ladder to the hatch. Mr. Fajkus’ face appeared, grey with fear: ‘Run away, the police are in the owner’s house!’ We jumped into the field from Fajkus’ kitchen over the barbed wire fence. My father didn’t have his shoes and I hurt myself going through the wires. After some time we came back. It turned out that the Germans hadn’t come after us, but to see the landlady. She was hiding a Jewish family who managed to bribe their way out of the situation. This ever-increasing terror forced us to constantly seek out shelter in new places. I lived in Żoliborz with Mr. Wajsman and his family, who were also Jews in hiding. The flat owner didn’t know about their origin. She didn’t even know that I had stayed there for over four months. I could only go to the toilet at night.In September 1943 the owner saw me and I had to go. My father and I moved in with Mrs. Tosia on Królewska Street. She had a suspicion that we were Jews, though she wasn’t sure. She once said, ‘If I ever find out that you’re Jewish, I’ll chop your heads off with an axe at night and take them to the Gestapo!’

“We had to flee. My father rented a room at Mr. Sankowski’s place at 14 Krzywe Koło Street and I again returned to Mr. Karny’s flat. I could only stay there at night, so I would spend entire days aimlessly wandering around Warsaw. This was very dangerous because of the checks, raids, and extortionists. One day there were two trams, one right behind the other. I got on the first one. It was a lucky break, because the second tram was stopped by an SS unit and all the passengers were arrested. Finally, because my father insisted, Mr. Fajkus agreed that I could sleep with him in Podkowa Leśna. But I had to leave and take the 6:30 train to Warsaw every day. I would get out at Nowogrodzka Street. There was a medical clinic nearby where I had once gone to have my conjunctivitis treated. I would let all the patients in the queue go in front of me; this allowed me to sit in a warm waiting room for a few hours. Most of my time was spent on trams, riding them from dawn to dusk.” Henryk Arnold

Ten-year-old Marysia fled Lwów with her mother and younger brother on the day it was closed off by the Germans. They lived in Jarosław on Aryan papers until Liberation. “I spent the entire War in Jarosław with Aryan papers: from August 1942 to April 1945. We stayed in a crowded, cold room, with fungus on the walls and floor. We had no clothing or money to survive. School was out of the question. We lived in constant fear that someone would recognise us. For a time I ate potato peels turned into pies and pigweed, turnips, and rotten apples gathered by the fence. To keep us from standing out in our surroundings, I had to go to church with other kids.” Maria Kraft

The Germans presided over an anti-Semitic propaganda campaign which was directed at Poles: Jews were blamed for the outbreak of the War, food shortages, and the spreading of infectious diseases. Village leaders would affix the Nowiny (so-called “reptile newspapers” [2] on village walls. In the summer and autumn of 1942, a touring exhibition on typhoid (which was spread by Jews) was organised in the Kraków district. A touring art theatre exhibited Halina Rapacka’s work on the same subject in Tarnów. After the discovery of mass graves in Katyń in 1941 the catch phrase “Żydokomuna” [Judeo-Communist] appeared in German propaganda broadcasts. These actions considerably affected Polish attitudes towards Jews. This is evidenced by the large numbers of Jewish refugees rounded up in villages and forests in 1942.

Eleven-year-old Emanuel lived in Nowe Brzesko with his parents and two sisters in the Kraków province until September 1942, when the Germans began the deportation and liquidation of the Jewish population.

“My youngest sister, Lusia, was handed over to a Polish family at the age of 6, and they brought her to an assembly point on the day the Jews were expelled: she shared the fate of the deported. The deportation Aktion began at dawn, and since it was dark many Jews managed to escape from the ring of encirclement which was run by young boys from the ‘Baudienst’ (construction services). For a few days Jews would roam the surrounding fields, since no one wanted to feed or shelter them. They turned themselves in to the police or were captured. There were ordinances which hung everywhere stating that hiding or helping Jews would result in the death penalty. My cousins, still minors, were eventually taken to the police and poisoned at the station. The Polish population was constantly being pressured by anti-Jewish propaganda. I’m recalling the posters that were put up. I can still remember their content (a shock I experienced as a child). I quote: ‘Stand and read, dear viewer, how the Jews have beset you. They chop rats up instead of meat, add dirty water to milk, and knead wormy dough with their feet.’ In addition to the content there were drawings: A repulsive unshaven hook-nosed Jewish butcher holds a rat by the tail and throws it into a meat grinder. The second figure shows a milkman, who pours water from a jug into a tub of milk. (...)

“We stayed in the attic behind a pile of straw and chaff. My mother and I would go out sometimes. I was dressed up as an old peasant woman (my eyebrows were shaved off). We would alternately leave either at dawn or in the evening, going to different friends to pick up a few metres of materials we had given them earlier for safekeeping. This was how we paid the hosts for hiding us. Many times we left in vain because people didn’t want to return anything, and they were surprised that we were still alive at all.

“I lived through a dramatic adventure in Nowe Brzesko when I went there to pick up our goods, as usual disguised as an old peasant woman and wrapped in a large rural scarf. I realised that I was being followed by a boy whom I had attended first grade with before the War. He called the other boys, and they followed me. I heard one of them say that they had to see where I would go. This saved me (...) I knew that by tracking me they couldn’t let any adults know about me at the same time. I didn’t turn around, and I pretended I couldn’t hear their conversation and of course I didn’t pay any visits to anyone. I got them to follow me to a field outside of town and I began to run, but they didn’t catch up with me. With rage they shouted after me: ‘You Yid!’ and yelled, ‘Bang, bang!’ imitating shooting. I was rescued, but also exposed. I couldn’t go to Brzesko anymore.” Emanuel Elbinger

In the winter of 1941-1942 Marian was left all alone in the Warsaw Ghetto: his father was killed during the siege of Warsaw, while his mother died of typhus. He got to the other side of the wall and went to his uncle’s place near Włodawa. He was reluctantly taken in, so he decided to pretend to be a Pole and look for employment in the country. He was 14 years old. “It turned out that it was easier to pretend to be someone I wasn’t if I stayed overnight at a peasant’s place when I went to the village for food. It was completely different, though, when on top of being on constant duty, I was staying with a Ukrainian (it was a Ukrainian village). I didn’t know how to behave, since I had just started my new job. And since I also didn’t have any documents to prove my identity, a villager immediately guessed who I was. He didn’t say anything at first, but his wife told me about it, threatening that she would put a halter on my neck and lead me to the Germans.”

The boy wandered from village to village, working for local farmers, but he couldn’t stay anywhere for long without any documents. “(...) I constantly dreamed and thought about acquiring ‘Aryan papers’ which would help me survive. Eventually I realised my dream, because I slept in the room of the mother of my next host, Jan Siedlecki. This just happened, it came out of nowhere.” The old lady told the boy about the neighbours and their families. Thanks to her, he gained information that he used to acquire an original Catholic birth certificate issued in the name of Jan Czerwiński. Marian Finkielman

Six-year-old Joasia lived in the Warsaw Ghetto with her parents and grandmother at 8 Biała Street. In April 1942 her father was shot and killed by the Germans. Soon afterward she escaped from the Ghetto with her mother.

“And so the next stage of my life began. Irena [3] took me to her parents’ place in Anin near Warsaw. Mr. and Mrs. Chmieleński were both dentists, and, along with their son Jan, they looked after me carefully. I was introduced as a cousin from Eastern Poland. I called my guardians Aunt and Uncle and their adult children, Janek and Irena, by their first names. This really impressed me. This bliss didn’t last too long though. There were too many people around the house – patients, neighbours – I could have got the whole family killed by saying the wrong thing. All the same, I tried really hard. For example, when I took the train to Anin with Irena, I whispered in her ear, asking if Jurek was a Polish name, and walking past a roadside shrine I asked loudly: ‘Irena, what kind of figurine is this?’ I didn’t shut my mouth until she squeezed my hand. After a few days, Irena returned to her duties, and I remained in the care of her busy family, who didn’t always have the time to watch over me.

“Soon afterward, Irena took me to Zagórze near Warsaw. Away from the city, Zagórze (which was surrounded by forests) became a refuge for people persecuted by the Nazis during the occupation. Many people stayed here including children with mental disorders, non-Aryans the occupiers were looking for, former prominent individuals or their families, as well as artists. (The estate belonged to Dr Kazimierz Dąbrowski). (...) I found refuge here as well in a sanatorium for children. Retarded children stayed here, mostly with congenital syphilis. Irena brought me here and she remained for about a month, volunteering as a teacher. She didn’t want me to feel uncomfortable around strangers. I don’t remember much from this stay: we had Herculo tasteless porridge for breakfast (I still don’t eat milk and cereal to this day), and my mother visited me when I lay sick in solitary confinement. When she asked me for three wishes I replied that I wanted the War to be over, for my dad to come back to us, and that... I could eat a white bread roll.

“My mother soon took me home from Zagórze. After getting me false documents she rented a room at 38 Narbutta Street and we lived there until the Warsaw Uprising. I was twice as joyous after arriving in the new house, because I was greeted by my beloved grandmother. She had left the Ghetto with looters. My mother’s sister left her hiding place during one such action and died after being deported.” Joanna Neuding

Seweryn (born in 1931) lived in Winniki in a camp for women who had children. In late autumn 1942, the Germans surrounded the camp and led the inhabitants in the direction of Lwów. The boy’s mother commanded him to run. This was the last time that he ever saw her. For several days he hid with a woman in Winniki whom he recognised. She contacted the boy’s father, who was in a labour camp and was employed in building of a road out of Jewish tombstones.

“A couple of days passed. One day they took me out into the street. My father and I got into a car going to Lwów with Jewish workers. We rode into the Jewish cemetery. There was a night watchman, a Jew, with whom the workers left their hammers, crowbars and other tools. I spent a few days there. At that time, my father contacted one of my aunts, who was free since she had American papers. She was the one who found my father’s acquaintance who had worked in the oil industry before the War. His name was Józef Rybicki. He took me in to live with him. One night they took me out into the street. A stranger took my hand. We went to a tram. He stood in a way so that my face was hidden. I went to his flat. (He lived in Lwów on Jasna Street). I stayed there from 1 December 1942 to 27 July 1944, when the Russians entered the city.

“I was a so-called ‘closet child’. I had to be in another room when someone entered. I had a hiding place behind the wardrobe, and a second hiding place inside a table that could be opened up. I never hid in the latter one, but I used the hiding place behind the wardrobe several times. I obviously had to be very quiet. I wasn’t allowed to approach the window. I couldn’t let anyone see me. I can only imagine the kinds of problems they had when they had to wash my children’s clothes. They couldn’t hang them out with older people’s clothes because the neighbours would see right away.” Seweryn

In the autumn of 1940, ten-year-old Josek ended up in the Jadwisin Ghetto with his mother and sister (his father was killed in Palmiry in February). “In 1942 news in the Ghetto spread that ghettos in the Nowy Dwór Mazowiecki district were being liquidated by the Germans, and that their Jewish populations were deported to death camps. Jews who managed to escape from liquidated ghettos most often relayed such messages. Smugglers also brought a lot of information. We were able to read many newspapers or leaflets distributed by the Polish underground. The news about killing methods and mass murder was terrible. We knew that such a cruel fate could easily await us.

“In this situation our mother made enormous efforts to hide Fejgel and me on the Aryan side. In September 1942 she made an agreement with her former clients, Mr. and Mrs. Wnorowski: if they took me in, cared for me, and I survived the War, then she would give them her home in Henryków. The Wnorowskis lived on the outskirts of the Praga district. They agreed and made that commitment, so I found myself under their roof. The Wnorowskis had three sons, but only one of them lived with them. In my opinion he was an ardent anti-Semite. He never missed any opportunity to make scathing remarks about Jews. This caused me great anguish and I didn’t feel safe in this house from the beginning. Unfortunately, I had no choice.

“After placing me with Mr. and Mrs. Wnorowski, my mother undertook strenuous efforts to hide Fejgel. Unfortunately, the only place my sister saw for herself was by our mother’s side. Finally, after many months of persuasion, our mother probably managed to place her in the Juvenile Department in Chotomów run by nuns from the Servants of the Blessed Virgin Mary convent. On a late evening in December 1942 (just before Christmas) someone knocked softly on the Wnorowski’s door. It turned out to be my sister Fejgel. I was happy to be able to hold and hug her. At the same time, alone and afraid, I wondered how she was able to find me at this hour by herself.

“The Wnorowskis were very upset with her unexpected visit. Mrs. Wnorowska declared that she wouldn’t risk her life any longer and told us to leave the house immediately. She remained firm, even though I tried to make her change her mind. It was late evening, the curfew was approaching, and a cold wind was blowing outside. We went out into the street and had no idea what to do or where to go. We met an older, poorly dressed woman along the way who took us to her house without saying a word. She probably realised that we were Jewish children, because the next day she asked us to be on our way when dusk settled.

“Fejgel and I got almost no sleep that night. Once again, as in Ludwisin, we prayed to God that our mother would find us as soon as possible, that He would help us get out of this difficult situation. Very few people probably believe in miracles. But I do. Because an hour before dusk our mother came to the woman’s house where we had spent the night. She thanked our host and the three of us returned to the Wnorowski’s. Here she ‘convinced’ Mrs. Wnorowska with a valuable gift to keep me at home, promising that Fejgel would never come and bother them again. She explained that Fejgel was looking for her mother in Ludwisin: when she realised the Ghetto had been liquidated she decided to find her brother. I don’t know how she managed to locate the Wnorowski’s. To this day it remains an unsolved mystery to me. I know, however, that she left the convent because she missed her mother and brother. Everyone seemed like a stranger to her. She couldn’t quite understand why she had to live among them.

“My mother and sister had nowhere to go after they left the Wnorowskis. The Ludwisin Ghetto had already been liquidated. In this set of circumstances my mother decided to get into the Warsaw Ghetto. With an aching heart I said good-bye to her. I didn’t know then that this would be our last goodbye ever. Although the Wnorowskis let me continue to stay, I still felt uneasy in their home. In early 1943 Mr. Wnorowski died and his sons began to quarrel among themselves. One of them threatened his mother that he would inform the Germans that she was hiding a Jew in her home. From that point on, nothing was certain. In April 1943 after yet another row at the Wnorowskis’, the woman told me to leave the house and hide in the bushes nearby. We agreed that every two or three days she would bring me food to an agreed-upon spot. I had no choice, I had to go out into the field.

“For several months I had been constantly sitting around the flat and never going outside. Now I found myself in the woods among a thicket of bushes and under the open sky. The fields around me were sown with grain and turning green. I secretly spent many nights in the barn, pigsty, or cowshed of the local farmers. During the day I remained hidden in my abode in the woods. The rain would often pour down for a few days at a time, the cold wind would blow, but I was still there. (...)

“Mrs. Wnorowska decided to take me back into the house when she saw that I seemed to be going to pieces. I was there until the harvest. She then rented a storage cellar from the neighbours and arranged a shelter inside. She set up a bed and a bucket for my personal needs in this cellar. I could see the light of day coming through the tiny window. Mrs. Wnorowska (just as when I hid in the field) brought me food twice a week. She also emptied my bucket. I sat there quietly, because a Volksdeutsche lived very near by. I didn’t see anyone the whole time except for the farmer’s wife.

“I was in constant danger and completely cut off from the world. When it rained, water flowed into my hideout through various cracks and would soak into the clay floor in the cellar after a few days. Sitting there, I had no activities or tools or books. Sometimes Mrs. Wnorowska brought me official newspapers. I would read every word, even though they published false stories.” Josef Carmeli aka Josek Inwentarz

When war broke out 2-year old Irenka and her mother ended up alone in Kraków: her father was arrested by the NKVD in Lwów and sent to a Siberian camp. “In 1939 I was baptised, and I stayed in the flat of my godmother (and my mother’s best friend), Maria Grużewska, for a short time. I had to leave, since my presence drew the attention of Maria’s neighbours, as she was unmarried.

“In 1940 my mother took me to Warsaw, where there was less of a chance that anyone would recognise us. My mother managed to acquire Aryan papers for herself in the name of Katarzyna Franczek. She placed me in the care of nuns somewhere near Warsaw. Soon, however, in the convent where I was staying, the mother superior said that I had to leave under the pretext that I had cursed. This was unlikely because I was a very good girl, and I didn’t know any bad words then. I think that my origins were the real reason they denied me a place there.

“After I was picked up from the nuns I was handed off to the Czarnecki family for safekeeping. They supported their entire family with the money and valuables that my mother gave them. The Czarnecki’s were retired teachers and made sure I developed my intellect (I could already count and read fluently by age 5) as well as my spirituality (they taught me all the prayers and enforced their constant recitation). I starved so much during my stay with this family that when they wanted to perform cupping, the cups fell right off my bony body.I remembered one particular incident back then that has lingered in my memory more than any other war experience. The Czarneckis once bought a sausage and a bread roll for themselves, and upon leaving me alone in the house they made it clear that I wasn’t allowed to touch it. Because they were gone for a long time, I began to sniff the food at first and then I couldn’t stand it any longer and nibbled at both items. I hadn’t ever experienced such flavours because they only fed me dry bread (rarely with marmalade) and potatoes. After returning I denied it when they asked me if I had nibbled on the sausage and bread. Because I had never lied before, they believed me and they set up a mousetrap baited with bacon. Unfortunately, they failed to catch the mouse, because that mouse was me. I was constantly sick, probably from being malnourished and staying in a closed room for so long. My mother later told me that she cried once when she saw me because I looked like a ‘skeleton’.” Irena

Henryk (born around 1937) stayed in the Warsaw Ghetto with his parents and two siblings. During the liquidation of the Ghetto his mother carried him past the guards and handed him over to a Polish family named Aleksandrowicz for safekeeping. “When all of Warsaw’s inhabitants were being displaced in 1944, Mr. and Mrs. Aleksandrowicz locked me in the cellar and told me to wait until I heard Russian speech (I had never heard it before), and then I was to scream that I was locked inside. They left me a supply of bread that I hung on the wall in a bag so that the rats wouldn’t eat it – but I found that the rats got up the wall and ate the last of it anyway. I only had three bottles of raspberry juice, but I felt only thirsty, not hungry. My mouth was so dry that white chunks formed out of the secretions inside. I would have died there. Suddenly a fleeing man broke into my basement through a hole between the door and the ceiling and waited out the chase there. I remained unnoticed under blankets in the tub where I was hiding until the intruder left the cellar the same way he came in.

“Because of his example I also tried getting out of the cellar in the same way. And so, driven by hunger and bitten by rats, I wandered around deserted open flats, finding leftover water in kettles and rotten cooked potatoes in pots, and so survived. Then I heard the step of hobnailed boots! Terrified, I hid under a pile of abandoned clothes and bedding behind the door, where there was also a wringer. I pulled all of this on top of myself and waited till the uniformed Germans with swastikas on their shoulders were finished searching the flat. One of them kicked the pile of clothes under which I had hidden and...they left. Saved once again, I waited before I walked any further through the empty house. It hurt to walk because I had been locked up in a half sawed-off wall drawer during my long stay with the Aleksandrowicz family. When they left the house (Józef worked in a bakery) I was never allowed to stand so that no one could see me through the window, so I also cleaned the flat on my knees, and I slept under the bed. Finally, they locked me in a wet basement, and I got sick there with a severe joint disease that prevented me from walking or even holding anything in my hands. During a house search, Polish workers who came to work in the Królikarnia fields found me crawling on all fours.” Henryk Hajwentreger

BEHIND THE WARDROBE

To survive outside the ghetto one had to find shelter. Those with a “good” non-Jewish appearance who had cash and possessed “strong” documents could rent a room or flat and then go outside and function independently. Everyone else (the majority) had to rely on the help of good-hearted people. In occupied Polish territories approximately 200,000 people were involved in rescuing Jews. They were mostly Poles, but the number also included Ukrainians, Lithuanians, and Belarusians. People from their immediate environment posed the greatest threat to Jews: fearing their neighbours, they frequently had to change their hiding places.

Jadzia (born in 1935) and her mother stayed in the Nowy Sącz Ghetto for two years. In August 1942 they escaped from a column which was being taken to a train. “We hid with many different people. First, Mr. Antoni and Mrs. Anna Ptaszkowski gave us shelter at 20 Kunegundy Street (my uncle Stan Fiszbain had already lived with them for some time). Then we moved to Mr. Józef and Mrs. Janina Mazurek’s place at 25 Sikorski Street (in the Piekło area). Finally, we spent some time with Professor Giesing on 29 Kołłątaja Street, who had reached out a helping hand. We had to change our location frequently. I didn’t ‘look good’: my Semitic features and curly black hair drew attention. It was more difficult to maintain security. They would hide me in the most unexpected of places: in a beehive and a bread baking oven, and in a bed that was made up and covered with a bedspread, as well as in cellars, gardens, and haystacks. I spent six weeks underground in a hiding place which had been specially dug for me in the garden. A beehive was then placed over it. Helena Mossoczy, who was a nun from the convent on Świętego Ducha Street, hid me and taught me for some time. Then my mother placed me with Mr. and Mrs. Michalak in a mill by the Poor Clares convent in Stary Sącz. During the raids the nuns hid me and other Jewish children in a tomb in the chapel. At the end of the War we both were hiding with our mother (we already had false papers) in Chabówka with Mr. and Mrs. Palarczyk. We stayed there until Liberation.” Jadwiga Fiszbain-Tokarz

In the autumn of 1942 eleven-year-old Leszek and his mother escaped from the Lwów Ghetto in a column of labourers going out to work. The police had taken his father [4], who had the entire family fortune with him. “We were alone. We had no money, no trustworthy friends, and no hope for tomorrow. My mother decided to return to the house on Sobieski Street where we had lived before, where our friend Mrs. J.F. also lived. This was a dangerous decision because everyone knew us there, but we had no other options. They accepted us without enthusiasm, though cordially.

“They placed my mother behind the wardrobe which was standing at an angle in one of the corners of a room. They found a storage locker for me in the toilet. There was a large alcove above the toilet where the laundry tub and various other odds and ends were stored. Some space was cleared out from the side of the toilet and then covered with household items...and I would sit there for hours on end. Our protector was a Ukrainian who led a lively social life and whose brother served in the German army; dinners often lasted until dawn. So everyone was constantly using the toilet, as if to spite me. One day my father showed up. All of our property was taken after he was denounced and blackmailed. He managed to escape while on the way to the Janowski camp when the convoy made a stop at a Jewish cemetery. My parents decided that they would have to separate. (...) One of our family members was baptised and married a young, pretty, Polonised German. They later divorced, but we kept in touch with them sporadically. My mother decided to ask her for help.I called Mrs. ‘M’ ‘Aunt’. She was a so-called Reichsdeutsche and she lived alone, but she received us cordially. They decided that no one should see me and that my mother had to leave the house during the day. Before that they even tried to turn me into a girl. My hair, eyebrows, and eyelashes were dyed black, and they put me in a dress and my bust was stuffed a little. The effects were disastrous. I was chalky pale and freckled. The black hair accentuated my pallor even more. So they packed me under the bed.

“I lay in bed covered with smelly bedbugs which I squashed as often as I could. I lay paralysed with fear and stiffness, writhing with abdominal and bladder pain. I often relieved myself in bed. There was constantly something happening in the room. I saw all kinds of shoes: soldiers’, officers’, some trousers and bits of uniforms. All sorts of frolics occurred on the bed above me, it would jump and sag rhythmically. I was terrified. The constant German chatter only added to it; every single overhead word scared me to death.

“Our house would become very calm in the evenings. My mother would come, my aunt would rest quietly, we had white bread and marmalade. Unlike me, my mother was already up to speed about everything. I was full of lice. They nested everywhere, including my clothes and hair. My mother and aunt poured hot water and some kind of vinegar on me. Later the ladies did this. And when we finally crawled into our lairs, our daily hopeless struggle against bedbugs began. Weeks passed this way. I got used to my hiding place while the things I observed broadened my knowledge of life. It was the safest place in the whole country: under the bed of a German whore. One day the German sanitary control appeared in my aunt’s flat. It turned out that she had been denounced as a venereal disease contact. We fled in fear, moreover not knowing where to go, or to whom.” Leszek and his mother claimed to be displaced Poles from Wołyń. They found refuge with an old lady who lived by a Carmelite Church.

“(...) We would get up at dawn and leave our little room. We had nowhere to go. The street was full of suspicious people and decidedly hostile. We chose the Łyczakowski Cemetery. In the early mornings we would try to find some neglected grave here, most often off to the side, and then tidy it up meticulously. We moved from place to place. Fortunately, the cemetery was very large. We found a tomb with a disc which we could easily move. There was quite a lot of space inside. We furtively carried a mass of branches and leaves there. I would crawl in there while my mother went out to the city. The tomb was safe, quiet, and comfortable. I stopped being afraid. It was summer. We decided we would stay in the cemetery for a few nights, while at home we announced that we were leaving to visit our family. That way we seemed more credible to our hosts.

“Nights in the cemetery were quiet. There were no ghosts, fears, or corpses: everything that had haunted us up until then. Weeks passed. Although we would enter the cemetery through different gates, we ran into the same people several times. We deemed it too dangerous and my mother decided to change our hiding place. It wasn’t easy. We had no friends and we lacked money. My mother remembered our former maid, who years earlier had promised to help us. Her name was Ryśka, and she was cross-eyed and very slovenly. But that was the old days. Now she was gorgeous. She received us and promised to help out. After some time we received a person’s address who had decided to take us in. There was no longer any pretense, they knew who we were and how much we would pay. It was a ground-floor flat on Na Bajkach Street with a room and a kitchen.

“The owner turned out to be quite nice, a widowed seamstress with a 15-year-old son named Mietek. There was a tailoring workshop inside the flat. People were constantly coming and going. We needed another hiding place. There was a huge double bed in the room. It was full of quilts and pillows and covered by a wooden frame which gave it shape. They decided to make a hiding place right there between the cushions. My mother and I lay there together with the bed made over us, knocked out from the heat and the stench, and numb from inertia. Taking care of the needs of our bladders became a painful, unimaginable nightmare. I taught myself a way of abstaining when nature called, though I often failed. After a few weeks we begged our hostess to move us elsewhere. Unfortunately, there wasn’t any place to put us. The room was small and cluttered. They decided that we would lie under the bed. I already had experience in this regard so I was even pleased. We crawled under the bed and slid trunks and suitcases to shield us from view, and that created a small nook for a chamber pot and a pillow. You could breathe. The room was always full of female clients: nobody expected two Jews to be hiding out in this room. A dog barked furiously around our hiding place once, but it couldn’t break through the wall of suitcases. Late in the evening we left our hiding place. We crawled around the house on all fours. Standing up straight was dangerous: somebody could have seen us through the ground-floor window. It was monotonous, but weeks went by quietly. Our good friend (a former neighbour) would show up regularly. He kept some of our things for safekeeping and paid for our stay.” It turned out that the flat’s owner was in cahoots with blackmailers. Leszek and his mother were forced to flee after a visit from them. They went back to the cemetery.

“(...) My mother would go out into the neighbourhood and bring back food or look for contacts. One day she came back with news that someone out there had agreed to let me into a flat whose owners had left for a while, leaving their keys behind. They agreed only for me to go. I found myself in a huge flat with paintings, rugs, and covers for furniture. Everything I wasn’t allowed to do was written down on a piece of paper. I couldn’t walk, move, use the gas, water, light, toilet, or bathroom.

“I had to sleep on the floor, and coming up to the windows or the balcony was absolutely prohibited. I had to be dead. And so I barely lived. I did what I was told. Every few mornings I would find food and a card from my mother. Weeks passed. There was not a single living soul around me. I talked to myself. I dreamed of looking at the street. I read some old newspapers and calendars. A wardrobe stood by the window. I decided that I could observe the street without being seen if I climbed on top of it and covered myself with a blanket. And this was true. My life became interesting and colourful. I lay on my wardrobe; the sun was shining and it was warm. I watched and dreamed. One afternoon I fell asleep and fell off the wardrobe. I came to after a while. My protectors came in the evening and my mother was already waiting in the gate.” Leszek Leon Allerhand

In September 1942 eleven-year-old Krysia was brought out from the Częstochowa Ghetto and hidden on the Aryan side. “They let me inside the house, only half of which was habitable, the rest was unfinished, with no windows or floors. It was littered with tools and building materials, and it repeatedly served as my refuge when strangers appeared at the house. Sometimes a nosy neighbour would come unexpectedly and they would make the bed over me, covering me with the quilt.I could barely breathe, and I couldn’t move until the neighbour had left. Later they dug a small hole for me in the basement of an unfinished house when the Germans starting appearing in the area more frequently. A small hole was closed off by two bricks and I could barely crawl through it. There was also very little space inside and it was very low. I could barely raise myself on my hands. I spent many days there and they only let me out into the flat at night. The Germans once unexpectedly ran in there and I had no time to squeeze into the space. I slid under a pile of potatoes. I heard the Germans yelling. They stabbed with their bayonets at the potatoes that I was lying under. I was terrified that if they got me I would cry out and betray myself. Fortunately, I was lucky. Nobody stabbed me or was able to guess what lay under the potato pile.

“Later on I was constantly in my dungeon, and although it was difficult to change positions (I could only raise myself on my hands a little and bend my knees) I felt much more secure inside. I repeatedly asked my hosts to take me to the forest partisans. I knew that they were hiding in the forests near Częstochowa. I really didn’t want these people to risk their lives (or their children’s) for me. In the end my rightful caretaker (as I got to know later) came for me. She stuck me in a cab with a lowered top and drove me to her house. This was already in the spring of 1943. But it was still very dangerous.

“I was placed with different people, so I didn’t stop in any given place for too long. I lived with some lady in a small flat in the attic for some time. (...) One day the Germans came into the yard. The owner of the flat had escaped from the house, shutting me inside. I sat there as quietly as a mouse, listening intently as the soldier’s hobnailed boots stomped closer and closer, followed by a pounding on the door. And strangely enough! The Germans checked many flats and when they got close to my door they suddenly gave up, thinking that there would be nothing but empty attics. Their shouts receded off into the distance, ‘Phew!’ I breathed a sigh of relief. Before that I probably hadn’t breathed at all.” Krystyna Chudy Her protector soon volunteered to work in Germany and took the girl along with her.

Eleven-year-old Roman and his cousin were in charge of herding a few dozen head of cattle. He lived with his family in Sąsiadowice in the Lwów region. In the summer of 1942 all Jews living in the area were forced by the Germans to work on a nearby farm.

“In November of 1942 there was a final liquidation of Jews in the Lwów voivodeship. We found ourselves in the Sambor Ghetto, but with the help of Włodzimierz Huńka we managed to escape and hide in the area. My whole family (along with a dozen or more people) hid in the basement of the palace on the Głęboka estate for a few days in winter 1942.

“In order to hide us better, we were walled in, and there was only a small hatch through which they handed us food. Since staying there became unbearable (being unable to relieve ourselves, not enough air) they responded to our cries for mercy and took the wall down. Włodzimierz Huńka placed my parents and us in a hideout made of straw in the barn of a Głeboka farm. The hideout was built by Włodzimierz Huńka and his brother Bogdan in such a way that we could lie and sit there, although we couldn’t stretch out. It was dark all the time. We only left our hiding place at night to go outside, and that was so that we could relieve ourselves.

“During the winter of 1943 we were once spotted by an estate employee, and in the aftermath Włodzimierz Huńka decided to move us to another hiding place. It was located in the cellar of the palace on the same estate, and it was built in such a way that the ground under the floor was dug out, and there was an entrance to the manhole made out of ceramic tiles through which I descended into the shelter. A dozen people at a time stayed there, including the four people in the Korenblit family. (...)

“Włodzimierz Huńka brought our family food once a day. The food consisted of meager portions of bread and potatoes without any fat. We were transferred from this hideout to a distillery in the same locality for two days and placed in an unused production tank. Korenblit’s wife couldn’t bear such terrible conditions and decided that she would go to the Sambor Ghetto with her two beautiful girls aged 5 and 8, even though we tried with all our might to keep her from going through with this act of suicide. Unfortunately, her husband’s stance wasn’t firm enough, and he allowed her and the children to go to the Ghetto, where death was imminent.”

In the spring of 1944 Roman hid in the forest along with his parents and sister Pelagia. “We hid in this forest without taking cover, that is, on the surface among the bushes, but we were noticed after a few weeks. We therefore duga hiding place in a forest embankment, and we stayed there for some time until we were discovered again, so we left the forest and went to live in grain fields. Conditions in the grain fields were extremely hard to deal with because it was either extremely hot or (most often) rainy. We were forced to lie flat on the hard bare ground so that no one would notice us. When the harvest approached we hid in rows of potatoes, lying down the entire time.” Roman Lewin

Chuwcia’s family hid in an Aryan family’s basement in Turka [5]. In August 1942 her parents were captured and deported to Auschwitz. Nine-year-old Chuwcia ended up alone with her sister Estera. In the autumn, their uncle Anczel placed the two girls in a peasant’s home on the outskirts of Turka. They were then transferred to the neighbouring village of Bukovina.

“We moved in with one of the Ilnicki brothers: Andrej and his three children and his wife, Justyna, in one room. We slept on the stove, where the bed bugs really bothered us. We ate food from a common bowl with the other children, mainly ‘fasting potatoes’ [plain boiled potatoes] or oat flour cooked only in hot water. The greatest delicacy was the oat flour that we picked up from under the millstones. One day in 1943 some people that we didn’t know appeared, and they turned out to be Jews hiding out in the nearby forests and companions of our Uncle Anczel’s. Some of them moved in with Andrej’s brother after some time. The Germans organised a raid when they heard about the Jews in hiding. Several people were killed during the shooting, while others were deported to the Sambor Ghetto. Some of them managed to escape from the Ghetto and return to Bukowina. They told us that our sole guardian, Uncle Anczel, was dead. (...) A short time later there was another assault, this time carried out by the Germans and Ukrainians. After this attack the Jews went to the forest for good. It was summer. We were left alone in Bukowina, but we didn’t live at home. The nearby thicket was our home for a few weeks, and we spent whole days and nights there. We subsisted mainly on what the forest had to offer, especially raspberries, which were plentiful during this time. Only occasionally would someone throw us a bite, because the area was under constant German surveillance.

“We were paralysed with fear when the Germans in charge of searching the undergrowth stood right next to us. We saw their green uniforms and angry faces up close. Apparently they didn’t want to notice us. That same summer we were taken to the forest by our Jewish friends. We spent the end of summer, autumn and early winter with them. Sleeping under the open sky in the cold temperatures has lingered in my memory forever. We would fall asleep by the burning fire, it would go out at night, and we would wake up covered with snow. Surprisingly no one got sick in these conditions.

“Our situation improved somewhat after moving to the bunker, but eventually we were afflicted by lice. When I slept on the bottom bunk lice would fall like raindrops straight onto my face. Our only food at the time was rye, which we acquired in the nearby village. It was dried on a plate, ground up in a coffee grinder and boiled in water procured from melted snow. We had to leave the bunker when news reached us that that we were being tracked by the Germans.

“The Germans did discover us, however, and attacked us in the early spring of 1944. Several people were killed, but my sister and I were among the survivors. During the day-long trek my sister’s feet got frostbitten, and our companions wanted to kill her when she was too cold and exhausted to keep going. They carried her further when I pleaded with them not to kill her, but I would always stay at the end to keep them from leaving her. I have to admit that I didn’t even resent these people. I couldn’t imagine life without her. Dawid was supposed to be my sister’s killer. She met him after the War in Gliwice. He couldn’t believe that she had blossomed into such a buxom lady.” Chuwcia W.

Malwina and her parents stayed in the Drohobycz Ghetto from 1941 until 1943. She fled and hid in the forest with her mother just before the ghetto was liquidated. She was 10 years old at the time. “We hid in a leather tannery for a few months. Later on, our close Catholic friends arranged an escape wagon for us (we hid under the straw) to the Bronicki forests. We sat there in a shelter dug in the ground. I didn’t see any daylight the whole time. Józef Miniów helped us escape and helped feed us, and he settled in the town of Dukla near Jasło after the War. (...) We left our hiding place in August 1944 after the Soviet army entered. I couldn’t walk at all after leaving the shelter. They would carry me out to the bench or to the sun. I started to learn to walk after a long treatment. To this day I have the remains of rickets, rheumatoid arthritis, and tremendous changes in my spine.” Malwina Wollek

Ignaś’ family managed to survive several deportation Aktions in Borysław. After his father was killed in a mass execution on 15 February 1943, Ignaś, at the age of 11, made his way to the Drohobycz camp with his mother.

“Towards the end of March1944 we learned that the Soviets were very close by. Dozens of people who were mostly young boys went and built underground bunkers in the Borysławski forest. Later they came to camp and attracted people to their bunkers for a fee (several thousand złotys). For three days my mother and I tried to get a lift to Borysław and to get to a bunker from there. (...) Our trip there was full of adventure. It was nighttime and you couldn’t see the road. We ran into bushes, we ran into mud. Betrayed by the sounds of our clogs, there was no other option, we had to run away. We wandered around all night. At four in the morning we smelled smoke. There was a small bunker in front of us. We got inside through a small hatch. It was a hole in the ground. The walls were fortified with logs. The ceiling was also supported by logs. Altogether twenty people were housed there. The room was six square metres in size. The walls were wet. Water just dripped down on people. There were bunks as well. Some people had bed sheets, but everything was wet. We had a tiny stove, but we were only allowed to cook at night. We had to shovel the snow from the bunker every day. People who lived here before us had prepared some rye which we used to make various dishes.

“The so-called ‘forest management committee’ (who were police) acted in the forest. There were around fifteen people. They were armed. They knew every bunker. Each bunker had to collect 500 zł. for protection money. The money was given to police commander Eisenstein. Eisenstein bribed the Gestapo. He also maintained order so that people wouldn’t rebel. When people came from concentration camps or work camps the police assigned several people to each bunker. They placed us in the Baktroga bunker. We lived in extraordinary harmony here. Everyone shared what they had. We lived in this bunker for six weeks until the end of May 1944. The Lubianikier bunker was not far from ours. When they ran out of money and supplies, Lubianikier went to the barracks to bring in a rich man.

“When there was money, you could buy food in order to keep on living. Unfortunately, he was captured by Menzinger as soon as he came out of the woods. After being severely tortured he revealed his bunker and the ones around it. We learned about this, so we had to quickly leave our shelter. We headed to the so-called Jewish Quarter in the forest (there were the most bunkers there). Unfortunately, they didn’t let us in because there was no room. We sat around all day in the open air.” Ignacy Goldwasser

Ignacy and his mother survived until Borysław was liberated by hiding in successive bunkers, shelters, and occasionally out in the open. They fled from Bandera’s soldiers, who would rob and kill Jews.

Józio stayed in the Borysław Ghetto, which was systematically exterminated by the Germans. It eventually ceased to exist in June 1943. At that time the 12-year-old boy was hidden by his father in a camp designed for professionals working for the Germans, and his mother found refuge on the Aryan side with their pre-war neighbours.

“By this time the Germans constantly penetrated the camp, seeking out and catching the families of Jews who were officially employed. My father secretly brought me to my mother’s hideout. The hiding place was behind a pile of hay in the barn loft. There was a second hiding place in the stables, where a chaff cutter stood in the hallway. There was a small beet cellar there. You would enter by lifting a small hatch located on the floor. Someone would have to let us into the cellar and then close the hatch behind us. The cellar was so shallow and small that you had to crawl on your stomach or back to enter it, then stay in this position the whole time until five in the morning (from 5:00 to 5:00). This was when our protector came to milk the cows. She would let us out of the cellar and give us something to eat. We could wash our faces and hands, and then off we went back to the cellar, alternately on our stomachs or on our backs.

“We stayed in the cellar in winter because it was warmer, and in the attic during the summer. The stable roof was covered with sheet metal so the temperature was very high during sunny days, like in the Sahara Desert. On such days we would soak our sheets in a bucket of water, wring them out, and then wrap ourselves in them. Staying in the attic was much better.

“I watched the birds that would fly up to the attic and fly away if I moved in the slightest. I also wanted to be a bird and I dreamed of flying outside. I played in other ways too. I would watch spiders, how they made cobwebs, how they caught flies, how they sucked them dry and threw away the husk. I also caught flies and threw them into the cobweb; the spiders then became interested in the flies and consumed them. But sometimes the flies bounced off the cobwebs and got away. I would make their escape impossible by tearing off their wings and sometimes their legs. After that I would peer at mice giving birth and their new offspring.

“Seven months went by this way. My father visited us several times during that period. Because some Jews were caught near our hiding place, ‘our Ukrainians’ moved us to a haystack in a field. It ensured their safety, because we could have also sought shelter there without their knowing about it. (...)”

Józio’s father, who was in a camp at the time, decided to bring him in. In late autumn his mother joined them. At the beginning of 1944 the Germans began to liquidate the camp workers.

“(...) My father sold off the last valuable item we had left, namely my mother’s diamond ring of several carats for about 140,000 Emissary [printed during the War] Złotys. It was a considerable sum in those times.

“In March 1944 we escaped from the camp by walking out with a column of Jews being taken to work on the Aryan side. Late at night we went to the home of a Ukrainian family who agreed to shelter us for money. After staying in the flat for a few days my father constructed a blind wall in the shed, and he placed rabbit cages in it from floor to ceiling. We entered the hiding place through a detachable rear wall hung on the hinges of one of the cages standing on the floor. The hiding place was perfect and well camouflaged. It was comfortable inside: there were two mattresses on the floor in addition to bedding, and there were still about three metres of free space, about one metre wide, where we could take ‘real’ walks. The hiding place was dimly lit, but an oil lamp was lit for a few hours a day and I could study a bit. The house was extremely well stocked with textbooks and other books to read. Pre-war publications for five groszy were the most common. My father would go out from time to time, supposedly to get money from someone so he could pay for our shed. We were afraid to say that we had it on us because there were cases of people being robbed and then turned over to the Germans, or at best thrown out into the street. Some time in the middle of July our protector ran to the shed in broad daylight and shouted [in Ukrainian]: ‘Run, the Germans are coming!’ We ran outside without hesitating, we were totally blinded by the brightness of the daylight and the sun’s rays. After nearly five months of sitting in the dark we couldn’t see anything. After a while I was the first one to see a cornfield in the distance, and I pulled my parents in that direction. We hid there until nightfall. We didn’t notice that we were almost naked until later; I hadn’t even had time to put my clogs on.

“At night we came back close to the house, where we hid for some time and observed the house and surrounding area. My mother walked up to the house itself and knocked on the window. The woman was there holding a bag filled with our things. The very thought of staying there any longer was completely out of the question. With the money she received for keeping us she bought a plot of land, two cows, and arranged a wedding for her son in his bride’s home. She didn’t need more money as she wasn’t that greedy and she had fulfilled her dream. But as a by-product of that she saved our lives, so bless her for that.” Józef Lipman

From 1941 Halinka stayed in the Drohobycz Ghetto with her parents, followed by a labour camp. When news came that the camp was being liquidated, her mother decided to escape along with her 7-year-old daughter. At night they crawled under wires which had been cut by Ukrainian partisans. They met a Ukrainian friend on the road.

“Risking his life, he covered us in hay and took us to a barn where we hid for one night. Because of his nationalist mother, who hated everyone (both Poles and Jews), he couldn’t let us stay there any longer because she’d be willing to turn us in. So he went to my grandmother’s neighbours, Ukrainians named Pysko, and asked if they would take us in. They agreed. Znak provided food while they hid us. Many Jews were already hiding at their place. It was very dangerous there. Pysko was an alcoholic and at any moment he could have blurted out that he was keeping Jews. Fortunately, his wife was a veritable angel and somehow she was able to organise everything. There were several hiding places behind blind walls in their house.

“The first was in the closet from the side of the room and it stuck out between the hall and the room. Then a hole several metres deep was dug in the bathroom, adjacent to the pigsties, which were full of rats. We had a low bunk there. The entrance from the bathroom was concealed with a large uneven paving slab, it was then covered with an oilcloth and finally a ladder was placed on top of that. My aunt decided to escape a few weeks later during the liquidation of the Drohobycz camp and managed to get to us. Pysko agreed that she could stay. There were Germans quartered in ‘our’ home, just as in other homes with decent living conditions. It is said that it’s darkest under the lantern [in plain sight] and therefore the safest. And it was indeed. And yet...one of the daughters of the hosts went into the bathroom once without closing the door behind her, pulled the ladder back, removed the oilcloth and the paving slab, and leaned over the storage compartment to take the bucket of impurities from us and give us something to eat. At that moment a German who was living there entered. He was shocked by what he saw and immediately turned back and closed the door. I can’t explain this, there was some kind of Providence at work. The girl Stefcia got very frightened and told her parents about the whole incident. At night they moved us to the barn under the hay. We were wrapped in a blanket. When we lived in Kraków many years after the War ended, we still couldn’t get all the bits of straw out of this blanket.

“The hosts quickly bought different kinds of spirits and homemade booze and arranged a bar in our hiding place. Our host, who was a great drunkard, demonstratively suggested with great bonhomie that he and the German living there should drink together, and in great secrecy he showed him the hidden bar. He invited him to the bathroom, took away the ladder and the oilcloth and pulled out the paving slab (The German saw the same manoeuvres that Stefcia had previously performed) and showed him his ‘treasures’. And in this way this very dangerous situation blew over. I don’t know how long we stayed in the barn. I think until a different German moved in. Providence was watching over us again. A pipe burst in the bathroom while the new German was taking a bath. Water began to flood our hideout which was a metre high. My mother was sitting down since it was too low for her to stand, so she kept me on her shoulder. There were drowned rats floating all around us.

“I’m terrified of rats and mice to this day. It happened that the German was a plumber by profession, he wanted to prove to the hosts that he was an expert and repair it himself. They barely managed to persuade him not to. And so we survived once again. (...) There was a candle but we had to conserve it: we lit it during meals and washing. We would wash with some lye combined with sand that we had. (...) They would lower us buckets full of water and we would wash either in the bucket or in a bowl. I don’t remember. There was a second toilet bucket, so one was taken and one was lowered once per day. My grandma’s friend Znak brought the food, though: a loaf of bread once a week, sometimes fruit from his orchard and some carrots (there was no cooked food but the water was very tasty). We could survive. However, I had damaged lungs after the War in addition to broken teeth and an eye tic, and I weighed only as much as a 4-year-old child.” Halina Bania

Janina was born into a mixed marriage in 1942 in the village of Piaseczno near Radom. Her father was Polish and her mother was Jewish. In February 1943 their neighbour reported them to the Germans. During the arrest her mother was shot and her father managed to escape.

“The Germans ordered our mother to be buried in the place where she was killed. Our father’s relatives buried her in a nearby garden. (...) Fearing the Germans, Aunt Wiktoria hid me and my sister in another neighbour’s place. She knew that the Germans would look for us since they were furious that my father had managed to escape them. They would also kill us if they found us. We were hidden separately. I was six months old then, and my crying could betray me. They transferred me from place to place, but no one wanted to keep a baby that the Germans were looking for. So my aunt dug me a foxhole on the causeway near her home. The whole time she had to make sure that the water in the river wasn’t rising, because then I could drown. I was carried out to the hiding place when a stranger was loitering around near the house or when the Germans once again searched the village. It was winter and I was lying in a hole dug in the ground, wrapped in rags. Sometimes for a few hours at a time, and sometimes I spent all day there. I usually spent the night in a warm home. Thanks to this I survived, but I got sick from the cold and terrible conditions. I was all covered with sores in addition to having a blood infection. Summoned by my aunt Wiktoria, the doctor said that I should be given a shot to end my suffering, since I would die anyway. But somehow I made it out alive. German raids were becoming increasingly rare, it calmed down a little, and I could stay in homes in nearby villages. Aunt Wiktoria saved my and my sister’s lives.” Janina Dudek

In July 1943, the father of 3-and-a-half-year-old Estusia [6] escorted her to the border of the Zawiercie Ghetto [7]. Her Polish nanny, Marysia, was waiting for her there. The woman who rented the nanny a corner to sleep in told her to get rid of the girl immediately.

“In the evening I was carried to the home of Mrs. S., who lived one street over, and I was to be hidden there ‘till the end of the War’. I would sit in the closet all day. It was my first ‘closet’ day. I remember it. I was afraid and it was dark and uncomfortable. I couldn’t wait for Marysia to come and get me out of there. But I was sitting there quietly! I had no idea that there were many more days like this in store for me. You can get used to anything, especially if the alternative is death. So I quickly got used to sitting in the closet. I stopped feeling uncomfortable, it became normal. (...) Mrs S. looked very stern and hard. I feared her from the moment I laid eyes on her. She instructed me as to what I was and wasn’t allowed to do. I wasn’t really allowed to do anything. I wasn’t allowed to speak loudly, only whisper. God forbid I go near the window! That was reasonable. Don’t cough, don’t sneeze, and if you must then do it into a small pillow (called a ‘jasiek’ in our area). I had to have one of these jasieks with me the whole time, just in case. I was allowed to sit on the floor and walk, but I had to keep away from the window, and as soon as I heard voices or footsteps on the stairs, then ‘You’re gone!’ I was to hide in the closet or under the table immediately. The table stood by the kitchen wall, and three of its sides were obstructed by a thick curtain. A pillow and a blanket lay on the floor, and a chamber pot stood in the corner. A big, tall wardrobe stood in the room and had clothes hanging in it. A blanket was also lying in the bottom of it. Mrs. S’s hiding place seemed very safe because Mrs. S had German contacts. She traded with them, and they would often come over in the evenings to play cards and drink vodka. It’s known that ‘it’s darkest under the streetlight’. (...)

“And so day after day passed this way, a long eleven months. A little girl sat under the table, in the closet, in the cupboard, hugged her little pillow and daydreamed. She thought about sunshine, about the moon and the stars which would shine for her as soon as the War was over. She thought about the candy that Marysia would buy for her, also when the War ended. She thought constantly about her mum and dad, whose faces were increasingly blurred in her memory. She wondered where they were, whether they were alive, would they return? Would Marysia and I survive? Would the Germans find us and kill us? Oh my God! I can hear something! I’m already sitting under the table! And I entrusted all these thoughts to my little pillow. She was my confidante. She knew about everything. She was my closest and only friend: I played with her during the long, lonely days. Sometimes she was my mummy, sometimes I was her mummy and she was my daughter. Sometimes she was a puppy, sometimes a kitten. Imagine that I never had a doll! Neither a small or large one, or a rag doll, or a pretty or an ugly one. I think everyone forgot that dolls exist for little girls to play with. A little Darling would have been so much better off with one! But the times were terrible and the War was terrible. Everyone had important things on their mind: surviving, death. Everyone forgot about a little doll for this little Darling.” Danuta Hawel

GOOD AND BAD APPEARANCE

A so-called “good appearance” (blonde hair, light eyes and fair skin) was one of the conditions for surviving on the Aryan side. There was a black market for improving the appearance of Jews hiding out during the Nazi occupation of Warsaw: colouring and straightening of hair, rhinoplasty, as well as foreskin reconstruction in men. Men made up the minority of Jewish people who used false identities, because being circumcised betrayed them if they were stopped. Jews could have even been threatened because their Polish was “too good” and literary. Even knowing German could have posed a risk. A “good appearance” wasn’t enough: one could be betrayed by an uncertain gait, frightened eyes, or a hunched-over silhouette. Those endowed with a “bad appearance” didn’t leave their houses, they were hidden from their neighbours and outsiders. They hid among Poles (though they also had to hide from the Poles).

Six-year-Old Ludwik was brought out from the Warsaw Ghetto in June 1942. His mother joined him in August (his father was killed in Pawiak prison). He lived in the Praga district with Aryan papers.

“To avoid blackmail and to cover our tracks, we moved to Praga in January of 1943. We moved into Mrs. Natalia Stasiak’s home on Ząbkowska Street in Praga. My mother acted as our protector’s cousin while I wasn’t shown to people at all because of my (supposed) Semitic appearance and general fearfulness. I didn’t leave my hiding place behind the bookcase inside that flat except for exceptional situations. I read a lot: [Sienkiewicz’s] “Trilogy”, The Knights, as well as war and adventure books which I found on the shelves. I was a little feral, suspicious, and afraid, and constantly waiting for my father, who never returned from Pawiak.” Ludwik Oppenheim

In May 1942 a Pole named Marian Sikorski brought 11-year-old Ewa and her 3-year-old sister out from the Rabka Ghetto [8]. Their mother joined them two weeks later. They moved to the nearby village of Święcany after some time, because they didn’t want to expose the Sikorski family to danger. “We moved in with our hosts, who were named Szynal. My mother told them that she was an officer’s wife and it was therefore safer for her to live with her children in the countryside. We were commanded by our mother to purse our lips, because our full lips could betray our origins. Our jet black and curly hair betrayed us however, even though we brushed it constantly. Our mother’s beautiful golden hair and regular features made us seem less suspicious.” Ewa Janowska-Boisse nee Kleinberg

Lea lived with her parents in Ostrowiec until the liquidation of the Large Ghetto [9]. In 1942 a Catholic woman took care of the 4-year-old girl and placed her in a convent in Brwinów. “The first floor of the building, which was a school, was occupied by the German command and was full of German soldiers in elegant uniforms. (...) To get to my first grade classroom I had to pass the floor where the German headquarters were, and from there, fearful and my heart pounding, I bolted into my classroom. Back then I didn’t quite understand why we should be scared. The nuns explained to me that German soldiers didn’t like dark hair. They shaved my head and dressed me up in boys’ clothing so that I wouldn’t upset the Germans. I lost many school days to avoid making the Germans angry. Sometimes when the fair-haired children went to school they sent me to the basement, which I wasn’t allowed to leave without the permission of the nun who was responsible for the small children. I never asked why I should fear the Germans more than the other children did. The nuns taught us not to ask questions, and an ironclad rigour reigned in the convent.” Lea Balint

Ten-year-old Regina escaped from the Próżan Ghetto with her mother and sister [10]. They survived the occupation in Narew with Aryan papers.We didn’t go to school. We played with local children pretty much the whole time. Despite having dark brown hair, my sister has a short nose and she never looked Jewish. Thanks to this, it was easy for her to move around. It was different with me: I have a long nose and chestnut-coloured hair. Throughout the occupation my mother hid me and bleached my hair with perchlorate. These treatments fried my hair so much that I always had to wear a white crocheted beret. My mother told everyone that I had a sinus infection, and so she had to protect me from the sun... I think people could guess what the truth was. But they were tolerant.” Regina Szymańska

WORKING TO SURVIVE

Jewish children were hidden by different people: some treated them like their own children and shared their last slices of bread with them. For others they were a source of income and labour. In the event of any mishaps the same punishment threatened all of them.

By December 1942 Celina stayed with her family in the Warsaw Ghetto. Her aunt Gienia led her out from the Ghetto and handed her over to a Polish family. The carers were expecting a child soon, so they entrusted the 6-year old girl to the care of their distant relative, Julia Florczyk.

“Her husband was imprisoned in Auschwitz and she rented her spare room to a Silesian man named Enerych, who as a Volksdeutsch was the perfect cover to hide not only me (I passed for her cousin) but also people who were a lot older than me: a Russian Jewish woman my mother’s age who was also named Celina. (...) I had to do an adult’s work at Julia’s place, because she kept me for money: I would carry bucketfuls of briquettes (which were used for home heating) from the basement to the third floor; I went shopping and cleaned. I was often hungry. Sometimes at three in the afternoon Julia would ask me if I had eaten. and I hadn’t had a bite since morning. I once ate a plum I had found, and I wrapped the pit carefully in paper and carried it all the way out to the trash, so that no trace of my naughtiness was left behind.” Celina Matusiak

In August 1942 ten-year-old Basia was brought out of the ghetto by her father’s friend Kazimierz Krauze. A bribed policeman looked the other way when they walked past the guards. Her parents and older sister soon left the ghetto and hid in various locations.

“I think between 1942 and early 1943 my father found permanent residence in Grochów in a former police officer’s house, and later in the ‘Opus’ laundromat with a Treuhander [trustee], whom he had met when he was in the ghetto. This man had been fired for drunkenness and was unemployed. His wife supported the family by smuggling. Besides, my guardian was a man who wanted to get along with everyone in power. He had collaborated with the Germans and this burdened his conscience, so presumably he expected he could use saving me as a defense if a disaster occurred.

“I would pass for his wife’s niece. I worked in their house, cleaning, washing dishes, going shopping, mending, and patching socks. At night I would go to the outskirts of Lublin, either alone or with my guardian, smuggling food or shoe soles and underwear stolen from factories which produced goods for the German army.

“In 1943 we stayed in the village of Wojciechów near Lublin for several months. I sold tobacco to the local peasants and would help my guardian’s son make homemade hooch at night. They even rented me out to a woman whose 11-month-old child I would babysit when she was away. I was definitely exploited, since I carried water from the well and lifted heavy objects. Sometimes I only slept four hours a night. My guardians were quite simple people and I wasn’t used to the way they treated me. They treated their children the same way, though. Today I understand that they risked their lives for me just as much as the people who treated me very well and didn’t take my father’s money. Although I had a ‘good appearance’ and a real birth certificate (obtained from the underground legalisation cell in city hall), it later emerged that the shopkeeper from Omulewska Street where we stayed had guessed who I was.” Barbara Góra

Ela had a Polish mother and a Jewish father. Her mother died and their pre-war maid (who had been hiding both of them) didn’t want to take care of her. Her father lived in the Ludwisin Ghetto near Jabłonna and she made it there on her own. Just before the Ghetto’s liquidation the 12-year-old girl escaped through an underground passage under the wire fence to the forest on the other side.

“There’s a man waiting for me in the woods, he gives me his hand, and then goes into the night with me, into another world. (...) I stay with this man for a few days, who had picked me up, terrified, weeping, and afraid of everything. And then, because my father gave him the address, he takes me to Warsaw, to Krysia’s, to my mother’s friend’s daughter’s place. And he leaves me there. I’m at Krysia’s place. They have a coal crate in the kitchen (because they used coal for fuel back then) which was covered by a board, and I’m inside this crate under this board. I think there were some vents in it. I would just lie there in a fetal position, in the coal chest.

“I had to be kept hidden since Krysia taught ‘underground classes’ and someone would always come to class. Her husband wasn’t too thrilled about keeping a strange child in his home. On top of that, he also thought that they were too poor and that I was a parasite, and he confronted me about it many times. I had duties there, I had to wash the dishes and clean up. I was completely unfit for work, because I was terribly small, terribly thin, and had very little strength. But I had to do it anyway.” Ela Waśniewska

A NEW RELIGION

Hiding among Poles required knowledge of the Roman Catholic ritual. Jewish children were taught catechism, prayer, and how to behave in church. Some were baptised and took Holy Communion. Zosia (born in 1935) and her mother remained on the Aryan side in Kraków. Her father went to the Ghetto and perished there.

“We spent the entire war in Borek. I was even baptised there. We had friends there who became my godparents. They told the priest that I was born out of wedlock and that my father’s name was unknown. He took it at face value, it didn’t matter whether he believed it or not. I had godparents so he baptised me. I remember that they asked me if we realised how much they were risking.

“I think my mum was fully aware of it. I said that I was, although children don’t completely understand how things are. (...) Of course, I lived with the other Polish children as a Catholic. I knew everything I needed to know because I had learned, they taught me quickly. I read prayer books because I had learned how to read, I don’t remember when or how. I could already read before I ever went to school. I was the best student in religion class. Later I found out that all the other Jewish girls were as well.” Zofia Radzikowska

Ten-year-old Chana (Haneczka) [11] posed as a Polish orphan in the countryside after leaving the Białystok Ghetto. She had been taught prayers and church behaviour, although the hosts discovered that she was Jewish. In the end my auntie couldn’t stand it and she went to a priest. She came back very happy. The priest had told her, she proclaimed, that the child had to become a true Catholic. He said they should christen her and send her to her First Communion with the other children. No one would guess anything then, and Aunt Zosia would be in God’s service for converting an unfaithful soul. I accepted their decision with joy. ‘Anything but returning to the Ghetto,’ I thought. I went with my aunt to the priest, who quickly realised that I was a good reader, and he gave me a catechism. He told me to learn it alone and that I didn’t have to come to the church every day for classes.

“The distance from the edge of the village to the church was about four kilometres. Before the Communion itself, I was questioned about the entire catechism. There weren’t any problems. I knew that I had to know everything and it wasn’t all that difficult. I was baptised and went to Communion with the other children. They got used to me in Suraż, and they treated me like a daughter in the Leszczynskis’ home, even though I had told them that I had a father who would definitely come for me [12].” Hanka Grynberżanka

Ela (born in 1930) escaped through an underground passage under the wire fence of the Ludwisin Ghetto in 1942. She was hidden in many places, including a convent. “I can’t say that I had it bad there. I began to learn a little and started being extremely devout. I remember that there was a chapel there and that we had put on berets, a veil at first and then a beret. We were taught Gregorian Mass hymns which we had to sing. We sang and we were very pious. The Blessed Sacrament was exhibited very often. I remember being really keen on kneeling on the prie-dieu, which was in the chapel in front of this Blessed Sacrament. I really wanted to to be there for a long time because I thought it would make me a better person. I thought I’d be better off and the light would shine upon me.” Ela Waśniewska

Adaś stayed with his parents in the Warsaw Ghetto until January 1943. From 1944 he was hidden with the Felician Sisters in Otwock, in Czersk, and then in the Boduen orphanage in Warsaw, and from there he was taken to Turkowice with a group of fifteen children. He was then 10 years old.

“Common prayers and devotional hymns were an important part of our lives, both in the chapel (...) as well as in the room where we stayed. We prayed before every meal and had long prayers. We sang in the mornings and evenings, the songs were adapted to the liturgical calendar. I didn’t know the texts. Everyone knew them but me, even the scant few Jewish boys who had been in the institution longer. I mumbled something under my breath, so that it looked like I was repeating these prayers and songs like everyone else, but I was pretending. I have a flawed memory: it’s pretty operative in different areas, though I have trouble with texts: I couldn’t recite my texts without stuttering. And they couldn’t help but notice that I was pretending, it had come to their attention, and they didn’t have any doubts. Who doesn’t know devotional hymns? Obviously a Jew. My friends already guessed who I was. I’d also like to point out that my pretending was only limited to the texts during prayers, it didn’t include the spiritual domain. My experiences were authentic. If I had ever been a religious person, it was there at that moment. I felt like entering Turkowice was tantamount to entering the world of the Christian faith and imagination. Before that it was a world unknown to me, and after escaping from the Ghetto I learned a few prayers: Our Father, Hail Mary, and the Apostles’ Creed, so I could recite them to prove that I was a true Catholic if a mishap were ever to occur.

“I knew that I was only learning these boring texts for this purpose. Of course, I participated in prayers with the Felician Sisters and in Czersk, but this didn’t have much of an impact on me. My world changed in Turkowice. I suddenly fell into a religious zeal. I prayed fervently and sincerely, though I didn’t know the prayers and hymns. I really had faith. I liked to stay in the chapel whenever it was possible (it was most often closed during the day, only the nuns could enter during certain hours). I absorbed the religious teachings that were provided for us, but most of all I drank in what the priest said. A young Jesuit named Stanisław Bajko enjoyed great authority in Turkowice and had an almost cult-like status among the nuns.

“I had various motives back then for being a believer. First and foremost, it gave me a feeling of security, even if it was modest, in two ways. In a purely earthly dimension: I reflexively felt safe by being like the others, I even surpassed them in zeal. I knew that as long as I stayed on the ‘Aryan side’ I couldn’t stand out in any way, and that, on the contrary, it was my duty to conform.

“Religiosity was therefore a matter of mimicry. I also can’t rule out that I wanted to buy into the sisters’ grace through piety, though I didn’t realise it at the time and wasn’t even able to. I was never able to get along with the other children. They didn’t like me and I didn’t make any friends. I was very lonely and I saw the nuns as my caregivers, knowing that they would protect me from the others. But faith certainly made me feel secure in a different sense as well. I believed that God would protect me and wouldn’t abandon me. God: the great guardian. The religious domain was a new and unknown world for me. All the more so because it was connected with ritual, which must have made a big impression on me. In the modest Turkowice circumstances it wasn’t a particularly elaborate ritual. The church decor was clearly limited to a bare minimum, though it formed an unusual highlight against the backdrop of miserable everyday life, adding an element of vividness and poetry. My passion for music hadn’t revealed itself yet; in any case it couldn’t have revealed itself in those conditions. I did, however, enjoy it when one of the sisters played the harmonium in the chapel while the choir sang. The chapel, which was the only place in the complex that was always clean and tidy, was also a theatrical venue in a certain sense.

“The rituals of Holy Week and Easter made an especially great impression on me. We participated in the Lenten Lamentations during the Friday fast days. The contemplation of torment (rather than the joy of Resurrection) then matched my mood and experience. All of the Turkowice pupils were of course devout, it couldn’t have been otherwise and the entire educational system was focused in this direction. However, there were different degrees of religiosity, from the most passionate devotion to moderation. It was almost unheard of not to participate in Sunday Mass; it only happened once during my entire stay.

“During a heatwave one Sunday in June, two boys didn’t go to Mass but instead ran off into the woods on the other side of the Huczwa River. This incident shook up the entire complex. The sisters cajoled and threatened us, saying, among other things, that those who didn’t attend Sunday service would end up being communists. My classmates, however, didn’t know this word, and so this argument didn’t convince them: they only associated it with Holy Communion. I went to Mass almost every day, not only on Sundays. My devotion was both passionate and impeccable, except for one hitch: I hadn’t been baptised. I must have known about this fact though I never thought about it (nor did I want to). I had many reasons: an admission would mean that I was exposing myself as a Jew and consequently I’d be in extreme danger.

“I didn’t put any thought into it, but I acted as though the practices themselves would bring me into the religious community. The sisters were aware of this as well, though they allowed me to fully participate in religious life, something they could have considered sacrilegious. I wasn’t merely allowed to pray, I participated actively in everything: I would confess and go to Communion. So I had the rights of a real Catholic, although I lacked a basic qualification. There was only one thing I wasn’t allowed to do: I couldn’t be an altar boy. Serving the Mass constituted the highest award, this was every pious boy’s dream, and I dreamed about it as well. Altar boys had almost direct contact with God, and I suffered because I couldn’t have it. Having an altar boy’s surplice would have been the ultimate symbol of integrating with a world which had been unknown to me not so long before.

“I was baptised after my mother arrived in the spring of 1945. She expressed consent, believing that this was an elementary gesture of gratitude toward the sisters who had saved my life. The day after the baptism ceremony I went to Mass as usual. The ceremony had been held in secret so that none of my classmates would notice. Coincidentally the priest was celebrating Mass that morning in a new and different chasuble. A thought entered my mind and it lingered around tenaciously: since I had been baptised I saw the world through different eyes, especially things that were happening in the chapel. The chasuble was the same as it always had been, but now that I had been admitted to God’s community, I saw it in a new way, and only now had I seen its true form. I was convinced that this was some kind of miracle.” Adam Pruszkowski

RELIGIOUS ORPHANAGES

Many Jewish children owe their lives to the Sister Servants of Mary Immaculate who ran the Children’s Home in Turkowice near Lublin. The institution was subject to the Central Welfare Council during the occupation. In 1940 the RGO sent approximately 200 children to Turkowice. These were followed by others. There were Jewish children among the orphans. Their names, surnames, and birth certificates were changed to ensure their safety.

Ten-year-old Adaś went to Turkowice in 1944 from Father Boduen’s orphanage in Warsaw. “Most of all I was afraid of the other children. That they would denounce me. I knew I was different, that I was a Jew, so I was someone sentenced to death. I learned this very quickly. I knew that I wasn’t allowed to tell anything about myself, just as I knew that I mustn’t undress in front of other people and be seen naked. And this fear in Turkowice never went away, not even for a moment. I didn’t form any close friendships, since I was paralysed by fears and shyness. And I immediately revealed my strangeness. (...) How did I spend my time? I didn’t do much of anything apart from religious practices and quite random, unsystematic learning. I was so apathetic and intimidated that I wasn’t interested in anything; I sat on a hard bench in our room without a thought in my head. This was vegetation. The other boys ran around the area, especially during summer they would trek to the nearby forest to get something to eat, and they would bathe in the Huczwa River when it was warm. Meanwhile, I was afraid to venture away from the complex (this is what we usually called our orphanage; the other boys sometimes also called it a ‘monastery’).

“I was afraid that something would happen to me, that they would beat me, or even that someone would kill me, or that I’d get lost and die. As I mentioned, I didn’t make friends with anyone, and I was completely alone. I would have most liked to burrow into a mouse hole, which was obviously impossible for even a moment in such a large group. Certain boys are etched in my memory. I’ll only mention the three Zieliński brothers, who were little scumbags from Warsaw. They (especially the oldest one) scared me the most in Turkowice. They said that they knew that I was Jewish, so they would turn me over to the Germans.

“I didn’t know what to do with myself. I even thought about running away, but I was aware that this would inevitably result in my death. I complained to sister Róża and she calmed me down and told me not to worry about it, and I think she called on the Zielińskis and reprimanded them severely. In any case their threats had become irrelevant by that point, since this was in July 1944 and so the Germans wouldn’t be staying in this area for very much longer. A few days later you could already hear the first sounds of the front. I have a few more words about something difficult for me to describe: the poverty that we lived in.

“A famine prevailed in Turkowice. We were always hungry and there was nothing to eat. We simply forgot about the existence of meat, milk, and fruit (except for forest fruits which the boys collected on their own and there were a lot of hazelnuts in the autumn). Dinners would consist of a bowl of soup which was cooked in large boilers, I think they often lacked even minimal servings of fat. We had to take cockroaches out of the soups before they were carried to the rooms. The kitchen was crawling with cockroaches, there were hundreds of them swarming on the walls. Everyone got so accustomed to them that we stopped noticing them, they no longer aroused our disgust. We only got disgusted when we would find a mouse in our soup, but we eventually got used to this as well and were blasé about such unexpected additions.

“There weren’t any disinfectants that would allow us to get rid of these disgusting insects. Fleas would plague us in the dormitories. I remember that there were dozens of them on my legs one evening. Some of our strongest wants and desires were for (usually dry) bread; the boys called it ‘dyca’ (I don’t know where they got this word from). It was baked in Turkowice and strictly rationed, as there was never enough to go round. The boys often stole it from one another, and they sometimes traded their starvation portions. It was a barter since money wasn’t used in Turkowice. It would have been useless anyway because there weren’t any shops in the area or anyone we could buy anything from. Bread was traded for so-called jackstones, which were used for games. There was a prayer before each of the three daily meals. The sisters ate separately in the refectory, but they probably ate the same dishes we did or ones that were marginally better. The priest ate in his room, though, and meals were brought in to him on a tray. I don’t know how the nuns acquired what we were given. In any case acquiring even such meager supplies required extraordinary efforts and perhaps even heroism.

“I think that social organisations helped up to a certain point, but even this came to an end, especially since Turkowice had limited contact with the outside world, and I think it was completely nonexistent during some periods. There was no public transport, and armed Ukrainian groups operated in the area, so any moving around was exceedingly dangerous. A farm once existed by the complex, but it stopped functioning during the War. Its modest remnants were left behind, including a wretched horse or maybe a single cow. Beehives with large numbers of bees survived, and Sister Róża was in charge of bee-keeping. We weren’t given any honey though, as it was the main bartering good that they exchanged for flour and potatoes. By the time I got there (especially in the months before the Germans left) this exchange became increasingly difficult because there was almost no one left in the area. Villages had been burned, while those who escaped with their lives went somewhere less violent. Wictoria (probably a neighborhood peasant) took care of the residual crops. Mainly beans were cultivated, probably due to their nutritional properties. I don’t remember if we were used to work the land. Everything was most likely in such a state that there was nowhere to work.

“The hygienic conditions were terrible. I never once brushed my teeth during my entire stay in Turkowice. In general, we washed briefly and rarely, and they only organised a bath for us once. We entered the bath in pairs and one tubful had to last a dozen people. This definitely wasn’t because the nuns didn’t appreciate hygiene. We simply lacked the conditions to maintain it. Indeed, we lacked anything that would let us stay clean, most importantly soap. And our hunger and the filth meant that not a single one of us was actually healthy. There weren’t any doctors in Turkowice and there weren’t any doctors in the area. The closest doctor was in Hrubieszów, but even though it was about twenty kilometres away, it was impossible to go there, as there was no connection.

“I think Sister Leontyna was a qualified nurse, and she ran an isolation unit. It was a small cottage housing primarily those with infectious diseases. Regular check-ups were never carried out because there was no one around to perform them. We lacked even the most basic drugs, such as aspirin. Indispensable disinfectants were conserved to use only when they were most needed. Many diseases undoubtedly remained unrecognised. And I also had various ailments. I don’t just mean colds, because they were so widespread. First I had a problem with my foot. We walked around Turkowice barefoot as soon as it got warmer. We didn’t have shoes, and in many cases it was difficult to call what we wore shoes. We had no socks, so we used footwraps (which were old rags) or we would just put our shoes on our bare feet.I wasn’t used to walking around barefoot. I got such a thick callous on my right heel that it began to loosen from my foot. The gap between this calloused skin and my actual heel became infested with some insects. I walked around with this muck for a few days because I was afraid (or ashamed) to mention it. I was finally seized by terror and showed this nest of vermin to Sister Róża. The calloused skin was torn away and my heel was disinfected in the isolation ward and then I promptly forgot about it. Something else bothered me for a long time until I left: boils. They were very painful deep wounds scattered across various parts of my body with pus seeping from them. (...) I don’t remember how I was treated. (...) The Germans never came to Turkowice during my stay, although I knew from the nuns’ stories that they had appeared before. The complex lay in an out-of-the-way place and access was difficult, so the territory was dangerous then for invaders. In addition, the front was approaching. Ukrainians posed the greatest danger at the time, and they were involved in the most tragic event of Turkowice wartime history: the murder of Sister Longina and a group of teenage boys who were accompanying her [13]. (...) I have tried to write these recollections coldly, matter-of-factly, and dispassionately while avoiding big words. I therefore wasn’t clear enough about something that I particularly wanted to emphasise: my gratitude towards the Turkowice nuns (Starowiejskie Servants of the Blessed Virgin Mary), who had to work in such difficult and dangerous conditions. I cannot find the right words to describe their sacrifice, courage, devotion, and selflessness, along with their quiet heroism. Their only compensation for this work was an awareness of doing good and fulfilling their obligations, and this demands a deep understanding of faith.” Adam Pruszkowski

After leaving the Warsaw Ghetto, 10-year-old Kasia [14] was taken care of by her mother’s pupil, Jadwiga Deneka, who placed the girl with the nuns in Turkowice. “Jewish girls quietly rescued from the Holocaust lived behind the door of the Turkowice girls’ orphanage, which featured a poster claiming that ‘Jews have lice and typhus’. Such a poster (which was a sign of hatred) seemed unreal in the fairytale surroundings of the Zamość area. I wasn’t alarmed by it at all. (...) Until Sister Irena had to admonish me to make myself less conspicuous, I paced around the common room without fearing the Germans who would visit the complex. I just felt so safe and that I belonged there.

“Sister Irena usually cared for us discreetly. It’s no wonder that it might have seemed to us that we would share the same fate as the other girls from our group, ones who had nothing to hide. I was able to forget the person I was before I left the Warsaw Ghetto walls behind, or that I was in mortal danger and that my Polish carers in the complex were as well.”

“My Polish-Jewish peers and kin lived like hunted animals. I lived differently. I had a clean bed at night and I enjoyed the peaceful sleep of a child beside Sister Irena. She slept in the large bedroom with us, but separated from us by a screen. During the day I had my own place waiting for me at the table. I would walk around in the forest with my friends. I learned to pick mushrooms and nuts. I took part in the collection of medicinal herbs. During the summer I bathed in the river. I went to the village school and read books that I borrowed from the complex library. (...) I had a girly diary and I wrote schoolgirl entries in it: ‘Roses are red, / Violets are blue, / Let’s love one another / And always be true.” Katarzyna Meloch

In pre-war Poland nuns oversaw a wide range of childcare: they ran schools, kindergartens, and orphanages. The War brought legions of orphaned, homeless, and uncared-for children. The nuns found a place for them in their convents and organised new orphanages. Nor did they refuse to help Jewish children, and they hid them in their convents. In most congregations these decisions were made by the Mother Superiors of individual houses. In some cases such as in the Franciscan Family of Mary, the operation was organised by the general managment (Mother General Ludwika Lisówna and Provincial Mother Matilda Getter). The convent nuns who participated in rescuing Jewish children were aware of the consequences that loomed over them, although that didn’t keep them from performing these merciful acts.

After escaping from the Ludwisin Ghetto, 12-year-old Ela [15] was taken care of by the daughter of her mother’s friend. Out of concern for safety she frequently changed the girl’s location.

“My caregiver decided that she would hand me over to the nuns. She gave me to the Resurrection Convent, since she knew these sisters and had graduated from their teachers’ college with them. She told them everything about the child that she had who needed proper shelter. These nuns accepted me but they required a fee. My caregiver didn’t have any money.

“Her husband’s father paid for me. He was the director of a factory which made boots for the German army. He had a wife and two children of his own, but his wife was a good person and she gave the nuns money to pay for my stay. At first I lived on Szczekocińska Street in Warsaw’s Mokotów district. I think there were other Jewish children there as well.

“Germans would often come by and nuns would take the children off to other places. I was completely unaware of all this. I didn’t quite understand why all this was happening: after all, I was born in Poland and I spoke Polish. What’s all this about?? In general, I was unable to register that I had suddenly lost everything and that I had no father or mother. I didn’t have any of my things, and I was also constantly afraid.

“After some time the nuns told me that they had too many children, and they once again started looking for another place for me. In these situations I was in a home for three days and then three days in a different one, so I don’t remember names, or surnames, or the streets.

“To get to the next house I would stay at, I would run from gate to gate under the cover of night, since it was already curfew. No schooling. I only read some books and they weren’t always for children. The nuns then took me in again because they couldn’t find me any other shelter. It was a different convent, on Chłodna Street, so I was with the nuns again”. Ela Waśniewska

BLACKMAILERS

Jews hiding on the Aryan side were hunted by blackmailers [pol. szmalcownik] [16]. This phenomenon began after German troops entered and further intensified when subsequent anti-Jewish regulations emerged. From November 1941 (when they introduced the death penalty for persons residing outside the ghetto without a pass) the blackmailers raised their prices: victims gave away their entire fortunes in order to save their lives. Blackmailers most often captured Jews on the street or in trams. Sometimes they would observe them for a period of time and then approach them at home. They also used the “German guy” technique. One could just persuade a random German soldier to cooperate and then share the loot with him. Some of the extortionists were professional criminals, others came from all social groups: workers, merchants, officials, and high school pupils. In the spring of 1943 the Polish Underground State introduced the death penalty for blackmailers. At the end of the year several sentences were carried out, but this was usually related to people who were Gestapo informers.

In the autumn of 1942 thirteen-year-old Joasia left the Warsaw Ghetto by herself, and was hidden by her old nanny, Maria Ostrowska. In the winter of 1942-1943 she was joined by her mother, and along with Maria they moved in with Halina Antonowicz in the Żoliborz district [17].

“Yet a blackmailer paid us a visit at the end of 1943. He came in the evening after curfew and as a civilian (we later found out that he was the elder son of a shopkeeper from our building and an employee of a State Police constabulary who was cooperating with the Germans) and said that he knew about my mother’s false papers, but if she paid him (he mentioned some astronomical sum) he wouldn’t use this information. My mother was quite impulsive and courageous by nature. She listened to him and didn’t deny anything. She answered briefly and clearly: ‘I know that some people engage in such practices, but you’ve come to the wrong place. I won’t pay because I don’t have it. You’ll do what you like, you can even go to the Gestapo. Many people die during wars. But I’ll die today, and tomorrow you’ll be killed like a skunk. I am an officer’s wife and we’ll find people who’ll settle the score with you. Now please get out of here!’

“And so he did. I think partly because he was surprised, but at the door he still said something along the lines of ‘I would advise you to think about it, I’ll give you three days to decide!’ When Halina came home my mother told her about the incident and concluded that regardless of the circumstances she had no right to endanger Halina and her children, so we would have to move out immediately. However, it wasn’t so simple, because it required some time. We started to wonder who started the affair and who the blackmailer himself was. Since we couldn’t rule out one of the neighbours, (who was then employed in the municipal council, probably in the registration office) finding a flat in Warsaw using the same papers (and there would be no food ration coupons without them) would only confirm the fact and help facilitate the blackmail, which would no longer take place ‘in our own home’. We didn’t have money for new papers. Our only way out was to leave Warsaw, but that required preparation. Halina then said, ‘It’s tough, but whatever happens to you will also happen to me, so please stay until you find something suitable.’ And that’s what happened. We stayed there for a few more days, furtively carrying our things (fortunately not too many of them) with Halina’s help over to the flat in the Praga district belonging to a former janitor from my mother’s hospital at Nowogrodzka Street. Then we moved to her place for a few days, of course without registering.” Joanna Kaltman

In September 1942 fifteen-year-old Hania and her mother escaped from the Warsaw Ghetto. They moved into the Grochów district on the east bank of the Vistula. In March 1943 her father joined them. “In mid-April 1943 a young boy accosted me on the tram (he had boarded at the same stop) and told me that I was Jewish. I jumped out of the tram running and I managed to get away from him. Two days later I went out to get bread and I came across him again. He was on the lookout nearby with a group of several men. They broke into our room, beat up my father and demanded protection money.

“My mum gave them half of the sum they demanded – if I remember correctly it was 10,000 złotys. This was the last of our money. They had taken our watches and we didn’t have any other valuables. My parents promised to provide them with the rest of the demanded sum within a few days. On 18 April 1943 my father returned to the Ghetto and we never saw each other again. I don’t know how he died. Every morning one of the blackmailers came to the flat to keep an eye on us. I entertained him with conversation while my mum used various pretexts to go out and look for new homes for us. On 3 May we managed to escape. We moved to Podchorążych Street in Czerniaków without any documents.

“Jerzy Kaputek [18] supported us while we engaged in various activities: among other things, my mother would make cigarettes and I would mend ladders in stockings; we both also worked on our neighbour’s loom. We didn’t have a watch, so my mother would find out the time from the neighbours and I would start to count, believing that one minute had passed when I counted to sixty. My mother would sit locked in the closet before noon because the official version was that she was at work. A rumour soon spread that my mother was safe-keeping a Jewish child, and consequently I had to flee. I was hiding with Jerzy Kaputek who took me in from the end of December 1943 to June 1944, and after that I returned to my mother. We were in Warsaw when the Uprising broke out. We managed to escape from Warsaw at the beginning of September. A refugee from Russia (that is, a refugee from the revolution there) welcomed us to her house in Korzeniówce near Grójec. We supported ourselves by working and ate with the local peasants. News spread that we were Jewish women, but we were too poor to make it worthwhile to blackmail us.” Hanna Mesz

Ten-year-old Leszek hid with his mother on the Aryan side after leaving the Lwów Ghetto. “One afternoon two Ukrainian militiamen with rifles came into our landlady’s flat. Without hesitating they pulled us out of our hiding place under the bed and, ignoring our birth certificates and tears, they told us to get ready to leave. We began to plead and negotiate, and as a result they consented to a protection payment. Since we didn’t have any money with us, they agreed to let my mother go and I stayed as collateral.

“My mother soon returned and she brought what was needed. The policemen ordered us to leave the house and run away, and then they disappeared. We pleaded with our landlady to allow us to stay for the night. We were aware of the danger that this posed, but the street was even more dangerous. We stayed. During the night while poking around the kitchen my mother found part of our protection money in our landlady’s cupboard. The same five hundred-złoty banknotes in a neat pile. It became clear to us that everything we had experienced was planned and prearranged, it was ordinary blackmail. We left our flat early the next morning.” Leszek Leon Allerhand

After the death of her husband and several Aktions that she managed to survive by hiding under the floor, the mother of 7-year-old Helena decided that the two of them would escape from the Lwów Ghetto. “She acquired false papers, low quality ones, she didn’t have enough money for good ones. She told me later that when it was looked at against the light, you could clearly see the ‘modifications’. I was a courier to the ‘Aryan side’ since I had a ‘good look’.

“My parents’ cousin appeared with a little girl and asked my mother to try to save her as well. He gave us whatever cash he could and we had it with us when he got the three of us out of the Ghetto. My mother decided to leave Lwów immediately, where she had lived all her life and could easily be recognised. Unfortunately, we only reached the station. There was a man there who blocked our way and took us to the railway office. He was in plainclothes though he spoke to us in German. He was there alone. He was very interested in the contents of our suitcases, and he asked me and my little cousin where my mother told us to hide the rings (which we unfortunately didn’t have). Most of all he was interested in the picture of my father that he found in my mother’s purse. He recognised him, just as my mother recognised the man she was speaking with, but she didn’t disclose this knowledge. This happened to be a man who had frequented our house before I was born. His brother had rented a room in my parents’ home when he was a student. His name was Kołcz. (...)

“It was already dark when we left the station, and he said that he would now take us to the Gestapo. The entire way I really pleaded with him to let us go until he stopped and said, ‘Get back to the Ghetto’. He took the suitcase and money, but before he went away he left my mother her papers in the bag and some coins for the night tram. So we found ourselves back in the Ghetto.” Helena Choynowska (Alter)

On 8 September 1942 twelve-year-old Henryk escaped from the Lwów Ghetto with his parents in a truck belonging to a Pole they knew. They went to Warsaw and hid on the Aryan side. His mother was arrested and shot. Henryk and his father frequently changed their location.

“Later, my father and I moved in with Mr. Feliks in the Wola district (I don’t remember his surname). The place was miserable and run-down with no light or running water. It was an unlucky place. After a few weeks some blackmailers found us who demanded protection money. My father gave them 1300 złotys, but they searched us and felt around and found some dollars that were sewn into my jacket. During the struggle my father grabbed a knife and shouted, ‘Mr. Feliks, help us!’ and then lunged at them.

“I managed to put out the oil lamp. The blackmailers fled. Because of the curfew we had to wait out the night in the now compromised flat. In the morning my father ripped the dollars out of my jacket. We went out on the street at six in the morning but they were already waiting for us. I hurried to escape while my father stalled them with conversation. They caught me and called a navy-blue policeman after checking that I didn’t have any money. He stated that the case needed to be passed to the Gestapo and then he left. My pursuers had given up and also left. Dodging and checking to see if anyone was following me, I went to see Mrs. Olga Dudziec. My father found refuge with Mr. Karny.

“Mrs. Dudziec’s 10-year-old nephew also lived in her flat. His father was a Volksdeutsche and he attended a German school. The lurking danger was that he would talk about the boy who lived with them and didn’t go to school. In these circumstances we decided that I would move in with my father. We soon found out that that our fears had been justified. One day the Gestapo appeared in Mrs. Dudziec’s flat. Coincidentally, my father happened to be there, though he managed to hide in a cubby-hole. Mr. Karny rented a room for us with a painter that he knew. When the host was out we would sit there locked in. We constantly had to change the places where we were staying.

“We moved to Kolejowa Street, from which we had to flee in January 1943. Later we found shelter with Mr. Feliks’s sister (he had died of tuberculosis in the meantime). A man named Mietek lived in the same flat, and he set a blackmailer on us. My father had 600 złotys. The blackmailer showed mercy, he took only 400 złotys and left him the rest.” Henryk Arnold

Zosia (born in 1935) used false documents while living with her mother in Kraków during the occupation. “A navy-blue policeman started to blackmail us. After the war it turned out that he had been trailing another Jewish family that was hiding out in Swoszowice. We met the people that he was looking for. I don’t know how he found us. He would come and say that he knew that we were Jewish and that he had to take us to the Gestapo. He came in civilian clothes of course. My mother would give him what we had brought from home, she would give him everything...

“There are some details that have etched themselves deep into my memory. As a little girl I had a sunsuit and he took even that. And when he came a second time, he said that his wife was crying and didn’t want to keep this sunsuit, she was so sensitive... But he didn’t bring it back, no he didn’t. He came twice and told us both times that he had to take us to the Gestapo.

“I was saying an evening prayer, so I don’t know what my mother told him. Of course she didn’t admit to anything. After the second visit there was practically nothing to give him and my mother decided that we had to run away. She was able to arrange somewhere for us to move to in another village. To so-called Łęg, (today it’s part of Nowa Huta and everything is built-up, but back then it was an authentic, very basic, village on the Vistula River.

“I don’t know how she arranged this, but It seems that she bribed an official who was in charge of the registration of residents not to write us into any registration book. I don’t know how she was able to do this. Her goal was for the policeman to be unable to find us...So as she told me, she somehow managed to make arrangements that it wasn’t entered anywhere... I don’t know how she pulled it off.” Zofia Radzikowska

Shortly before the liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto Edek’s family escaped to the Aryan side. The boy was 3 years old at the time. “I don’t know how, but my father found us a hiding place in the Aryan part of Warsaw. It was a flat at 104 Grójecka Street. (...)

“He made a deal with the flat owners, Mr. and Mrs. S. (...) He promised to pay for the renovation of their flat just as long as they would let us live there. He said that we had a ‘good appearance’. They announced, however, that my father could not stay there, because he lacked that ‘good appearance’. (...) My father wanted to join the partisans anyway. After a few days the two men came and said that they would take him to the guerrillas. My father went with them, and that was the last time that we saw him. One of them also came two or three days later and told us that the forest was cold and that my father wanted us to give them a coat. On the same day shortly after he left, my mother began to grieve terribly. The flat’s owners said that they were blackmailers who had taken my father straight to the Gestapo on Szucha Avenue. (...)

“My mother once came back from town and was very distraught. Someone had begun to chase her on the street. He was a man named Błażejewski who had known her before the War and knew that she was Jewish. He finally caught her in some gate and said, ‘I know that you’re Jewish’ and took her coat. In particular he wanted to know where my aunt was - he knew that she had been rich before the war.” Edward Mersyk

Irenka (born in 1937) hid in Warsaw with her mother. The girl was placed with the Polish Czarnecki family for a fee. She nearly starved there and was often ill. “At the end of 1942 or the beginning of 1943 my mother bought me a false birth certificate in the name of Krystyna Nowak. She then took me to Wesoła near Warsaw. Soon after arriving in Wesoła a blackmailer caught us, and since we had nothing to offer, he took us to the German gendarmerie. My mother told me to kneel and pray, and she showed them our papers which proved to be good enough for the policeman to believe my mother and let us go, but the blackmailer threatened to meet with us again. Then my mother took me back to the Czarneckis’.” Irena

CHILDREN IN THE GESTAPO PRISONS

Between 1939 and 1944 the Security Police Office and the District of Warsaw Security Service were housed in the [pre-war] Ministry of Religious Affairs and Public Education at 25 Szucha Avenue. A Gestapo detention centre operated there in which Pawiak prisoners were interrogated as well as those captured during street round-ups. There were four cells with no windows in the building’s basement, with two rows of chairs set up along the walls which were known as “trams”. Those arrested would wait for hours there to be questioned. The investigations, which involved torture, were held on the upper floors of the building or in the basements, where the Gestapo man on duty was posted.

Eleven-year-old Wandzia [19] was brought to Szucha Avenue by a navy-blue policeman whom she had asked for assistance at the station. “I memorised a new life history: I had fled with my mother from Nowogródek and we stopped in the village of Brzózki. My mum got sick and died there, and the woman that we lived with brought me to Warsaw and sat me down at the main station on the bench in the waiting room. She said she was going to get a bread roll and still hasn’t returned. I wasn’t allowed to remember anything else...“It must have been in November 1943, it was evening, and it was snowing and raining. I walked over to the policeman standing on the square in front of the station and told him everything. The train station had become my home these last couple of days; I slept on a stretcher on the floor by the police station, I ate from a mess tin, and during the day I sat on a bench that was against the wall. The police passed me along to to the RGO (Central Welfare Council): an empty white room, lit both day and night, with two orderlies in white coats. I went back and forth between the police station and the RGO a few times. Finally a police officer, who was the same one I had approached in front of the station, took me to the main Gestapo command on Szucha Avenue.The corridors were long and the right wall was made up of a grating. There are jail cells behind it with two rows of benches similar to kneelers and people sit with their backs to the entrance. There are no windows, and light bulbs are on around the clock. This is the ‘tram’. The head of the man in front of me is covered in blood. He whispers: ‘Ask for a cup of coffee’. I’m allowed to walk around the cell and approach the grating, while no one else is even allowed to turn their heads. Weapon-wielding Germans stroll along the corridor. At my request a stout woman with an aluminium boiler gives me a cup of coffee and I carry it around between the rows in my cell. The woman smiles and repeatedly fills up my cup without saying a word. For several days I’m interrogated upstairs in room 305.

“The translator is a rotund man in glasses and a golden light suit while the others are Germans in uniform. They ask questions very quickly, often the same ones over and over again. There is a large map taking up an entire wall and the officer is looking for Brzózki, he counts seventeen villages with that name or something similar, but which one is ‘my’ Brzózki: I tried very hard, but I didn’t know. I remember this from the interrogation:

Translator: ‘Why did you run away from Nowogródek?’

Me: ‘From the army.’

“The translator repeats the question from the officer in a gray uniform: ‘Was this army wearing uniforms like mine?’ I’m not prepared for this question. I don’t know what uniforms the army in Nowogródek had in November 1943. I had to think: if they had been the same then he wouldn’t ask, no, they were in different ones. ‘Did they talk like me?’ ‘No, differently.’ I was bombarded with questions but these were the ones I remembered.They took people from the ‘tram’ to the transports. People that were called out from their cells lined up facing the wall, and the Germans were screaming terribly. I knew that they were going to Palmiry, but I didn’t know what that meant. On the top floor they told me to kneel at the desk and recite my prayers out loud. I said Our Father, Hail Mary, the Apostles’ Creed, Under Your Protection, and then they interrupted. I was lucky that they didn’t tell me to sing Christmas carols! A man in a blue uniform (not sure if he was a railway worker or an office worker) swore an oath that that he was my parents’ neighbour in Nowogródek and that he knew them and knew that they had a daughter... I went back to the ‘tram’ but then they led me to the office or to a large guardhouse. There was a talkative girl with make-up on sitting on one side while a woman was standing at the door on the other side with a baby in her arms.

“The German behind the desk asked me which of them I wanted to go with. He gestured with his hands so that I understood what he was asking me. Everyone but the woman with a baby was laughing out loud. I carefully took a step towards the one who wasn’t laughing. We left. The woman kept shaking and burst into tears; she couldn’t calm down. After she told her neighbours and friends this story many times I understood what had happened. ‘My’ policeman learned that the Gestapo would release me on the condition that someone would register me. He went to his friends at Shiele (the Haberbush and Schiele Company) where they worked and asked if anyone would register a girl for a few days. One of the men said that he could register me, but before he could go home to tell his wife, the Gestapo was at his house. They took his wife and she only took her younger daughter with her, thinking that this would be safer. When she realised that nothing terrible had happened, that it was just about taking the girl, she cried with joy. I slept in the kitchen on a beach lounger. It was Christmas, there was a Christmas tree, I got a pink sweater.” Wanda Ziemska

Twelve-year-old Halinka [20] wound up on Szucha Avenue, because someone from the house that she lived in with her mother reported to the Germans that they saw a Jewish girl there. “One day we were awakened by a pounding on the door very early in the morning. The German police pounded on the door in the company of a ‘navy-blue’ policeman, who immediately pointed at me. They told to me dress, then they put me in a police van and drove me to Willowa Street, where there was a military police command. My mother and I waited there without feeling anything, neither hunger nor thirst, not even fear, both completely numb. After a while we were taken to the Gestapo and taken to a room without chairs, and there was a stocky, short, somewhat old, man in civilian clothes behind the desk. My mother answered some of his questions and then attacked him; what was the meaning of this, so many hours without eating or drinking for no reason at all! I just remember that the man told me to say my prayers, which I knew perfectly well. Finally he ordered the guards to let us out and he (really!) gave my mother a business card so that she could call on him if trouble arose.

“We returned to the house, I think it was by horse-drawn carriage. There was full mobilisation there. The home owners (a German family of Polish patriots) had already made contact with the Gestapo and were gathering their valuables. The courtyard community prayed by the figure of a saint, because ‘our Halina can’t be Jewish, since she sings church hymns so well’. But something was up. A girl younger than me stayed at the neighbours’ place, but she never came out, and we would see her sometimes through an open door or window. Someone from the building probably reported her to the police.” Halina Szostkiewicz

Nine-year-old Jadzia [21] was taken care of on the Aryan side by her pre-war maid. The girl engaged in trade to support her guardian, who had just given birth. Then someone denounced Jadzia. “I was caught by the Gestapo, somebody had denounced me. I was taken to Szucha Avenue and beaten very hard, I still have marks on my back. I knew that I was Jewish. I don’t know how I was able as a child, how it came to me, that I... didn’t say that I was Jewish! They certainly checked. At Mrs. Zalewska’s and my mother’s, they were at the flat and they checked. Yes, she said, I was her illegitimate daughter and she had nothing to do with Jews. I was released after three days, beaten and bruised. It must have cost a considerable sum.

“I lay sick for six weeks and I couldn’t move either my hands or my feet. I don’t know how I got back to Stalowa Street from Szucha Avenue. (...) I don’t know how it happened at all. I only remember the ‘tram’ they kept me in. There were seating benches and inmates with their backs toward each other, but when it comes to faces it’s all a complete blur to me. After all, more than one guy interrogated me… More than one beat me! I still have marks on my back.” Jadwiga Kotowska

IN A HOSTILE WORLD

The anti-Semitic agitation used by the Nazis impacted Polish attitudes toward Jews, although anti-Jewish sentiments had already prevailed in pre-war Poland. Political parties made use of them in their political struggles. The first anti-Jewish speech took place on 11 November 1918 when Poland regained its independence. Four people were killed in Kielce and many were injured. After the Polish army invaded Lwów, its Jewish residents were accused of helping the Ukrainians: seventy-two Jews were killed and 433 were wounded in the pogrom of 22-23 November. The synagogue was burned and hundreds of homes were destroyed.

In the summer of 1920 during the Polish-Soviet War the military authorities interned 17,000 Jewish soldiers and officers in Jabłonna. They decided that the Jews wouldn’t be loyal to their commanders. The global economic crisis that had prevailed since 1929 intensified social tensions: the National Democratic Party stepped up its anti-Jewish propaganda and announced a boycott of Jewish merchants and craftsmen. Consequently, there was a series of incidents in which even women and children were killed, for example, the Przytyk and Grodno pogroms (1935) as well as those in Mińsk Mazowiecki (1936) and Brześć, Częstochowa, and Bielsko (1937). There were 348 acts against Jews in 1936 in Białystok Province alone. Universities weren’t spared anti-Jewish acts: the ‘bench ghetto’ [segregated seating in lectures], strict quotas [22] and Endek [National Democracy] militia attacks on Jewish students. In 1937 the Polish Bar Association and the Polish Medical Association adopted a resolution that Jews couldn’t be union members.

It’s not surprising then that in some circles, helping Jews during the occupation was regarded as going against the interests of the Polish nation.

Ten-year-old Pola escaped from the Nowe Brzesko [23] Ghetto with her parents and siblings one week prior to the Aktion in which local Jews were killed. “The day before the expulsions my mother and I hid with a priest. My sister was hidden in the countryside with a widow we knew who was a decent woman. The neighbours threatened to denounce her to the Gestapo if she wouldn’t take the Jewish child to the deportation square. This frightened her and she took the child to Brzesko and left her there alone.

“My father and brother were in the countryside at the time. My sister (she was 6 years old then) went to Polish acquaintances who had a lot of our stuff, asking to accept her for at least a day and that she could manage nights by herself. Her clothing was torn because that woman had taken all of her better things and left her with only rags. These people gave her some milk but didn’t want to accept her. She went to other friends but they refused her. She was taken to the deportation square and she went with the transport.

“After the expulsions the priest no longer wanted to keep us, and I went with Mum to go meet my father in the countryside. We were hidden in the attic during the day while we slept in the flat at night. We had it good at the beginning, but later our hosts became increasingly demanding. Conditions deteriorated: they kept giving us less food while demanding more and more from us. We had many valuable possessions that we kept with others, my mother often went to Nowe Brzesko with my brother (who was dressed as a girl) to get our money. We couldn’t keep up with the demands of our ‘guardians’ and there were days that we didn’t eat anything, and the host once lunged at my father and beat him. The host’s nephew was in the Polish underground army and there was a weapons cache in the attic that we hid in. We once overheard a conversation: ‘Let this be over for once, we have to sharpen our axes’. We found a hiding place at another peasant’s place who only agreed to hide me and my mother. But we had no possible way of escaping from our hosts because they guarded us well. My mother decided to trick them. She suggested to the host’s nephew that he escort me to a priest who allegedly had agreed to accept me. The boy was outraged: ‘Like I’m gonna escort some Jewish brat!’ My mum rejoiced and told me that she would accompany me herself.” Pola Elbinger)

The Germans tried to encourage Polish people to track down and denounce Jews who were hiding on the Aryan side, offering remuneration in cash or in kind. A denunciator in Warsaw would get 500 złotys, while a policeman would get one-third of the money they found on the victim. In Warsaw district villages the Germans would offer a metre of grain, a litre of spirits, an allotment of wood, food, or even the victim’s clothes for capturing a Jew.

Izrael (born in 1934) escaped from the Warsaw Ghetto in a rubbish cart. “One time I was begging at some man’s place and he fed me, but then he locked me in a cubby-hole. He personally went to the Gestapo to turn me in (let’s not forget that Germany paid for each Jewish child who was turned in). Luckily for me I was able to escape. Then I hid in the forests and the various villages again. One day I was crawling across a potato field and I ran into my father who was also hiding in the nearby villages. My father told me that if I wanted to survive I couldn’t ever admit to being Jewish. He also gave me a Polish surname: Jerzy Staniak (and not Izrael as they called me at home). My father told me that I had to look for someone who could teach me to pray in Polish. A few days after this meeting the Germans caught my father and shot him. I remember him perfectly despite not having seen him for so many years. I was still hiding in different villages in the Kampinos Forest area. One time I decided to ride a ferry to the other side of the Vistula river. Walking along a dirt road, I came across a peasant who was going to the ferry and asked him to take me along.

“He seemed to agree, but instead of going towards the ferry he went in the direction of the forester’s lodge, where the Gestapo was located. He left me there and got a reward. Of course tragedy struck there yet again. The Gestapo man quizzed me on different topics and I lied as well as I could. Finally he told me to undress and he saw that I was circumcised. And so my Jewish origins were exposed. He locked me in the basement all night. In the morning he brought me out into the yard, and suddenly I saw him pulling out a gun. I realised that he wanted to shoot me. Then I climbed up like a cat on a fence and ran towards the woods. He began to chase me but I managed to escape. After a few weeks of working as a farmhand for a peasant, I had to go with him to the village elder and get food ration cards. I felt queasy when I came to the village elder with this peasant because the same thug who wanted to shoot me a couple of weeks earlier was there, but this time the Gestapo man ordered me to work at his place. It lasted about two weeks, after which he passed me on to work for a Volksdeutsche.” Jerzy Frydman

Eleven-year-old Bronka survived the Sosnowiec [24] Ghetto liquidation with her mother and 13-year-old brother in a cell that had been dug in a basement. The family escaped to the Aryan side, posing as Poles.

“We immediately went to a friend’s place in Sosnowiec. I don’t remember what street she lived on, although I know she was named Twardzik. She was startled and frightened when she saw us. After we assured her that no one had seen us come, she let us bathe and then fed us. I don’t know if we slept at her place or if we immediately went to Katowice.

“My mother was afraid to travel with two children, since there were frequent inspections between Katowice and Sosnowiec, particularly after the Ghetto was liquidated. So she asked us who wants to go first? Then I jumped up and began to shout, ‘Me, me, me!’ So we went to Mrs. Syndutka’s place in Katowice. I stayed there while my mother went straight back to fetch Pawełek.But he was no longer there! Mrs. Twardzik ordered my mother to flee immediately and told her that my brother had insisted on going out into the yard to play with the other children. Someone called the police.

“Apparently Pawełek almost escaped through a wooden fence which was adjacent to the square. He reportedly already had one foot on the other side of the fence when he was captured. He was allegedly kneeling in front of a policeman and pleading with him to let him go. I don’t know nor will I ever find out if this really happened. My mother survived the entire occupation hoping that Pawełek was living somewhere in a camp or was at a job site and would return one day. She waited for a long time after the War.We don’t know where, how, or when he died. Only one photograph of him survived. It pictures a plump 4-year-old (more or less) blond boy in shorts on a large stone by a riverbank. I no longer recognise him in this picture, but sometimes I wonder what would have happened if I had waited for my mother in Sosnowiec. I obviously wasn’t circumcised, I had a ‘good look’, and I wouldn’t go out and play in the yard. Maybe both of us would have lived.” Bronisława Szwajca

Irenka (born in 1932) was led out of the Ghetto by her mother. They both stayed with a family in Międzyrzec Podlaski for some time. Her mother acquired false documents and returned to Warsaw to pick up her husband and other daughter. She was captured there during a street round-up and sent to work in Germany.

“I stayed with peasants in the countryside. They were paid for ‘storing’ me, but when I got sick with hepatitis and scabies they drove me to Międzyrzec and threw me out of the wagon like a sack of potatoes, saying that I had to go back to where I came from. So I went back to my aunt and uncle and I stayed there for some time. But by that time transports to Treblinka were already being organised.” Irena Bołdok nee Likierman

In late October 1940 thirteen-year-old Dora left the Warsaw Ghetto with a friend, a Pole named Janina (Ninka) Przybysz. The guards paid no attention to them. She stayed in several houses: in the Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy convent at 44 Hetmańska Street, as well as in Ninka’s flat.

“Before 13 June 1943 while walking down Krakowskie Przedmieście with Ninka, I met Mrs. Pączkowska on the corner of Miodowa Street. She had lived at 79 Żelazna Street earlier and so she knew me well. She grabbed me by my coat collar and dragged me along, saying, ‘You ran away from the Ghetto and your father gave money or gold to Janina Przybysz and she is hiding you. I’m going to take you to the Ghetto now. I replied, ‘I ran away by myself and I’ll go back by myself.’ On Miodowa street I jerked away and broke free, escaping through the narrow streets of the Old Town. I stopped running because I was afraid that she would tell people to chase and catch me, or maybe she’d cry out. ‘Catch her!’ or something like that.” Maria Teresa Zielińska

Leszek (born in 1931) hid with his mother on the Aryan side in Lwów. “During her journeys my mother became friends with an elderly lady living beside the Carmelite Church [25]. We headed to her place and she received us. (...) The Easter holidays were approaching, so everyone would go to church. Our protector took me to Holy Mass. I was scared stiff standing in the church crowded with people, automatically kneeling, getting up, and mumbling prayers. It felt like everyone was looking at me. Suddenly a woman’’s loud voice called out: ‘There is a Jew in this church!’ Confusion ensued. I started to push my way towards the sacristy. I knew the church’s layout very well. I ran out through the back door and ran to our little room.”

Leszek was put under the care of a Ukrainian girl. “I was supposed to go to the countryside with our Ukrainian carer, Hania, to her parents’ place. My name was Bazyli Szczepański according to my birth certificate. I found myself in the middle of a Ukrainian village. Everyone was watching me and whispering something. I sat at the table and ate poppyseed cake with butter and cheese. Though it was hard to swallow, it tasted incredible. They woke me up at night. The room was full of peasants. Hania was crying and they told me to pull my pants down. They kept looking and looking, later I was told to say a prayer. I knew them so well that I could have recited them backward. But the villagers still weren’t convinced.

“Hania took me and we went out into the countryside. We wandered through the spring night and by morning we had reached another village. I was hidden in a hay barn. I lay there for three days. Hania would come in the evenings and bring me food. She would lie next to me, caress me, and kiss my feet. She kept whispering in Russian: ‘Tell me, tell me that you’re not a Jew.’ I solemnly assured her that I wasn’t. We had to go back to Lwów. We were to meet with my mother in an alley near the Central Station on a specific day and time. My loving carer Hania waited with me.

“It was early afternoon and there were people around. Suddenly I heard a shout: ‘Jew!’ A group of teenagers began to gather around me and they began throwing stones at us. They kept saying ‘Jew’ louder and more often. Suddenly my mother emerged from the crowd. We began to retreat from the square and a bunch of young men followed us. Adults also joined in. Someone brought in a Ukrainian militiaman, and a German soldier appeared, a guard from a nearby police station. We were led down the middle of Pieracki Street. The situation was clear: we were going towards Janowska Street, and we already knew what awaited us there. Camp.People looked at us without any compassion. I remember their gazes of approving curiosity. We were surrounded by a group of boys, but it gradually got smaller. The German guard returned to his post. Hania and my mother started pleading with the Ukrainian militiamen to let us go. She palmed them her wedding ring, another ring, and the rest of our money. Hania joined in with her Ukrainian life story. The militiamen were uncertain. We were alone by now, close to the camp on Janowska Street. I think Hania’s credibility outweighed the rest. The militiamen suddenly disappeared and we escaped by running between the cars on the nearby railway sidings.” Leszek Leon Allerhand

Swen (born in 1931) was deported to the Płock Ghetto with his parents from Jabłonowo near Grudziądz. From there he went to a transition camp in Drzewica from which Jews were sent to Treblinka. “Over time Germany transferred administrative functions over to the navy-blue police. As I mentioned, there weren’t any Germans stationed in Drzewica, even when it contained a ghetto between 1941 and 1942. The ghetto also wasn’t separated from the other parts of the city. It was clear which houses formed the border and what the penalty for going past it was.

“People in the Drzewica Ghetto died from starvation on a daily basis, but no people or food could cross the ‘magic border’. I witnessed the following scene: our flat was in a house on the border of the Ghetto. I saw a girl through the window who looked about 15, she was about to enter the Ghetto from the ‘Aryan side.’ She was hugging a large bowl (like one used for kneading dough) with both hands. She was in a hurry to cross the border as soon as possible and she almost succeeded. Suddenly she was surrounded by a group of teenagers. They snatched the container from her hands and turned it upside down. Potato peels spilled out; they would have been a great delicacy after they had been cooked. One of the attackers pushed her in the direction of the Ghetto while he grabbed her hair and kicked her. The others laughed and called her crude names shouting: ‘That should teach you that you’re not allowed to leave the Jewish Ghetto!’

“The Germans had designated a space for the Jews, and it was unfortunate that willing volunteers could always be found to watch and make sure that they never left. The residents who smuggled food into the Ghetto (which was punishable by death) risked being denounced by their own people.” Swen Sonnenberg

In July 1943 three-year-old Estusia was led out of the Zawiercie Ghetto. She was then placed in the care of her Polish nanny. For several months she stayed in the Koziegłowy village near Zawiercie with Mrs. Dąbrowska, posing as her relative. “Mizera the shoemaker lived very close to us, on the other side of that same Cegielniana Street. I remember him, I remember this house and the room that he often called me to. He would snoop around. He couldn’t stand my dark eyes and black curly hair. He didn’t believe Mrs. Dąbrowska’s story. (...) He teased me constantly and he would call me over to his house, he would give me candy which I didn’t have but really wanted, and he kept asking me what my real name was, what my mum’s and dad’s names were, where I came from, and so on. And I took the candy and kept replying that my name is Dzidzia Matysek, that my mummy’s name was Marysia, that my daddy’s name was Stasiu, and they were caught by the Germans and deported to a work camp but I didn’t know where it was...and then I would start crying. I had my role down to a T. I think I played it well because Mizera’s wife, or someone else who happened to be there, would very often say, ‘Leave the child alone’ and I’d get another piece of candy. He would also ask me to recite my prayers, and I knew all of them very well including Our Father and Hail Mary, the Apostles’ Creed, and ‘Under Your Patronage’. I liked to recite ‘Under Your Patronage’ the most. I could also memorise the Litany of Loreto, and ‘To all the Saints’.

“I don’t know whether children going to their communions today know as much as I did back then. And I prayed very fervently. I simply believed that these prayers would save me since that’s what my dear Marysia had told me. This saved me for a long time because people would say that a Jewish child couldn’t have prayed so nicely. But the shoemaker Mizera knew better. He knew this was a Jewish child! He gave Mrs. Dąbrowska an ultimatum: either she would get rid of me, or he would go to the Gestapo and denounce me. However, I think he felt sorry for the neighbour (or he feared the revenge of other neighbours), since he didn’t go right away.” Danuta Hawel

In 1941 the family of 11-year-old Danusia was forced to move to the Lwów Ghetto. Her father managed to obtain a birth certificate for her in the name of Danuta Zakrzewska and hid her on the Aryan side. But sometime later it turned out that the girl wasn’t safe there. I went back to my parents, who were supposed to be transferred to the Janowski camp the next day along with other people from the Ghetto who were still alive. The entire time my parents could only think about saving me and my brother. My brother left Lwów and went to areas which had been occupied by the Germans. He survived the war in a German uniform. His and others’ stories are described in a book published in German called Gewonnen gegen Hitler.He was six years older than me. My parents were devastated. They knew that if they went to the Janowski camp with me, all of their efforts would have been wasted. Mr. Baron, who had American citizenship, literally came for me at the last moment. He, with his wife and two children, was waiting for an exchange of foreign nationals.

“They were billeted in a Lwów hotel along with some others. He told my parents that they knew of one person (a teacher) who could take in my mother and me. For a fee of course. Her brother could take my father in. We had a chance. My mum and I were in her flat for a week. One morning she came into our room telling us that someone would come from the registration office to check the number of inhabitants. She said, ‘I’ll take Danusia to the kitchen cupboard, and your mother will go to the closet in the other room.’ I wanted to be in the closet with my mum, but she told me to obey. I was wearing a nightgown, so she threw a coat over my shoulders and she told me to go with this lady. That was the last time I ever saw her. Standing in the kitchen closet, I heard the cries of many people being led out of the flat. A short while later I heard the voice of this woman’s brother. I knew his voice because he brought us letters from Dad, whom he had taken in. He asked his sister whether everything was over at her place, because it still wasn’t over at his place. I realised that we had been denounced. My first thought was to warn my dad. Maybe I would manage in time...He lived in another Lwów district. When I got there, the neighbours told me that a Jew had recently been taken out of there.

“With no place to go, I went to our home on Nowy Świat. The Gestapo had taken over the building, so everyone had been evicted, not only Jews. Our former caretaker, Dani Maciopa, met us on the street. Her husband was in the Ukrainian police. She took me to their flat, but I don’t remember how long I was there. Nothing was registering with me. One day I heard Mr. Baron’s voice. He brought a letter from my dad, who was in the Janowski camp. Mr. Baron was able to move around freely. He didn’t wear an armband. He was waiting for an exchange of foreign nationals between the USA and Germany. My mum was already dead. My dad wrote me about two possibilities of rescue. One was to go abroad with Mr. Hans or Mr. Baron. I could pretend to marry his son who was seven years older than me.Unfortunately, they were soon deported from Lwów, along with many others who were waiting for this exchange. All of them were shot dead. Mr. Maciopa participated in this massacre. He returned with friends who were Ukrainian policemen, and drunkenly told us how he couldn’t shoot the Barons, since he had known them before the War.

“I had one last chance, so I traveled to Warsaw. Mr. Hans sent a German to come get me, and I moved in with him as a nursemaid on 4 Parkowa Street. I came to Warsaw in May 1943. The Ghetto was in flames. I was 13-and-a-half. Mr. Hans was supposed to take care of me, or so I imagined. Unfortunately, he took advantage of me in a disgusting way. It’s hard for me to write about. It left a mark on my psyche. He robbed me of the money that had been sewn into my jacket shoulders without my knowledge. I had to find another place to stay.” Danuta Lis

Some of the Poles who hid Jews treated this help as a source of income. Greed was stronger than fear of the Germans. Nine-year-old Margarita ended up with such a person when she was smuggled out of the Warsaw Ghetto in July 1942. Along with her caregivers she spent her first night in the basement, since Soviet bombs were falling on the city.

“People in the basement comforted themselves that the bombs were intended for Jews in the Ghetto and this would finally bring about their end. I had involuntarily let out a moan that was drowned out by another explosion. But Mrs. B. heard it and hissed in my ear to shut up. When the neighbours continued to giggle, enjoying the fate of the ‘Yids’ I couldn’t resist and started crying, whispering that I wanted to go back to my mum. After all, I had agreed to part with them so that they could survive, but I wanted to be with them if they were to be murdered. Mrs. B. hissed at me again to shut my mouth. She quickly told the neighbours that a relative had come from the countryside since her parents had been deported to work in Germany and it had left the child very confused.

“I bit my lips, but I couldn’t stop the sobs and tears. Mrs. B. no longer hugged me protectively, but she held me tight ready to shut me up herself or wring my neck so that I couldn’t shake any longer. I was still crying after the raid, because I believed what I had heard in the shelter. Mrs. B. sharply scolded me to stop crying because, ‘Someone will think that I’m hurting you, and if you don’t stop I’ll give you something to cry about.’ I stopped and then I didn’t cry for many more years to come, but I did start wetting the bed. It happened to me once before I left the Ghetto. My parents suspected cystitis but there wasn’t any access to medication. Nobody understood then that there could have been an emotional basis to this bed-wetting.

“Mrs. B. accused me of being too lazy to get up and go to the potty (which was allowed because the toilet was at the other end of a long corridor which was shared by the inhabitants of the entire floor). I started wetting the bed regularly. It became a nightmare. I would relieve myself just before going to bed, didn’t drink at all from noon and I tried to stay awake, but none of this worked. The beatings became more and more cruel. It got to the point where I was afraid to go to the toilet during the day, because how could I be sure that I wasn’t really asleep and I wouldn’t wake up in a wet bed?Mrs. B’s daughter Bożenka was a slim pretty girl with blonde hair and grey eyes. She was two years older than me, but Mrs. B. didn’t believe my age because I was taller than her. I asked Bożenka to teach me various prayers. She also showed me how to cross myself and gave me the catechism to read. The family didn’t go to church nor did I ever see them praying. Once I learned the prayers I began to pray in bed. Mrs. B. saw me and was furious that I was committing sacrilege. Bożenka told her that I was praying sincerely, but her mother didn’t listen to her. I was in pain from the frequent beatings and I was afraid to get hit again, so from that moment on I prayed secretly, asking Jesus to forgive me my cowardice and also forgive Mrs. B., because she didn’t know what she was doing.

“She kept finding more reasons to take her anger out on me by hitting my nose and ears and slapping or punching me in the head, back and shoulders. (...) Mrs. B. didn’t take me in just so that she could bully me. She initially agreed to take in a Jewish child because she could get money from two sources for it, an underground Jewish organisation and a Polish one that didn’t know that the other one was also paying. She didn’t plan on being evil, but she couldn’t help it that I provoked her so much... Her husband, Mr. B, (...) was always very nice to me.

“He would try to make me laugh as soon as we were alone, jumping out with a loud ‘Boo!’ or a playful saying. This was painful for me. I lived in continuous fear, and this meant that I couldn’t respond in the same nice manner and I just wanted him to stop being nice. I learned to put up with cruelty, but it was too much for me to bear the feelings of gratitude for his small gestures of kindness. Nights proved to be particularly difficult, he would come home drunk and berate his wife for the way she treated me. They would start to fight, and he would invariably get beaten up in the end. I would rather have been hit myself than to see this noble person suffer for trying to protect me. (...)

“The truth was that I wasn’t hungry. Even though during my entire stay I never enjoyed fresh bread rolls with butter and ham, I always had dark bread with beetroot spread for breakfast, some soup for lunch, and I usually ate some potatoes with salad for dinner. The cereals were plentiful, served in soups or side dishes. They were tasty and nutritious. Later on when I could frequent a day-care room, I received cooked vegetables to eat. They served mashed potatoes with carrots and beetroots, and this became my favorite meal. On Sundays Mrs. B. often made potato dumplings topped with lard-fried onions, which I liked very much.Special dishes were served to celebrate Christmas, and there were usually two cakes: one was an ordinary yeast cake, while the second one was a delicious poppyseed cake. (...) Soon after my arrival the kitchen table was no longer extended to make room for everyone to sit down. Bożenka and I would sit alone by a small table next to our bed. Bożenka was later told to sit down at the table with her parents while I was left alone to eat.

“(...) Ms. B. told me I should call her ‘Aunt’ and Mr. B ‘Uncle’ since I was posing as her cousin in their home. (...) My ‘aunt’ had a rich verbal repertoire in addition to her ability to inflict physical pain. She would most often make fun of people. Soon after I arrived my aunt asked me about my mother. When I told her she was an actress, she laughed. ‘Wow, you really know how to put on airs! An actress indeed! Maybe she was an extra on a set once, but don’t make up tall tales to seem more important. What are you thinking?’ After I had been there for a few weeks my parents managed to get some of my clothes to me through underground contacts. Some of the things were undoubtedly mine. There was a dress that my mother had sewn out of her old skirts. There was a sweater that she had made from an old one that I had grown out of, as well as my mother’s sweater that was dyed black to cover up its various mismatched shades. No single sweater on the entire planet could be identical to the ones that she had made for me. The packages weren’t delivered to the flat, but instead a messenger would inform my aunt where to pick them up. One day I saw Bożenka wearing my dress, and, happy to see something familiar, I innocently cried out, ‘Oh, my dress!’ My aunt confronted me with a stern look, stating that she had just bought Bożenka this dress, and that if it looked like one that I once had, that was no reason to accuse Bożenka of wearing my clothes. If she had to, she ‘would teach me to curb my unhealthy imagination and refrain from such comments’. From that point on, I would of course keep quiet when I recognised some familiar items. She would give me some of them, declaring with a sweet smile that my parents had finally sent me something. She fed me, but she wouldn’t be able to dress me. I became more and more withdrawn, and I was increasingly unable to do anything properly. I would constantly drop things, and I would lose money I received for small purchases. This would invariably be followed by: ‘You’re a good-for-nothing fool’, or ‘you stupid imbecile, I wonder what your parents must be like since they created such a piece of shit’. Or: ‘A waste of space like you only knows how to sit around and shit and pee the bed, which you can’t be bothered to get out of,’ and that was then usually followed by a beating. I hardened increasingly in response to the beatings and insults, and I convinced myself more and more that she was right, that I was useless and worthless, simply a caricature of a human child.” Margarita Turkow

Twelve-year-old Marian lived with his mother and her partner in Sędziszów after escaping from the Warsaw Ghetto in July 1942. He was using forged documents. “So I go to the station and a slow local train from Kraków to Kielce arrives at the platform. (...) I’m already inside the compartment, the train is moving, we’re heading off. Some women are seated and a Polish railway worker stands in front of me. He looks at me, looks closer and says: ‘Listen, you’re a Yid!’ ‘What are you talking about, I’m working, you can see that I’m taking a package to the post office.’ ‘And where do you work?’ I show him my employee ID card. It was a company ID card for the place where my father used to work, the same one that other employees had. My mother issued such cards, so she had access to stamps and printed forms. ‘Come with me to the gents, we’ll see.’ ‘Are you crazy? I’m not going anywhere with you. I’m not a Jew, stop bothering me.’ ‘Come on, let’s go to the toilet.’ I shrugged and pretended to not understand what he was saying. All the women sitting there remain completely silent, as if they hadn’t heard anything at all.

“We reach Jędrzejów, I get off, he grabs my arm firmly and gets out with me. He keeps holding me tightly. He looks for a policeman. There aren’t any around, not even navy-blue policemen. The railwayman begins screaming, almost hysterically, at the people on the platform: ‘Damn it, there aren’t policemen anywhere! People, call the security guard!’ [26]. Quite a large crowd appears. ‘What? They caught a Yid! They caught a Yid!’ They are overjoyed and euphoric, as if it were some fair and a magician’s tricks or a two-headed calf.I had incredible, simply incredible, luck: there weren’t any policeman around. There were always plenty at stations. A miracle?

“The railwayman was in a hurry to start his work shift in Kielce and the train was already moving, so he let me go and he ran and then jumped on the train and went off. He still had time to bark at me that I would have got what was coming to me if he hadn’t been so busy. (I doubt I would have had to wait very long ...). The railway was militarised, and the consequences could be very serious for him as well if he missed his shift. I was also fortunate that no one in the crowd was eager to finish what the railwayman had started. The crowd dispersed, probably a bit disappointed that this story didn’t have an ending.So they decided that the show was over. I went to the post office, sent the package, and returned home. My mother and father were terrified. They were afraid that he could have memorised the data from the card and would show up in Sędziszów. But he was probably so enraged and drunk with hatred that he forgot all about it. I never left the house after that.” Marian Kalwary

Fourteen-year-old Stasia lived outside the Lwów Ghetto with her mother and brother. Her mother got herself an “authentic” birth certificate with the Armenian name Łukasiewicz. “In September 1943 Jaś started the third grade of primary school while I began my first year of a two-year trade school. (...) Both of my schools had a kind atmosphere. I never had any unpleasant experiences. I have to say that my hair got curly and my nose grew out at that time (between the ages of 12 and 14). My mum wove my hair in tight braids, and this really amused some of my friends. I was skinny and quite tall.

“Jadzia Mazur was my closest friend. My mother usually dropped me off at school since she was worried about me, but on 13 March 1944 I rode the tram to school with Jadzia. I couldn’t quite see a tall man but I could sense him. We got off the tram and went in the direction of our school. A Ukrainian policeman stopped us while we were walking by the Armenian cathedral; he was accompanied by the tall man from the tram. The policeman politely asked me for my identification card. The tall man shouted aggressively, ‘She’s a Jew!’ I showed him my school identification card. The policeman looked at it and said that I could go to school. The man shouted at the policeman that he had to arrest me and then turned to me, telling me to recite a prayer. I told him that I certainly wasn’t going to pray just because he requested it. Jadzia kept saying that we attend the same school and that I was her friend.

“The policeman repeated that we could go to school. The man shouted that he would check this at the police station. We went to school. After returning home, I told my mother and Mrs. Brzozowicz about this incident. They were terrified and Mrs. Brzozowicz told us that we should move out, since the police now had all of my details, including my address. But we had nowhere to go. Jaś and my mother visited friends (and friends of friends) to look for accommodation. We failed, everyone refused us. After a short time we were still living with Mrs. Brzozowicz. She said that we could stay, that she had gone to confession and the priest had told her to keep us at her place. Even before that, I overheard Ita (Mrs. Brzozowicz’s daughter) through the closed door, forbidding her mother in no uncertain terms to throw us out of the flat. From then on I never left the house, officially because I was sick. I was able to pass the year ‘after being ill’ because my girlfriends would regularly bring me class notes that I copied.” Stanisława Wincza

ORDINARY HEROES

On 15 October 1941 General Governor Hans Frank’s decree was published, informing the public that any Poles who helped Jews would be sentenced to death [27]. It threatened those who helped ghetto fugitives in any number of ways, including providing shelter, donating food, money, or clothing, granting medical assistance, providing transport, or sending correspondence. The aim of the regulation was both to discourage Jews from seeking help and to intimidate the Polish population. In practice Poles who helped Jews on the Aryan side were punished with fines and imprisonment until the summer of 1942. The Germans enacted stricter penalties when the deportations began: Jews were killed immediately while Poles started getting the death penalty. Sentencing was often inconsistent though; in some cases perpetrators were sent to concentration camps or received prison sentences instead. The German authorities also issued amnesties for Poles who declared on their own initiative that they were hiding Jews. However, the Germans often immediately murdered Jews and their caregivers who were captured together, or at the nearest police station or gendarmerie. They also forbade cemetery burials: the victims’ bodies were buried in the fields, on the roads, or at the scene of the crime. Helpers’ families (and even entire communities) were threatened with reprisals. According to many historians, fear of the Germans was a key factor that kept Poles from assisting Jewish refugees. It didn’t prevent everyone from acting, however.

Ten-year-old Marysia’s mother managed to escape from Lwów with both of her children on the day that the Ghetto was closed. “The suburbs were occupied by Germans and Ukrainians who were in their service. (...) Our former caretaker helped us leave Lwów: she gave my mother her passport which had been issued by the Russian authorities. My mother pasted her own photo inside. This document allowed us to hide with ‘Aryan papers’ and to move around among Poles.” Maria Kraft

Sabina (born in 1928) smuggled food into the Warsaw Ghetto to support her sick mother and her sister (her father starved to death). She ended up on the Aryan side during one of her expeditions. “I no longer came back to the Ghetto, I wasn’t able to. All of the border posts were guarded. I had no way of slipping under the wall. I was left alone, hungry and penniless. I began to wander the streets. I would only go out at night so that I wouldn’t draw anyone’s attention with my unkempt appearance. During the day I would hide like a mouse in various crawl spaces. And so I ended up at Mrs. Danuta and Mr. Jerzy Downarowicz’s place in Mokotów on Skrzetuskiego Street. I’m not sure how many days and nights it took me to get there. They fed me, they scrubbed me, and they gave me a taste of family warmth. Jerzy Downarowicz typed stencils under the pseudonym ‘Szmidt’. His wife Danuta used a mimeograph to make copies of the Dzień underground newspaper, which reached the Warsaw Ghetto and other places. Jerzy led the so-called clandestine distribution in the Żegota operation, which urged Poles to help Jews. My luck was short-lived since someone snitched and I had to leave. This time I ended up with Mr. and Mrs. Bokus in the Służew district, who didn’t kick me out in spite of having a large family of five children. They treated me like a sixth child. It was good there as well. I only wept at night wondering what had happened to my mother and sister.

“But this didn’t last long either. Someone snitched again. I got a new address: the Komorowski family at14 Siewierska Street in Warsaw. And I had it good here as well until some teenager snitched on me. Like me, he also smuggled food into the Ghetto from the bazaar and he would even help me climb the wall! He recognised me this time and bellowed loudly: ‘Yid! Put her in an oven!’ I had to move yet again...the next stage led to Mr. Komorowski’s sisters, Maria and Zofia, at 29 Koszykowa Street in Warsaw. I stayed there and survived the Warsaw Uprising until capitulation.” Sabina Wylot

Naftali was 10 years old when the Germans shot his father, while his mother and sister died in the Mosty Wielkie Ghetto [28]. He then stayed in the Żółkiew Ghetto with his brother [29]. “Living there was like a concentration camp: barbed wire that was probably electrified, people singled out and killed every day, terrible hunger; it was horribly cramped and indescribably miserable. (...) Life continued on in this way until the Ghetto was liquidated. (...)

“On the second or third day after the massacre my brother and I were smuggled out of the Ghetto by a Ukrainian friend from Mosty Wielkie. He gave each of us a piece of bread and showed us a way to take back roads for around 20 kilometres to a Polish village called Stanisłówka.

“In one of the Ukrainian homes along the way they probably guessed who we were. The young woman said, ‘The Jews were harassed for two days in Żółkwia but they’re still around.’ Our scruffy, emaciated appearance probably gave us away, but they gave each of us a piece of bread and we kept going. The residents of Stanisłowka knew our family well, since my father purchased food from them and they often visited us, coming to Mosty to church or to go shopping. We expected them to help us and indeed they did. I must point out that they also lived in poverty, since the Germans kept taking their food. Soviet partisans or roving Ukrainian bands would also come by and everyone wanted food In spite of all of this, they would occasionally give us a piece of bread, and they acted like they didn’t notice when we sneaked into the barn or to the stables to spend the night. During the summer we would sleep in the forest. A certain family would risk getting death sentences by feeding us and keeping us in a haystack for a longer period of time. I still keep in touch with this family’s grandson. Their names are Zofia and Bogusław Rączka and they live in Kraków. A group of us would gather after some time and we would go to the woods for an entire day, while in the evenings we would go to the village to ask for some food. Late in the evening we would sneak off to sleep. Sleeping next to a cow during winter was best because it was warmer. Night searches also occurred and several Jews were caught and shot on the spot. The hosts would plead for their lives.” Karol Galiński

Eleven-year-old Chuwcia ended up alone with her sister Estera after losing her parents, who were captured in Sambor [30] on the Aryan side and then deported to Auschwitz. They hid in the woods with local peasants. “We couldn’t keep going, since my legs were frostbitten. We stayed in the country with Mrs. Jasecha, who turned out to be an extraordinary woman. A few other Jews hid there besides us. One of them was shot after he was discovered by the Germans. They buried him under Mrs. Jasecha’s house. My legs went from bad to worse. My toes initially swelled up and blackened, until one day the blackened parts fell off. Oozing wounds separated from my living flesh, which my protector treated with sour milk. The treatment took a long time but my wounds eventually healed. My frostbitten toes had no nails and have remained misshapen. We survived house searches by the Germans before the wounds had even healed. Just before they arrived our protector packed us in bags and took us out to the river. While Mrs. Jasecha was taking us, our bleeding wounds left a trail, but the Germans probably believed that it came from meat that had been carried to a hideout. We had eluded death yet again.” Chuwcia W.

At the end of 1942 three-year-old Esterka’s mother escaped with her from the Chełm Ghetto [31]. They hid nearby. “At the beginning of the winter of 1943 my mother left me in the care of hosts named Struś in the Pławanice village. She hid in the nearby forests with a few other Jews, where (as I learned from talking to the hosts) they were all killed. The Struś family was poor. There were four people there: old Mrs. Struś (Józefa, I think), her son Mieczysław Struś, and a young married couple: Józefa Struś and Antonii Sapuła. The flat consisted of one room with a dirt floor. A kitchen stove with an inglenook (a warm place to stay by the stove) could be found in the room. This inglenook was my hiding place. When a stranger entered the room, I quickly climbed up and sat there quietly. There was a shortage of bread by the end of the winter. The hosts also began to fear that some stranger would notice that they were hiding a Jewish child and would denounce them. Mrs. Struś confided this to. Leokadia Wojtkiewicz, whom she met at the Polish Red Cross in Chełm. Mrs. Leokadia wanted to save an unknown Jewish child, so in the spring of 1944 she took me from the Struś’ and went with me to her sister’s family in Warsaw: to Joanna and Karol Kulesza’s house. They had two children named Leszek and Bożena. I was a bit younger than them and the neighbours thought I was Leokadia Wojtkiewicz’s illegitimate child who sometimes visited from Chełm and brought food. The Kulesza family was also poor, but I didn’t go hungry at their place. I remember that I didn’t hide, Bożenka and I would walk together and people thought we were cousins, and I thought it was strange that no one knew I was a Jewish child.” Maria Ochlewska

Eleven-year-old Jaś was taken care of by his older half-brother Alfred after his mother and brother perished in July 1941. The boy was sent to Kraków when hunger ensued in the Ghetto. “I found refuge on Kraków’s Aryan side with my nanny, Katarzyna Żołna, who had always lived with us. I stayed there until September 1942.

“My father lived in the Ghetto and would often visit us, using his infallible safe-conduct pass issued by the Solvay Company, which also paid his salary. However. in May 1942 he was captured and sent to one of the extermination camps during an Aktion in the Kraków Ghetto. He died there. In September a letter came to my nanny’s address saying that my older brother Alfred had died in similar circumstances. I ended up destitute and dependent on my nanny, who was living off her pension. The threat of danger increased. I was forced to move to the Ghetto since the hosts (that my nanny rented a room from) were afraid to keep a Jew there. I lived (or rather nested) at my parents’ friends’ place; they helped me out a little. At the same time I tried to earn a living by trading cigarettes on the street. I managed to survive several Aktions thanks to the help of a Jewish policeman who was my guardians’ friend, who smuggled me out of the Ghetto while the Aktions were taking place. I camped out on the Aryan side and slept in Planty Park. My nanny fed me. After the Aktion I sneaked back into the Ghetto.

“In mid-May 1943 the Kraków Ghetto was liquidated. (...) I wandered the streets and suddenly an unknown cart-driver pulled me onto the bed of the cart, covered me with a pile of shoes, and drove me past the wire fence of the Ghetto. (...) I decided to go to Warsaw, where my uncle Lolek (my mother’s brother) was also hiding. I sneaked on to a night train that was going to Warsaw - it was full of smugglers. I got caught by blackmailers after I got off in the morning. I couldn’t buy my way out of it since I had nothing. They dropped me off at the navy-blue police station on Jerozolimskie Avenue [32]. They checked my background there, but they eventually let me go, ordering me not to show up again in this area. I found my uncle, who got me a false birth certificate and a school ID. Now that I had these papers I started living on the Aryan side, frequently changing my location.” Jan Klaper-Karpiński

Just before the liquidation of the Kraków Ghetto, a mother escaped to the Aryan side with her two daughters. Eight-year-old Janka and her mother were placed in the care of the Jętkiewicz family, while Anna and Ignacy Lubicz-Sadowski took in 10-year-old Ewa at the Góra Estate.

“Soon after we arrived at the Jętkiewicz family’s place, my mother became very ill. She contracted tuberculosis after bilateral pneumonia (...) and she had to be placed somewhere in better surroundings. My mother was feverish and weakened. Mrs. Jętkiewicz managed to get a place at Mrs. Ulanowska’s on Podleśna Street in Milanówek, where my mother was able to relax in the garden. My caregiver and I would bring her food there. My mother wanted me to come and take care of her, though. She must have felt that she wouldn’t live too much longer. And that’s what happened. Unfortunately, I contracted tuberculosis from her. My mother was placed in the Ujazdowski Hospital in Warsaw (...). Mrs. Jętkiewicz visited her in the hospital. One day my mother really pleaded with her to bring me to the hospital. Mrs. Jętkiewicz dressed me up nicely and took me there. We found the bed empty: my mum had already died. (...) For better or worse the Jętkiewicz family decided to take me in, despite putting them in a very dangerous position: their house contained a clandestine hub of underground activity, underground army soldiers were secretly trained there (...) and it was a point of contact for the Government Delegation. At that time I was ‘yanked around’ by various people from Żegota actions who wanted to be my ‘mums’. I fought back tooth and nail and didn’t let them tear me away from my foster family. I thought that after all I had been through this would be the safest haven for me. I saw that these people were protecting, feeding, and saving me in spite of the danger this posed for them: my mum had entrusted me to their welcoming arms and kind hearts.” Janina Pietrasiak

Eleven-year-old Bronia survived the Sosnowiec Ghetto liquidation in August 1943 with her mother and brother in a cell dug in the basement. The family pretended to be Poles and escaped to the Aryan side. Her 13-year-old brother was denounced and killed. “In addition to finding us a hiding place my distraught mother also found us a warm, compassionate atmosphere at Mrs. Syndutka’s place after returning from Katowice. She was a caretaker of a two-storey building in today’s Wojewódzka Street where my mother’s pre-war friend lived, a Silesian woman named Mrs. Dębińska. She lived with her husband in just a single room on the ground floor annex. We found shelter behind a large oblique three-door wardrobe which stood in the corner. We slept there, and we stayed there even when the hosts were in the house. Other tenants could drop in at any moment, since they were the caretakers. They were incredibly decent, honest, and heroic people. They were an older, childless couple in their fifties who were Jehovah’s Witnesses, doing everything entirely selflessly to make us feel good in their home. (...) They shared their food. My mother still had some jewellery then. Mrs. Syndutka didn’t know how to sell it so she would take it to Mrs. Dębińska, who sold it and then transferred the German marks to us. She knew that we were hiding in her home. We were there a couple of months though I don’t know exactly how long. We probably survived the most emotionally difficult period for us in this way. (...) From one of her Silesian-German friends my mother learned that the Czaplów family was very honest. The husband was a police officer on the ‘second’ Volksliste [33] though everyone in the house spoke only Polish. They had two daughters: Zuza who was the same age as me as well as little Ingrid. Mrs. Czapla’s parents lived with them, and her mother suffered from mental disorders and caused them a lot of trouble: she would run away from home and she would take down the window covers during air raids. Her daughter had to fight to keep her from being committed to a psychiatric institution.

“In spite of all these problems, the Czapla family also took me in. They treated me almost like a daughter. I lived in a three-room flat where Korfanty Avenue is today. I made friends with Zuza and I looked after the younger 2-year-old Ingrid, who loved me so much that, when we visited her in hospital when she had diphtheria, she would keep repeating my name and crying at the window separating us.

“She never came back from the hospital; she died from a disease that was then very dangerous. These good people who had been touched by fate offered me the semblance of a normal life in the middle of a cruel war. Mrs. Czapla even took me with her to Vienna, instead of Zuza, who happened to be suffering from some contagious disease. She took me to an amusement park there.” Bronisława Szwajca

Anna was born in 1940 to a mixed couple in Reich territory on the border of the General Government. Her family was taken care of by a Pole named Mrs. R. “We stayed with Mrs. R., probably the best woman I ever knew. She took in a young couple, a Jewish woman and a Gentile, when his family had turned away from them. She took care of us for the entire War. She went with my father as far as possible when he was deported by the Gestapo to Thuringia, to a labour camp for men from mixed marriages. She taught me prayers and hymns. She guarded and protected me more than her own daughters. The only thing she got in return was our love and gratitude; she always remained my second mum. My mother and I were the only two Jewish women who survived from our town.” Anna Maria

Jurek (born 1933) had a Jewish mother and a Polish father. They lived in Częstochowa. Another child was born in 1939. The household was starving. “The family that took us in during the War was perfectly aware of what could happen to them for hiding us. We weren’t registered there. My mother didn’t have an identity card. We didn’t have ration cards. Only my father was registered and still worked in Stradom and had a food ration card. The entire neighbourhood knew about our existence, not just the neighbours on our street. I’d like to unequivocally emphasise that we survived the occupation thanks to our wonderful neighbours, who would warn us if there was a round-up close by. In such cases we would go down into a well camouflaged basement. (...)

“My parents weren’t really sure what to do with me when the 1940-41 school year began. (...) After a long period of hesitation my parents decided that I would go to school. Our teaching staff as well as most of my friends knew about my origins. (...) During this terrible part of my childhood I had to live and go where my parents demanded: home, school...church, then back home. I couldn’t stop off anywhere, visit any of my friends’ houses, etc... Leaving church on Sunday once (in the same district), I was stopped by a lady whom I didn’t know. ‘Come with me,’ she said. I turned pale and imagined the worst. I wanted to run away.

“Seeing my fear, the lady reassured me: she hugged me while saying that she’d take me to dinner. This calmed me down. I sat down at the table and then, after three years of nearly starving, I had chicken soup with noodles and meat for the first time. When I was full and thanked her, she offered me some delicious sweet rolls. I told her that I also had a hungry little sister at home, and the lady gave me a lot of rolls to take home to her.” Jerzy Ślęzak

Róża’s mother died after giving birth to her. After the Germans invaded, 4-year-old Róża, her 6-year-old sister Chana, and their father found themselves in the Święciany Ghetto [34]. When he found out that Jews would soon be deported to death camps, he found hiding places for his daughters outside the Ghetto.

“A married couple took me in, Mr. and Mrs. Tumanow. They were Russian and didn’t have children. I hid with them for quite a long time. Mrs. Tumanow hung a picture over my little bed: it was a guardian angel with a child passing over a footbridge across a river. I remember him to this day. She taught me prayers in Russian.From time to time they looked for Jews who were hiding out, and once they searched in and around our flat very meticulously. I was hidden in the bread oven, which was still warm. Disquieting news about wanted Jews started coming to my father, and so Mrs. Kuleszo’s children took me from the Tumanows’. Mrs. Kuleszo (that’s what we all called her) had five surviving children, while her oldest daughter and husband died of typhus in the early stages of the War.

“They lived in a village called Woksa, which was beyond Święciany in the direction of Zybaliszki. I made friends with children at Mrs. Kuleszo’s place and I would feed the pigs and cows. I still remember breakfasts: a large wooden bowl full of semolina stood on the table while all of the kids gathered around it with their spoons. And that’s how everyone ate the porridge or soup. (...) My sister [35] ended up with Mr. and Mrs. Zielonka near Święciany. They had four children and they lived off the beaten path in the middle of the forest. My sister told me that the house and the path around it had been searched one day.

“Large bread ovens were fashionable in the Vilnius region, and there was a large space on top of the stove (several people could sleep there). There were always a lot of rags and pieces of clothing in this den, and my sister was hidden behind them. A German ordered Mr. Zielonka to push the rags aside and he did so, but he threw the rags and clothes onto my sister, showing him that there was no one there. Shortly after this happened my father took my sister to Mrs. Kuleszo’s place. This way, by the end of the War we were all together in one place. We wish to emphasise that our guardians: the Tumanows, the Zielonkas, and the Kuleszos were families exhibiting exceptional generosity, kindness, honesty, and dedication.” Róża

Rysio (born in 1927) hid with his parents in Warsaw. Thanks to the help of their Polish friends, the three of them were able to acquire original documents. They lived in a rented room in a big flat on Zielna Street. Their neighbour was a young seminarian named Stanisław Kowalski.

“When the Ghetto Uprising was dying down but the hunt for Jews continued, our neighbour the seminarian, Stanisław Kowalski, once got to talking to me. He was deeply involved in the underground activities of some far-right nationalist Catholic organisations: ‘Sword and Plough’ or ‘Cross and Sword’, and he would give me their newsletters to read. Poland was supposed to extend from the Crimea all the way to Slavonic Rügen. So it was all the more surprising when he suggested that I’d be safer if I went to Henryków to see his brother. The Warsaw suburb of Henryków was a village back then (today it’s district of Warsaw). Antoni Kowalski, who was a scoutmaster, lived in a house surrounded by gardens and an orchard, quite far from other people. He was cordial and sincere, and he risked the lives of his entire family. The Kowalskis also had a brother who was a priest in nearby Płudy. I lived there during the summer of 1943, fully immersing myself in the kindness and goodness that this family radiated. I benefited from this, both through interesting conversations with my host as well as through his richly stocked library. One of the neighbours, ‘the countess’, would come by sometimes. I could see her looking at me disapprovingly. After one of her visits, Antoni Kowalski was sad and outraged, telling me that the countess felt threatened by my presence and that she would be forced to notify the authorities if I didn’t move out. So I went back to Warsaw. However, I have positive recollections from this gloomy period when I remember my stay in Henryków and the Kowalski brothers’ help.” Zbigniew Ryszard Grabowski (Ryszard Abrahamer)

In the Autumn of 1940 ten-year-old Josek was in the Jadwisin Ghetto with his mother and sister (his father perished in Palmiry). From September 1942 he hid on the Aryan side.

“I had to fend for myself. The autumn of 1943 had arrived. With nowhere to stay I set off in the direction of my birthplace, which I had known from childhood, the region of Tarchomin, Winnica, Henrykowo, and Wiśniewo. During the day I would hide in the bushes along the Vistula River. In the evenings I would approach the farms like a wolf, asking for a modest meal and an overnight lodging. Nobody ever refused me a meal anywhere. Sometimes I was given accommodation in a house, barn, or stable. I also always got bread and milk for the road. I came to the stables or barns without the host’s knowledge on more than one occasion. In this case I would help myself to food that the host had left for the horse (grain) or the pigs (cooked potatoes).

“For a long time I lived in the rectory attic. The priest knew that I was Jewish. He gave me shelter, fed me and would quite often ask me to keep vigil by the dead. I would agree very willingly. I had a warm place with a roof over my head, a full belly, and I was cared for by a priest. But I couldn’t stay in one place too long. My instincts told me that I should change the place where I was staying. I could feel my wish to survive strengthening while wandering all alone among people. Because I didn’t see much point to a life consisting of hiding alone in houses, in fields, or in a basement, though I did feel a sense of danger, I felt much better out in the open. Back then I thought that I was the only Jewish child who had survived, and that I should do everything in my power to stay alive, so I could tell others about the great tragedy that happened to me.” Josef Carmeli aka Josek Inwentarz

While the Warsaw Ghetto was being liquidated 16-year-old Hania and her mother climbed over the wall. “After escaping through the walls on Nowolipki Street we took a tram to the Żoliborz district and we went to our friend’s house: the Sienieński family on Felińskiego Street. The mother, Władyslawa Sienieńska, lived there with her daughters: Zofia was my age and Janina was a few years older. Wladyslawa was barely able to support her family by bringing vegetable oil from the countryside and selling it in Warsaw. (...) It’s easy to imagine the impression we made: two characters like my mother and me appearing in broad daylight, like ghetto ghosts. On top of that, it was unexpected, because we had no way of contacting the family we were coming to, even though they previously had declared a desire to help. (...) Their eyes glinted in terror, and though it only lasted for a moment, it will be hard to forget for the rest of my life. This was followed by immediate joy: how good that you managed to escape! We knew that we put the Sienieński family in great danger by arriving, but we decided to try to save ourselves and didn’t see any other way out. The mother and daughters were obviously risking their own lives. We could have easily been seen by the other residents of the house, you could figure out that my mother was Jewish just from looking at her. We didn’t have any documentation. They were unquestionably heroic. Without such heroism hardly anyone would have survived. I’ve thought many times about how hard it would be for me to cope in such a situation.

“One was able to get an identity card based on false papers (a birth certificate). This was one’s official document during the German occupation. There were false birth certificates and better ones: originals which once belonged to now deceased persons. Such birth certificates were made available through churches. We spent the two weeks needed to obtain documents (with which we could rent a room) at our friends’ home. We couldn’t stay there because the flat had very little space: other Jews lived there who hadn’t been to the Ghetto at all. Though she knew about their origins, Wladyslawa Sienieńska rented them a flat. Both the mother and her daughters helped them as much as they could. Despite being poor, the family’s help was completely selfless.” Hanna Wehr

Krysia (born in 1930) lived with her family in Skałat [36] in the Tarnopol voivodeship during the occupation. “After she returned from visiting relatives in Lublin in May 1942, a local teacher mentioned that Jewish transports had passed through that way. This message was treated as a malicious rumour by the residents of Skałat, although the atmosphere in our house became more and more tense. I stopped meeting with my friends. News of the first Aktion reached us in August, it was aimed at unproductive people, which included children and the elderly. We were both (with a sister who had already turned 4) driven by a Polish woman they knew to her sister’s place, who lived in the nearby village of Hałuszyńce, which was inhabited mostly by Poles.

“Our guardian was a local teacher, who lived in a small manor house with her two teenage daughters. Unfortunately, we couldn’t stay there long because as the summer holiday was over, two city girls staying there aroused the neighbours’ suspicions, and we were taken back home. (...) Meanwhile, another friend tried to find a place for me, my parents, and sister at her friend’s place: this time the village was several dozen kilometres away and we got there by wagon (...) It turned out that the lady didn’t want to take us in and we returned to Skałat again. We came back at the worst possible time: the largest action began on the next day (...). On 21 and 22 October 1942 approximately 3000 people were deported to Bełżec. Mrs. Kamila Toporowska took us in. We lay together in a double bed, covered with the bedspread. A Jewish family had been deported from the adjacent flat, and their possessions had been plundered on the same day. I don’t know where our family was hiding during those days, but we all survived.

“My parents managed to get Aryan papers. These were documents of people who had emigrated from Poland to South America in the 1930s, and stored in the archive and supplied (or perhaps sold) by an official who was employed there. My and my mother’s papers had the same surname, my dad’s had a different one, and my sister had no birth certificate at all, though this was less important in her case (she wasn’t of school age). My aunt lived in Skałat, she was a colonel’s wife who converted to Catholicism before marriage. She had contacts among the local clergy and knew the young curate, Father Bronisław Majka. With our Polish friends’ help she organised our baptism (everything occurred in secret). At that time, Father Majka got transferred to another parish and took my sister and me along. This was Tłuste, a small town lying on the Zaleszczycka highway which had been famous since September. We officially passed for his relatives whose father had been captured by the Germans. My 5-year-old sister learned a new biography remarkably quickly and never revealed herself in any way. We were looked after by a nice young nun named Sister Teresa, who ran an orphanage. I’m under the impression that apart from Father Majka and the local dean, Father Stanisław Szkodziński, more people knew (or at least guessed) our true origins. The priest registered me at the local Polish school and prepared me for my First Communion. My grandpa Leon Salz earlier had taught me the fundamental prayers. (...) The winter was very hard, but we managed to survive thanks to the help of local Poles. In addition to Sister Teresa whom I have already mentioned, who saved us with Central Welfare Council parcels [37], two teachers, the Frankel sisters, showed their kindness, as well as a local forester named Jan Świąder (it later turned out that he also hid a Jewish woman in the local forestry office). During this time, groups of Bandera’s soldiers extended their activities, causing an exodus of the Polish population from the countryside to towns. The villages were set on fire and their inhabitants were viciously murdered.” Krystyna Smolik

Irena (born in 1932) left the Warsaw Ghetto with her mother. She had several close encounters with death while hiding on the Aryan side. “During the next raid they packed me, my aunt, and the whole family from Miedzyrzec into a railway car to be deported, probably to Treblinka. My mother wasn’t with us. And then my uncle, being the doctor he was, injected morphine into his wife and children in the railway car. He also wanted to give me an injection, but it was terribly cramped and confusion ensued; someone pushed me and I ended up near the door.

“I didn’t even realise that they were already dead, even though I knew...my uncle said that it was a lethal injection, we were all going to our deaths anyway, so to protect everyone… but on the other hand, maybe I escaped from that shot by myself? I don’t remember. In any case I ended up near the door. The railwayman who was there asked: ‘What’s your name, little girl?’ ‘Irena,’ I replied. He said that I had blue eyes, similar to his daughter’s eyes...he pulled me out, saying, ‘Come quickly and don’t say anything’. He hid me in the toilet at the station. He came for me when the transport went off.”

Irena went to her mother’s friend’s place from the station: Mrs. Cydzik, who kept her at home for some time and then placed her in an orphanage run by nuns. “(…) The nuns were fully aware that I was Jewish. I was very gaunt, I had pigtails, and I was as yellow as a lemon from jaundice. I don’t know how long I was with these nuns. Once the Germans came and told the nuns that they had to give up any Jewish children that they were keeping. They would have to go back to where they had come from. The nuns decided that I’d have to go back to the lady who had brought me. You should have seen Mrs. Cydzik’s face when she saw me... She said she was incredibly sorry, but that unfortunately she couldn’t hold on to me and I had to go back to the nuns. I didn’t quite know what to do; I went back and forth about two times. During these trips it turned dark about halfway to my destination. It could have been late autumn, because I was already wearing my winter coat. I spent the night on the threshold of the church mortuary. I was really cold and got a bladder infection and I kept running to pee every few minutes. The police came in the morning. They asked, ‘What are you doing here, girl?’ I replied that I was waiting for my mum, even though she clearly hadn’t been there. ‘Where’s mum?’ ‘She went to the shops.’ They came back once and I was sitting there. They came back a second time and I was still sitting there. They said, ‘Come with us, your mum probably won’t come.’ They took me to the town hall to see the mayor. And the mayor was a Volksdeutsche, I think his name was Majewski. I think this was after all of the Jewish deportations. I don’t remember what year it was then. The mayor came up with an idea to place me in a old people’s home where I could wait out the worst period. He realised that I was Jewish. If someone asked my name I would say: ‘Irena Likierman’. What else…”

Irena went from the old people’s home back to the orphanage and lived there for another year. (…) “One time before 1944, I went to see the Kozses’ house (my aunt and uncle) when I wasn’t allowed to go out to town. I stood in front of their pharmacy display. I thought about everything that had happened. I felt a German with a dog standing behind me. I saw his reflection in the glass. The dog started sniffing me. I remember my determination. I was afraid to turn around. The German took me by the arm and turned me to face him. ‘Jude?’ ‘Jawohl,’[affirmative] I replied. He pushed me and said: ‘Raus’[get out]. I didn’t run. I went away. (The German was reportedly a Międzyrzec executioner).” Irena Bołdok nee Likierman

Twelve-year-old Józio stayed in the Borysław Ghetto. He hid with his mother in lockers and basements, and he escaped deportation to the Bełżec death camp. “Somehow I went out on the street with my mother during this time, not far from my house, and after a while people started running and fleeing while shouting: ‘They’re grabbing us, the Germans are grabbing us!’ (...)

“I opened the closet door as fast as I could and pushed my mother inside, shutting the door behind her, then I ran to the back of the property and further on into familiar nooks and crannies. I found myself on the edge of the Aryan neighborhood. And a Reitter-zugspolizei (equestrian policeman) suddenly appeared, as if he had grown straight out of the ground like a giant statue. He pushed me towards the Ghetto with the horse’s front legs. I was so scared that while the policeman was shouting, I also shouted: ‘I’m not a Jude, I’m not a Jude.’ And then some Ukrainian boys who happened to be shepherding cows close by came to help me out, calling in Ukrainian: ‘He’s not a Jude, he’s not a Jude’. After this intervention the German walked away slowly. God himself must have sent me those boys.” Józef Lipman

Regina (born in 1927) lived with her parents in Baranowicze [38]. “After the outbreak of the Soviet-German War on 22 June 1941, the Nazi troops marched into the area and started persecuting the Jews. (...) At the end of August 1941 I found myself among a group of eighteen children who had been caught by the Nazis.

“They drove us in a truck to the city outskirts where they told us to jump into a fire. They hit us and pushed us into the fire. It was a real nightmare. We were saved by an Austrian officer (that’s how he introduced himself) who happened to be passing. He shouted at the soldiers and ordered them to stop this murderous fun of ‘playfully burning kids at the stake’. He drove us almost to the centre of town in his car. His driver helped us get into and out of the car.” Regina Loss-Fisior

FOSTER MOTHERS

People had different reasons for helping Jews during the German occupation: people who had Jewish friends and acquaintances were guided by altruistic motives. Others were motivated by patriotic duty and a moral imperative, still others helped as a means of improving their financial situation. There were also people who only wanted to acquire property while being completely indifferent to the fate of the Jews. An emotional motive also appeared in the case of rescuing Jewish children, especially where single women and childless couples were concerned.[39]

Eżbietka was born in the Warsaw Ghetto in 1942. The baby was sedated and a contractor drove her out of the Ghetto. “I was 17 years old when I accidentally found out that everything I had known about myself wasn’t true. My mother hadn’t given birth to me, she had taken a 6-month-old baby under her wing. My parents and my family had perished, and I was a Jewish child rescued by a miracle. It probably wouldn’t have happened if not for these wonderful people, capable of the utmost sacrifice. My adoptive mother was a midwife named Stanisława Bussold who worked together with Żegota.

“She conspired with Mrs. Irena Sendler, who did everything that was humanly possible to save Jewish children. My adopted mother was a midwife and helped Jewish women during labour and delivered babies. She also kept children in her own home. Together with some other trusted people, she created proper documents for them and searched among Polish families for safe places for her small charges. I stayed with her until the end of her life. She offered me happiness and a childhood full of love.” Elżbieta Ficowska

Marysia stayed with her parents and distant relatives in a forest bunker close to Połaniec (in the Tarnobrzeg voivodeship). In June 1941 Marysia’s parents placed the 2-year-old girl in the care of a Polish married couple, Józefa and and Jan Kosowicz. Her parents soon perished along with the other inhabitants of the bunker.

“I remained permanently in the Kosowiczes’ home. My husband and I visit the spot that probably housed the bunker and light candles. The Kosowiczes had four children and risked their lives all the time they were taking care of me. They hid me among relatives and friends in different places, because my hiding place had to be changed frequently. I vaguely remember that I was transported by ferry across the Vistula to Mielec and ordered to keep quiet in a bag under a cart seat. I lived the longest in my adopted sister Weronika Warchowska’s house in the village of Starościce near Lublin. Weronika didn’t know anything about my origins for quite some time. I was introduced as the Kosowicz’s child there. The other relatives, friends, and neighbours also suspected that I was Jewish. In 1950 I was formally adopted by Józefa and Jan Kosowicz.” Maria Kosowicz-Bartnik

Wilinke’s father escaped with him from the Butrymańce Ghetto [40] on the night of 7 to 8 September 1941, a few hours before the start of the liquidation Aktion. Wilinke was 3 years old at the time.

“Miss Janina Zienowicz from Wilno, who was staying temporarily in this area (and who currently lives in Warsaw, is married and called Janina Zagal), saved both of us together with the four people in Abel Gabaj’s family. Initially we all hid in a hideout in the Rudnicka Forest. After three days Zofia Kukolewska brought three children: me, 5-year-old Renana (thereafter Danusia), and 10-year-old Beniamin (nicknamed Mimuś) to the Zienowiczes’ home in Vilnius. From then on Helena Zienowicz (1906-1985) took care of us for the entire duration of the Nazi occupation. She was a nun of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the Vilnius Congregation on Rossa Street (commonly called Wizytka). Mimuś and his sister were picked up after the War by their father Dr. Gabaj (...)

“Helena Zienowicz took care of me like a mother for all of eighteen years, until I repatriated to Poland. These years were far from easy...In addition, we didn’t know Polish at all when we got to her house, and we were supposed to pass for her nephews, or for her own children in other situations. I was a talkative and sociable 4-year-old then, but I spoke only Yiddish and Lithuanian. My adoptive mother didn’t know either of these languages, while neither Renana nor I understood Polish. I had a tendency to spontaneously greet any visitors and demonstrate my newly learned Polish sentences, which I pronounced with a Yiddish accent. (...)The threat persisted nonetheless. My mum told Danusia (Renana) and me that we really needed to pray and be prepared to die, because they could take us to Ponary, that she would go and die with us, and that we shouldn’t be afraid of anything. Her assurances gave me a sense of security. I never felt fear around my mother. Instead she was afraid for me.” Wilhelm Zienowicz

In June 1941 two-year-old Masza and her parents were in the Vilnius Ghetto. “My mother was certain she would die and was forced to work outside the Ghetto, so she took me to an arranged place and handed me over to my nanny. The German who was in charge of convoying Jews turned a blind eye. This was in October 1941. My beloved nanny changed my surname to match hers, and also changed my date of birth somewhat. From this point on I became Marysia Butkiewicz, who was born on 12 May 1939 in Vilnius. I was very ill after my stay in the Ghetto; I was full of lice and covered with scabs. My nanny went to a lot of trouble to nurse me back to a more or less healthy state. I quickly had to learn a new name. I began to hide and to escape. First with my nanny’s brother in Vilnius, then at her cousin’s place in Niemenczyn near Vilnius, where we stayed until the end of the War. I remember suddenly getting up at night, lying flat in the forest, and Germans on motorcycles riding through the forest. I had to know my name if I was suddenly woken up, know how to cross myself and how to say a prayer. I had to prove at all times that I wasn’t Jewish, but it was difficult because I had black curly hair. (...) My nanny stayed with me for the rest of her days until 1990. She was posthumously awarded the medal of the Righteous Among the Nations in 1992.” Maria Kowalska

Little Renia (born in 1939) was taken out of the Brody Ghetto by her nanny. “My nanny saved me from certain death. She was a person with a big heart and an extraordinary strength of spirit. She had worked for my parents for thirteen years before the War and she enjoyed their respect and friendship. (...) I landed in the Ghetto along with some closer and more distant relatives. My parents couldn’t come to grips with this terrible reality. My nanny was a providential person, she brought essential food and clothing to us in the Ghetto. It took a lot of courage to visit the Ghetto so often. She had her ways of helping us (like bribing the guards).

“Some time later my nanny managed to undertake a very brave step: she saved me by taking me by the hand and leading me out of the Ghetto. She then arranged the relevant documents, testifying that I was her daughter. She changed my surname to hers of course: Hromiak. My adopted father really longed to baptise me. (...) From the moment I was baptised, I constantly experienced the good coming from God and other people. I received the names Irena Stanisława during my baptism. I quickly learned prayers: the Lord’s Prayer, the Angelic Greeting and the Prayer to the Guardian Angel. However, I resisted this teaching, as I didn’t see a need to pray and I couldn’t understand the words. I called the nanny ‘Mum’. I overcame my doubts after a while. In this way Christ came to me.”

Her father and brother sought refuge on the Aryan side after the Brody Ghetto was liquidated in the summer of 1942. Maria Hromiak found them a hiding place at a Ukrainian peasant’s place.

“My loved ones were tucked away in stacks of straw. The ‘service’ was payable in monthly instalments. They were killed in early 1944. Either they were handed over to the German authorities, or they were murdered by the Ukrainian peasant who hid them. My mother spiraled into a depression and was close to going insane. She wanted to commit suicide, but she didn’t do it because of me. It was the most tragic time for my mother and me. I stayed with my adoptive mother, who was in great pain and without any means of support. We were out of money, since we had to pay for my father’s and brother’s hideouts. My mum started working so that we wouldn’t go hungry (...).”Renia and her adoptive mother repatriated to Poland after Liberation. They moved into a wretched attic flat in Opole that lacked water or sanitation. Maria Hromiak worked as a bricklayer’s helper in cement masonry. She lived with her daughter until the end of her life.

“(...) In 1991 we were greeted by misfortune: my mother died after a fatal stroke. So I lost my second mother, who loved me completely and unconditionally. Her love for me made her change the whole course of her life. She didn’t establish a family because of me and she never had a child of her own. (...) It was an extremely important event in my life when my mum was honoured with a Righteous Among the Nations medal. (...) It was my honour to receive the Award on behalf of my deceased mother. It was a great and touching celebration. I felt like I was the one who had received this medal. This ceremony strengthened my sense of identity even more. The medal has a beautiful inscription: ‘Whoever saves one life, saves the entire world’. My mother had saved the entire world and had experienced much suffering, life-threatening situations, and loss of her own family. I offer my gratitude to my adopted mum for the gift of life, and to my parents and brother: a tribute to their martyrdom.” Irena Szczurek

In July 1943, three-year-old Estusia was led out of the Zawiercie Ghetto. Her father placed her in the care of her Polish nanny. “I don’t remember my father leading me to Marysia, but my brain began to run on different, higher frequencies from the moment she took my hand. I wasn’t afraid of Marysia, I knew her and liked her very much. (...) From the moment I crossed the Ghetto border I became someone else. I knew that my name was now Dzidzia Matysek (that was Marysia’s surname), I never made the mistake of saying that my name was Estusia Zerykier.”

Two German officers were supposed to help in the hiding of the girls, but they withdrew their help at the last minute. “(...) Marysia only rented a corner to sleep in in the shared room with some old (at least I thought so at the time) woman. Fortunately, she was already asleep. We got into our bed. I went to sleep but I’m sure that Marysia didn’t close her eyes. In the morning the ‘old woman’ told Marysia to move me out immediately. I know the following only from what I was told. Marysia contacted my parents in the evening and took me to Mrs. S, who lived one street over, and I was to be hidden at her place ‘until the War was over’.”

However, Mrs S. decided that hiding the girl any longer was impossible, and she took her to the village. Dzidzia lived in Koziegłowy with Mrs. Dąbrowska, a widow who had two daughters. She no longer had to sit in the closet and her nanny often visited her. (...) “Marysia would initially come to see me every week or two. It was a terrible trip for her. She could go by train part of the way, she would then have to go through the forest on foot for about 10 km. She would come on Saturdays and leave on Sundays. She would bring some better food, which she managed to get with ration cards or from her family in the village. She also gathered blackberries for me on her way there in August and September. Good God, but they were delicious!”

Dzidzia stayed at Mrs. Dąbrowska’s from August 1943 to February 1944. The neighbour, a shoemaker named Mizera, guessed that Dzidzia was a Jewish child. He gave the caretaker an ultimatum: she would either get rid of her, or he would denounce her to the Gestapo himself.

“I don’t know and I’ll never find out how Marysia was able to influence Mrs. S. to take me in again. (...) I presume that she threatened Mrs. S. with disclosing her arrangements with the Germans. (...) I was alone all day. Mrs. S. and her daughters would go out in the early morning and return late. They would leave me the food that Marysia had brought me in the evening and something I could drink throughout the day. My dear Marysia would come every evening. She would bring food, take the chamberpot, and (what was most important to me) she hugged and kissed me and promised that when the War ended we’d always be together and she would buy me as much candy as I wanted. (...) Once Marysia happened to be at the place where I was staying when we heard Germans unexpectedly stomping around downstairs in the hallway. One second later Marysia and I were already both in the coal bin, which was just outside the door next to the flat.

“They entered. You could hear them raising their voices. We crouched on top of the coal. Thank you, God! They wouldn’t find us here. We prayed silently and thanked God. You could see the moon and the stars on a cloudless sky through the small window. To this day I can still picture this full moon. Marysia whispered in my ear, ‘Don’t be afraid, Dzidzia, they won’t come in here. See how beautiful the moon and the stars are. Soon, when the War is over, we will look at them every night.’” Dzidzia’s father survived Auschwitz and found his daughter afterward. (...)

“Dad, Marysia, and I soon moved in together. My father knew how much Marysia meant to me and how much I loved her. She was the best mother for me. I couldn’t imagine life without her. Subconsciously I was constantly shaking in fear that she would leave us. My father loved me so much that he would never hurt me. He married Marysia In 1951 after my grandfather died. Marysia lived to a ripe old age. She died when she was 92. Unfortunately, she suffered from Alzheimer’s disease for the last five years of her life. She required greater and more intensive round-the-clock care. My beloved husband and I ensured that she got it. We stayed by her side until her final moments. I could at least pay off part of the debt I owed her for my life. Marysia didn’t even want to hear that I applied for a medal of the Righteous among Nations for her. She would always say, ‘I saved you out of love, not to get awards or money.’

“She finally agreed, however, as more and more medals began to be shown on TV. In 1984 she was honoured with the Righteous Among the Nations award by Yad Vashem. She no longer had the strength to go to Israel and plant a tree herself. I did it on her behalf, and I got official permission then to get a passport and travel. During this time Krzysiu went with her to Warsaw to receive the medal. She was very happy! And so were we.” Danuta Hawel

Joasia was born in 1939 in Baranowice, where her family happened to be during their flight to the East. In June 1941 the Germans entered the city: her father worked in a hospital, and he was executed along with the staff and the hospital patients. Her mother was killed by Germans in the Baranowice market square - the man from whom she had bought false documents had denounced her. Then her grandmother died leaving her all alone.

“Some people I knew hid me from the Germans in the basement, until a woman arrived from Warsaw who agreed, for a large sum of money, to take me to the rest of my family in the Warsaw Ghetto. It was early 1942. (...) Fortunately, in early 1943 my father’s old friend who resided outside the Ghetto with Aryan papers came to my family in the Ghetto. She decided to take me to her place. After bribing the guard she got into a cab with me. I remember the trip to her flat in Mokotów very well. I was scared, I was sitting under a blanket and I saw only the horse’s legs trotting over the cobblestones. (...)

“I returned to health under Marysia’s loving care - I called her ‘Mum’. My hair grew back and I got rid of the ulcers on my scalp. I didn’t leave the house, and during unexpected visits I would run to the loft and sit there like a mouse. (...).” After the Warsaw Uprising Joasia and her caregiver went to Kraków. (...) “After the liberation of Kraków the wife of my uncle Julian (my real mother Jadwiga’s brother) came. It felt tragic when she told me that Marysia wasn’t my mother. I felt cheated. Jadwiga took me away from my beloved Marysia (whom I called Mum for the rest of her life) and she drove me to our relatives, Mr. and Mrs. Szulkin in Łódź.” Joanna Berens-Tomczyńska

In September 1941 Jadzia (born in 1940) found herself in the Vilnius Ghetto. After her husband and two sons died, Jadzia’s mother found her shelter on the Aryan side. When her mother was shot dead her guardians decided to give the child up to the Germans.

“The man I was given to for safekeeping informed the gendarmerie that he had found a Jewish child. He led me to the blacksmith’s forge where he worked, and we waited for a policeman to come there. I was saved by Władysław Seroczyński, who was working there, and he later became my father. He told me that regardless of the consequences he wouldn’t give me up to anyone. When the policeman arrived, he took him to one side and talked with him in German for a long time. In the end the German turned around, said he had small children of his own at home and...he went away. I can still see the scene. I even think that he had tears in his eyes when he was leaving.

“And so I became a member of the Seroczyński family. My adoptive parents had no children, and they immediately baptised me as their daughter in November 1944.” Jadwiga Hreniak

POLISH RELATIVES

Before the War mixed Christian/Jewish marriages were very rare and often weren’t accepted by either family. During the occupation however, emotional ties and loyalty to Jewish family members turned out to be stronger than fear of the Germans.

Henia’s mother was Jewish and her father was Polish. Just before the War broke out her parents decided to flee from the Germans to the Soviet Union. Two-year-old Henia was then staying in Włocławek with her Polish grandparents. “So they came to Włocławek from Warsaw, intending to take me with them. My grandparents told them that if they took me to this place of exile and misery, then a small child like me would die or starve to death. My parents left me with my grandparents and went away. They weren’t alone, since they fled in a large group of people who were mostly Jews. They escaped to the East, because they assumed that the Germans wouldn’t get that far beyond our eastern border.

“My grandparents, Maria and Stanisław Konopczyński, baptised me and changed only some parts of my birth certificate: my birthplace was changed from Warsaw to Włocławek and my mother’s name was changed from Perła to Apolonia. I know all of this from my grandparents. After the Germans entered Włocławek there were some people who informed them that my grandparents were keeping a Jewish child at home. We stayed in a large building on the first floor. The Krygiers lived on the ground floor. They were also a mixed marriage - she was a Pole and he was a German. Mrs. Krygier was a fine woman. She used to warn my grandparents when the Gestapo was supposed to come. She would tell my grandmother, ‘Mrs. Konopczyńska, today you have to leave with Henia because they’ll come.’

“Throughout the occupation I was taken from the house during the day: to the woods, to a field where I was hidden in crops and in ditches overgrown with bushes. Winter was the worst. We hid in the stables to be warmer. My grandfather was always by my side. He risked his life hiding me from the Germans. I don’t know how Mrs. Krygier gathered the information that was so important for us, but it was probably from her daughter, who wore a German uniform. I know that both my grandparents and Mrs. Krygier (for informing us of imminent danger) would have been shot for hiding a Jewish child. We lived in this way throughout the entire War. We also hid in villages. My grandmother stayed with me outside the home for weeks. She knitted sweaters or socks out of old wool that she unraveled out of our old clothing. She would give them to peasants for a bowl of soup and a piece of bread. I remember that we walked everywhere and that my legs really hurt. My grandmother almost went blind from the knitting, she could hardly see anything during the evenings.

“We were both so skinny that we resembled human shadows. I also remember that the Nazis came into our courtyard (though I don’t know exactly when that was). No one was able to hide me in time. I managed to scramble into a huge empty drum that had held beetroot spread (the Krygiers had a grocery store in the house and would put their empty containers in the yard), and I sat there until the evening, scraping leftover beetroot spread off the barrel walls. I instinctively knew that I had to hide, because at this point no one could help me. I still can’t look at beetroot spread to this day. Because of me, my grandparents and I didn’t have a life, we just existed during the War. We lived in great tension and we were almost overly vigilant. My grandparents didn’t sleep at night, constantly listening out for signs of trouble. And I was mature beyond my age and always ready to run for it. That’s what our daily life back then was like. I didn’t have any news about my parents for five years, and my old grandparents were everything to me: my parents and my whole family. I have only them to thank for being alive.” Henryka Trzcińska-Strzelecka

Wiesio (born in 1930) had a Jewish father and a Polish mother. The boy’s mother’s relatives hid him from 1941 (when the Germans entered Dobromil [41]) until the end of the War. “We were talking in the kitchen when the doorbell rang! We looked out of the window. Two uniformed Germans were standing at the gate with their dogs. My aunt said: ‘Quick, go and hide in the attic.’ I did as she told me, but I wasn’t aware of the horror yet - the huge threat that was looming over me.

“I didn’t realise what could happen to me from one moment to the next. I only knew that something bad was happening. I certainly wouldn’t have survived this today. I quickly ran to the attic. I hid behind the chimney. My aunt Bronia talked with them on the ground floor. Then one of the Germans began to search the rooms one by one. He came into the room where I lived. But during the day we always tried not to leave the slightest trace that I was staying in this room (or in the entire house for that matter). My aunt explained to the Germans that this was the girls’ room (my cousins). But they didn’t give up. One of them climbed the ladder to the attic! It was dark up there. I stood behind the chimney. He shone his flashlight around the attic. I was terrified...fortunately the attic was tidied up. They would surely have been curious to look further if there had been some lumber there. But in this case he came down. After a short time the two Germans left the house. When they had left for good my aunt was covered in cold sweat. She was shaking all over with fear. Before that I had never seen her so changed. My cousins later returned. We all realised what a horror this had been! After all, they would have shot everyone in the household.” Wiesław Ostern

JEWISH AID COUNCIL (ŻEGOTA)

On 27 September 1942 Zofia Kossak-Szczucka [42] and Wanda Krahelska-Filipowicz [43] created a temporary Committee to Aid Jews, which was set up in Konrad Żegota’s name. In December it was transformed by the Government Delegation for Poland into the Jewish Aid Council, which was codenamed Żegota. At that time most Jews from the General Government had already been annihilated, while tens of thousands were hiding on the Aryan side. A small group of Żegota members, numbering a few dozen people, helped by providing false documents for ghetto refugees (approximately 60,000), as well as shelter, material assistance, medical care, and childcare.

In Warsaw the children’s office, headed by Irena Sendler from the autumn of 1943, saved 2500 Jewish children. About 500 were hidden in orphanages run by religious congregations, 500 in the Central Welfare Council’s institutions, and approximately 200 in the Emergency Municipal Welfare in the Father Bouden House. Approximately 1300 children were placed in Polish families (Zegota paid for their upkeep), while youth aged 15 to 16 went to the partisans.

Żegota received grants from the Delegation of the Polish Government in Exile, Jewish organisations, and donations from Polish society. It operated between 1942-45 and was the only state institution in Europe that assisted Jews.

Nine-year-old Janeczka escaped with her mother and sister to the Aryan side just before the Kraków Ghetto was liquidated. Żegota helped them out. “We miraculously managed to get to my grandfather’s house at 11b Sebastian Street, where the caretaker was very involved in Żegota underground work and actions to help Jews, supervised by the renowned writer and historian, Zofia Kossak-Szczucka (with the pseudonym Weronika). ‘Weronika’ ran a ‘nursery’, or a cell for people in need of immediate assistance.

“She lobbied for funds for ghetto refugees. She badgered landowning and intelligentsia families to help out. She had contacts with the pre-war military, while priests that she knew helped her create false documents and baptism certificates, and they also helped place children in homes run by nuns. She saved thousands of Jewish children.

“And so ‘Weronika’ also helped us acquire false documents in the name of Kwiatkowski. My mother and I were then taken by train to Warsaw, in the care of the liaison,. Aleksandra Mianowska, nicknamed Krysta (now a medical doctor), and placed (...) with Henryk and Janina Jętkiewicz’s family. (...) This was a family ‘Weronika’ was friends with, working together with her for the needs of the Polish underground, government delegations, and Żegota organisations. They lived at 11 Twarda Street (within the former Ghetto).” Janina Pietrasiak

[1] Halina: Haneczka’s name during the occupation which she still uses to this day.

[2] Gadzinówka: the derogatory slang name of the Polish-language newspaper issued by the German and Soviet occupiers instead of the abolished Polish newspapers. Cooperation with the Gadzinowa press was considered collaboration, though the Polish populace bought a million copies of these cheap daily newspapers.

[3] Irena Chmieleńska took care of Joasia after she left the Ghetto.

[4] Joachim Allerhand escaped on the way to the Janowski Camp. He survived the occupation in Jaworow, working as a carpenter with Aryan papers.

[5] Until 1939 the town of Turka was the seat of local government in the Lwów Province of Poland. In the spring of 1942 the Germans established an open ghetto in Turka. Jews from the surrounding villages were resettled there in July. The ghetto’s inhabitants, who numbered between 5000 and 6000 people, were deported in August to the Bełżec death camp.

[6] After leaving the Ghetto, Estusia Zerykier was named Dzidzia Matysek.

[7] In November 1941 seven thousand Jews from Zawiercie and the surrounding area were sent to the Ghetto. The Ghetto was liquidated in August 1943. All of its inhabitants were deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau. Seven of them survived the War.

[8] There is no consensus about whether a ghetto or labour camp functioned in Rabka. At the end of August 1943 Rabka’s Jewish residents, with the exception of approximately 200 Jews from the labour camp, were deported to the Bełżec death camp. The labour camp finally closed down on 1 September 1943. Some of the prisoners were shot, others were taken to the camp in Płaszów.

[9] In April 1941, the Germans established a ghetto in Ostrowiec. In 1942 Jews from Sandomierz and the surrounding areas were relocated there. The population then was approximately 15,000 to 16,000 people. On 11-12 October 1942 the Germans deported 11,000 people to the Treblinka extermination camp, 2000 were killed on the spot, and the rest were gathered in a labour camp. The camp was finally liquidated in August 1944 and the prisoners were sent to the Auschwitz extermination camp.

[10] The ghetto in Próżan was created in August 1941. In October 6500 Jews from Białystok, Białowieża, Stołpce, Nowy Dwór, Kamieniec, Bereza, and many other places were deported there. In total there were 18,000 people in the ghetto. Between late 1941 and early 1942, six thousand people died from hunger, cold, and disease. The rest were deported by the Nazis to the camp in Auschwitz at the end of January 1943.

[11] Chana, who was called Haneczka at home, hid as “Halina”.

[12] Chana’s father, Hersh Leib Grynberg, escaped from a transport going to Treblinka and survived the War.

[13] Sister Wanda Longina Trudzińska, along with seven pupils of the complex aged 10 to 12, was killed on 16 May 1944 by UPA [Ukraińska Powstańcza Armia, the “Army of the Ukrainian Uprising”] bands. The corpses were found in 1975 and buried in Stara Wieś.

[14] Maksymilian Meloch, who was Kasia’s father, was killed in the first days of the German-Soviet War in 1941. Her mother, Wanda (née Goldman), was killed that same year. Kasia stayed in the Białystok and Warsaw Ghettos. A nurse named Ala Grynberg brought her to the Aryan side in the summer of 1942.

[15] Ela was born into a mixed marriage. Her mother died early in the War, and her father stayed in the Ludwisin Ghetto near Jabłonna.

[16] Blackmailer (szmalcownik): during the Nazi occupation, a person forcing Jews to pay protection money not to be denounced to the Germans..

[17] Halina Antonowicz, a registered nurse, took Joasia and her mother into her flat in Żoliborz. On the basis of their forged documents, she arranged registration and food ration cards for them.

[18] In 1990, Jerzy Kaputek, who died in 1967, was posthumously awarded the medal of Righteous Among the Nations, and his name was placed on the wall at Yad Vashem.

[19] Wandzia was led out of the Ghetto through the sewer. Afterward she changed her places of refuge frequently. In the end, another caregiver left the girl alone at the Dworzec Główny (“Main Station”) in Warsaw.

[20] Halina’s mother was Polish and her father was Jewish. He died in prison in the winter of 1942. Her mother made it to Warsaw with her and they moved into their cousin’s studio flat.

[21] In January 1943 nine-year-old Jochewed’s father brought her out of the Warsaw Ghetto and placed her in the care of her family’s pre-war servant.

[22] Administrative limit on the number of Jewish students in proportion to the Jewish population.

[23] In fact, the Jewish residents of Nowe Brzesko were driven from their homes in September 1942, the old and the sick were shot in Nowy Rynek [‘New Market’], while the rest were transported to the Miechów Ghetto. From there they were sent to camps in Sobibór, Bełżec, or Treblinka.

[24] The Sosnowiec Ghetto had a population of approximately 45,000 inhabitants; Jews who had been evicted from the surrounding areas ended up there in addition to locals. The liquidation began in 1942; the first transport to the death camps of Auschwitz-Birkenau left on 12 May. Another one left in June and another in August. In October 1942, a decision was made to isolate the Jewish population in the Środula, Stary Sosnowiec, and Modrzejewo Ghettos. Środula was designed for young people who were able to work and was surrounded by barbed wire. In May and June 1943 the Germans deported more than 1000 people from Środula to Auschwitz. The main liquidation Aktion took place on 1-6 August. The Nazis then fought against the Jewish resistance movement.

[25] The old lady from the Carmelite Church settled in Kraków after the War, and was cared for by Leszek and his family until she died.

[26] Bahnschutzpolizei: German railway police

[27] It is difficult to estimate the number of Poles who were executed for helping Jews. Historians differ in their assessments. There were 704 documented cases in the list drawn up by the Main Commission for the Investigation of Nazi Crimes (verified in 1997 by employees of the Main Commission for the Investigation of Crimes against the Polish Nation of the Institute of National Remembrance). The list is incomplete and is being continuously updated.

[28] An open ghetto was established in Mosty Wielkie in the summer of 1941. In the autumn Germans resettled part of the population to Sokal and Żółkiew. Approximately 4000 people remained in place, and a labour camp was also in operation. The ghetto was liquidated in February 1943. Approximately 2000 Jews were shot in the nearby forest. The labour camp was liquidated in May.

[29] In March 1942, approximately 700 Jews living in Żółkiew who were deemed unfit for work by the Germans were deported to the death camp in Bełżec. In November a ghetto was created and 2500 people were sent to Bełżec (880 died during deportation). In March 1943 six hundred men were transported to the Janowski camp and 3500 ghetto inhabitants were shot. Dozens of Jews survived who hid in bunkers or were rescued by local people.

[30] Sambor is now in western Ukraine.

[31] The Chełm Ghetto was created at the end of 1941 for 11,000 Jews and a number of Roma. Germany began liquidating the Ghetto in May 1942 and 4000 people were deported to the Sobibór extermination camp. Slovakian Jews took their place. From July to November 1942 more than 3500 residents from the Chełm Ghetto were taken to Sobibór. Others working in the labour camp were transported there in January and March 1943.

[32] Navy Blue Police: common name of the Polish General Government Police. It was established by order of Governor General Hans Frank on 17 December 1939. It recruited pre-war police who were forcibly incorporated into the new force. Those who refused or quit the force were threatened by the death penalty or concentration camps. Navy policemen guarded the ghettos, and they took part in deportations, round-ups, and executions. Some of them worked with the underground.

[33] Volksliste: the German nationality list was divided into four categories. Category II (Deutschstammige) consisted of people who considered themselves Germans, spoke German every day, and cultivated German culture, but were politically inactive.

[34] The Święciany Ghetto existed between 1941 and 1943. Its inhabitants were killed in Ponary near Vilnius or were shot on the spot (on 8-9 October 1941 the training ground was the scene of the murder of 2726 men, women, and children). It is now called Švenčionys and is part of Lithuania.

[35] Chana: Róża’s sister.

[36] Skałat is now part of western Ukraine.

[37] RGO (Central Welfare Council): Polish charity organisation focused on helping the Polish populace. It was approved by the occupation authorities and it functioned during both World Wars. It worked with Jewish organisations in defiance of German prohibitions, caring and providing assistance to the Jews.

[38] Baranowicze [Baranovichi] is currently in Belarus.

[39] Joanna Beata Miclic, “Dzieci żydowskie w Polsce w czasie okupacji niemieckiej”. Otwarta Rzeczpospolita 19.02.2011

[40] Between August and September 1941 Jews from the Birsztajny, Puni, and Stokliszki areas were resettled to Butrymańce. With the help of Lithuanian police officers, Einsatzgruppen troops shot 740 people on 9 September in the nearby forest, mostly women and children.

[41] Dobromil: currently in western Ukraine.

[42] Zofia Kossak-Szczucka: novelist who was associated with Catholic nationalist circles before the War and co-founder of two secret organisations during the occupation (National Revival Front and Żegota). She published an underground document entitled “Protest” in August 1942, which details the crimes committed against the Jews in Poland. She was honoured with a Righteous Among the Nations award.

[43] Wanda Krahelska-Filipowicz, artist and publisher, Polish Socialist Party activist, member of the Polish Socialist Party militant organisation, co-founder of the Żegota Council for Aiding Jews. Honoured with a Righteous Among the Nations award.

In the Camps

In July 1941 approximately 3,000,000 Jews lived in the areas occupied by Germany. About 80,000 to 90,000 were liberated – about 20 percent of them survived in concentration and labour camps. [1]

MAJDANEK

The German concentration camp Lublin was colloquially called “Majdanek” (from the Majdan Tatar district of Lublin where the camp was located). During the period of the camp’s operation (1941–44), transports of Jewish prisoners were taken there from Polish and foreign territories. Members of the resistance movement and the Polish intelligentsia, villagers from the Zamość region, people who were rounded up, and Soviet prisoners all ended up there as well. Jews, sick people, and those unable to work were killed in gas chambers – 50 per cent of Jewish transports were sent there immediately after arriving. Carbon monoxide was used in the chambers; Zyklon B was also experimented with. The corpses were cremated and the residue was ground into powder and used as fertilizer on a nearby SS farm. Children under 15 (who accounted for 6 per cent of the prisoners) were murdered in the gas chambers after days or weeks in the camp. Between May and August of 1943 there were three such Kinderaktions. Nearly 150,000 people passed through the camp, 78,000 of whom were killed. The majority of the victims (59,000) were Jews. [2]

In August 1942 Marek, aged 13, was taken from the Warsaw Ghetto to the Fort Wola labour camp and stayed there for eight months. In April 1943 all prisoners were taken to the concentration camp in Majdanek. From there the boy was taken to Auschwitz-Birkenau (for fifteen months), then Sachsenhausen, the camp in Odruff, back to Sachsenhausen, and then to a camp in Nossen in Saxony.

“We arrive in cars to Befehlstelle [3] on Żelazna Street. We stay in the yard for about ten hours without moving. From the top young junaks (Youth Brigaders) spit on us and throw garbage on us. We move out in the afternoon. We pass through the empty, dead, and burned streets of the Ghetto. We approach the famous Umschlagplatz, where all the Jews are gathered before they are transported. There are more people there. They sit motionless in the dirty and bloody yard, sluggish and indifferent. They take us to the second floor. They herd us into a room. It gets so crowded that you can’t change positions or even move your hand.

“I’m starting to feel painfully hungry. Every now and then one of the black-clad Ukrainians or Lithuanians comes by the door, standing defiantly with his hands on his hips, and asks hoarsely: ‘Does anybody have a watch? Does anybody have good boots? Does anybody have leather gloves? Give them to us, they’ll take them anyway!’ Because no one wants to give him anything he throws a random heavy object into the room or shoots his gun and walks away, muttering some curse under his breath. Before evening they command, ‘Everyone down!’ We run down one by one through winding, narrow, and slippery stairs, herded from behind by the Youth Brigade. There is a ‘surprise’ waiting for us at the bottom. Two Youth Brigaders stand on both sides. The passage is so narrow that only one person can get through at a time. One of the Youth Brigade members holds a rifle while another one has a long rubber truncheon. They both strike us quickly and systematically, swinging with all their strength. I get hit in the back with the rifle butt and bashed on the head with the truncheon. I lose consciousness for a moment, then I’m thrown out into the yard. There are a few thousand people in the square; the Brigaders hit them with all their strength and push everyone inside.

“The huge, bleeding crowd of people is chased around the square, herded from place to place by the furious Youth Brigaders. Still stunned by the blows I received, I try to stay in the middle of the crowd and not fall down. Anyone who falls is soon trampled. I see our former policeman, Grynszpan, next to me. He has turned completely red and is stumbling around with his head cracked open; his wife and sister-in-law are holding him up. Finally we get on to the platform one by one. I cannot begin to describe the bestial scenes taking place while we are entering the wagons. We are finally in the car – there are seventy-five of us. There aren’t that many of us, apparently 120 at a time went to Treblinka. There are various inscriptions on the walls; this was someone’s way of saying goodbye to the world. In the evening it gets awfully stuffy. The window is boarded shut. Movements become sluggish and slow, there is no air to breathe. We take off all our clothes and slump passively to the floor. Old women and some children fall to the ground. They are dying.

“Dr Grodzieński takes out a vial of poison, looks wild-eyed and numb at his wife, then looks at Dr Hajman and his wife – but doesn’t have the courage to make use of it. At night, someone manages to open a small window; people fight mercilessly for access to it. Suddenly they disperse. Those who can no longer take it come up, swaying - they prefer to risk it. Dr Landesman throws his young wife out, then jumps himself. Miedziński jumps out with little Aria and someone else. A few shots are heard, then silence. Dawn breaks. We stop at some larger station. Some little ragamuffins run up to the car with water. Several times Dr Grodzieński gives them a couple of thousand złoty for a bottle of water, but they don’t bring it. Finally, when he gives them all his money, someone honest brings him a nearly full bottle. It gets chaotic in the car, they try to rip the bottle from his hands and the expensive drink gets spilled. Finally Dr. Grodzieński manages to get the rest of the water back and lets me drink some of it.

“This refreshes me a little, and at any rate it is already day. We arrive in Lublin around noon and stand there for a few hours, after which the train slowly gets to some railway siding, where a huge gate opens up and the entire train rolls into a huge square. The gate closes. It’s Hugplatz. After cleaning the train of corpses and impurities we get into formations of ten and face the centre of the square. There are a few thousand people. They begin to slowly lead us somewhere. Soon we go through a big gate and on to a road. Only now do I notice a tall tower and a huge black flag with a skull. Suddenly I hear a terrible noise and growling! A whole pack of big dogs comes out of nowhere, barking furiously and baring their teeth, with SS officers coming up behind them. Of course, the dogs are kept on leashes, otherwise not much would have been left of us. A short order is issued. Scared to death, we quickly form up in groups of ten. I can see that it will be a long march. I try to keep to the centre of the group. The march turns into a run, faster and faster, the column thins out. More people lag behind, and anyone who falls down doesn’t get back up.

“The SS officers keep allowing the dogs to go to the side of the formation, and the dogs tug at our clothing and bite painfully. Those who lack the strength to continue running are either shot by the SS or mauled to death by the dogs. By the forest the road twists; we run about two more kilometres, then slow down. More than a hundred people were left along the way. We are getting closer to a camp, because voices can be heard from a distance and symmetrically placed barracks appear. We come to a gate on the left side of the road and make up groups of five and slowly begin to enter it. This is an empty square with no barracks, although large piles of coal lie there. At the entrance they give each group of ten a small loaf of bread, which disappears in a flash. (...) In the morning some SS officers came and took us by the hundreds to bathe. I had already heard about the system of mass murdering people under the guise of a bath, and so I was completely prepared to die. I didn’t listen to what others were saying, because I would have probably gone mad if I had.

“I tried not to look at the heartbreaking scenes of farewell. Women and men were taken separately. Husbands could not break away from their wives and daughters. When there weren’t enough volunteers for a given group of a hundred, they herded and lined us up by force. I did not care. I stood in the formation and plugged my ears. They led us back the same way we had come until we stood in front of a long building. It was the ‘sauna’ or camp bath. They drove us to the barracks next to the ‘sauna’ and told us to undress, throwing everything into a pile of rags. Then everyone came out of the barracks naked, and a prisoner assisting an SS officer closely examined us all, without omitting any place where something could be hidden.

“Then each person in turn ran to the bathhouse, driven by the whip of the SS officer standing in the doorway. In the first room barbers shaved off all our hair. Then we were placed in a long line, and one by one we passed through a narrow corridor on the opposite side which had two exits. On the left, I saw some showers, so I guessed that we would bathe there. But I also noticed that they weren’t letting everyone through. Standing near the door a senior officer with very slight hand movements directs some to the right. I look more closely. Here comes Dr Hajman, tall, thin, and very angular. He looks at him quickly then points to the right. Then Lipman with a crooked hip goes in. Immediately to the right. Now I understand. This officer is a Lagerarzt, or camp doctor, and we are being selected. That was the first selection in my life in a camp.

“When we stood under the shower and waited for the water, I still couldn’t believe that this was just a bath. We all thought that gas would soon flow out of the taps and end it all. I didn’t believe it until we were actually covered with streams of hot water, which was a great pleasure. After the bath we were given camp clothes and wooden clogs, and they put us in the yard, where every group of ten received loaves of bread (which disappeared in the blink of an eye). Now we believed that we would live – but for how long?” Marek Sznajderman

Sixteen-year-old Jakub survived the Warsaw Ghetto deportations in hiding with his mother. During the Uprising he was hiding with his family in a bunker that was discovered and its inhabitants taken to the concentration camp in Majdanek.

“The train was unloaded at a Lublin railway station, where they drove everyone on foot to the concentration camp in Majdanek. During this march many people were also murdered because the escorts shot people who fell down. This march felt very painful because my mother made me put on women’s boots with high heels which made me taller when they pulled us out of the bunker. She probably saved my life this way, because when I arrived at the camp during the SS selection I found myself in the column of men sent to work. However, my mother and brother were herded to the group destined for extermination. They were killed in a gas chamber in Majdanek.

“I spent more than two months in Barracks 21 in Area IV of Majdanek. Every day was a struggle for survival. In July of 1943 I ended up in a transport sent to the camp in Skarzysko-Kamienna (Werk C). I worked in a munitions factory there, dismantling missiles. I fell ill with typhus. While I was ill, the Germans conducted a selection and I ended up in a group intended to be shot (such was the method of killing in the camp in Skarżysko). The dentist Alter Rosenberg pulled me out of it and cared for me throughout my stay in the camp, as well as after the War.” Jakub Gutenbaum

RAVENSBRÜCK

The German concentration camp in the village of Ravensbrück in Germany was designed for women and operated from 1939 to 1945. It had seventy sub-camps (not only for women). The prisoners were used as slave labour for German companies. They died of exhaustion, hunger, and disease, and were killed in mass executions (Jewish and Polish women from the resistance movement). Pseudo-medical experiments were also performed on them. Close to 132,000 women and children of twenty-seven nationalities were sent to the camp, 92,000 of whom were killed.

Zosia stayed with her family in the Łódź Ghetto until the summer of 1944. She was 11 years old when she was sent to the camp in Ravensbrück. “This lasted until the end of the summer of 1944 when I was taken together with my mother to Ravensbrück concentration camp. I spent the first period here in the famous tent-camp with a group of Gypsies, and later I lived with them in Block 23 as political prisoner no. 79393. My mother worked hard, often outside the camp cutting down trees. Hungry and sick for some time, she ended up in the sickbay. I was left alone - fortunately not for too long. In December 1944 on Christmas Eve they took us children to the Jugendlager. I saw beautifully laid out tables, sagging from - it seemed to me - the weight of all the food. I brought my mum an apple which I ended up eating myself. It was my only apple during the war”.

“As the front approached, the liquidation of the camp began. In this way, I found myself in another camp: Koenigs Wusterhausen. It was a less rigorous camp than Ravensbrück, but it wasn’t good to get sick there either. I had a high temperature, an inflamed bladder, and mumps as well. Complications of the diseases from that time have left their mark to this day, but I nevertheless remember this period better than others. Perhaps the approaching end of the war meant that our supervisors were less cruel. In any case, I don’t remember them torturing prisoners or shooting at them at that time.” Zofia Lubińska

GROSS-ROSEN

The German concentration camp Gross-Rosen operated between 1940 and 1945 and contained more than a hundred labour camps located in Silesia, the Czech Republic, and Germany. There were approximately 125,000 prisoners from more than twenty countries in the Gross-Rosen complex. Jews constituted the largest group (nearly 60,000) in addition to Poles and citizens of the Soviet Union. After the quarantine in Auschwitz, Jews from Płaszów and the Łódź Ghetto (as well as Greece, Hungary, and Western Europe) were sent there. The camp was set up for the exploitation of prisoners as a labour force and their extermination through work. Extremely harsh conditions prevailed in the camp. The estimated number of victims is 40,000 people.

Bronka (born in 1928) lived with her family in the small town of Poraj near Zawiercie, close to the German border. The Germans took her to the camp in Gross-Rosen. “In the cattle car, on the straw, humiliated, scorned, hungry, I’m going to camp. I’m going to the country of the master race to work as a slave under duress for five long years. (...) Now I’m writing from the camp: Mum, don’t worry about me. I go to work, I’m managing. Send me a pot for soup and a piece of soap. (...)

“As soon as I came to camp in Gross-Rosen, Komando Parschnitz, a German woman, took over our transport, a Lagersführerin, a burly blonde of the ‘blonde beast’ variety - who never parts with her whip. She looked at me carefully ... and stroked my head. Over the next few days when I returned from work she would put a big cup of hot milk in front of me. It was 6 kilometres (one way) from camp to work.

“At four in the morning we have roll-call. They count us, not without screaming vulgarities and insults, beatings and being driven about. In the dark and cold in my weakened hand I carry a pot of turnip soup. We go in a tight-knit group. We take it in turns to get some sleep while marching. We pass the windows of German houses, lit lamps, curtains... God, let me survive, go back to Mum, to warm comfortable bedding, under the protective wings of Dorota! [4] It is wet and dirty by the machine. I wear clogs on my feet. But I already know how to start it up by myself. On the other side there is a powerful German woman worker. Soon a Jewish girl will replace her. Nobody is sentimental here. We work to survive. Little hands fit perfectly into the steel reels.

“The camp regime became more strict. Letters from home stopped coming. Getting to work was increasingly difficult. My lace-up shoes hurt my growing feet. I sustained a deep cut from this machine. Conditions deteriorated. This was a concentration camp now - a branch of Gross-Rosen. At night, the SS officers came for selection. They sat around on chairs, while we paraded before them naked, barely alive. The next day a few of us were missing again - they were considered unfit to work for the Third Reich. I learned to knit, and thanks to this I soon had warm stockings and a shirt made from the yarn in my machine.

“I was left with one dress. Huge lice nested in the second warmer one. I’d never seen such bugs in my life. A billion bedbugs also gnawed at us. When debugging was arranged on Sunday, they were a huge crawling, bloodthirsty carpet. Despite this, at night we slept like logs because we were so exhausted. One day a group of Hungarian girls came. They all had shaved heads. Among them was a wonderful singer. She was very beautiful. We were incredibly lucky: she was willing to sing an aria from an opera for us. It was extraordinary. The next day they were all taken to a death camp. But the worst thing happened. I felt indifferent. Completely. I was now just number 21529. Nothing more. The only thing that kept me alive then was the hope that I would find my family where I had left them.” Bronka Niedźwiedzka

AUSCHWITZ-BIRKENAU

Auschwitz-Birkenau, set up in 1940 on the outskirts of Oświęcim (Auschwitz), was the largest Nazi concentration camp, and from 1942 the centre of mass extermination of Jews. The Auschwitz complex included: Auschwitz I (the base camp, mainly forced labour); Auschwitz II – Birkenau (initially a concentration camp, then equipped with a gas chamber and crematorium and turned into a place of mass extermination); and Auschwitz III Monowitz (a labour camp for IG Farben factories). Jews brought in from all over Europe were subjected to selection immediately after they exited the cars – usually 70 to 75 per cent of each transport was sent to the gas chambers. No record was kept of victims, and therefore it is impossible to determine their exact number. It is estimated (•) that at least 1,100,000 people were killed at Auschwitz-Birkenau (out of 1,300,000 people brought to the camp). Of those killed 960,000 were Jews, 70,000 to 75,000 were Poles, 21,000 were Gypsies, 15,000 were Soviet prisoners of war, and 10,000 to 15,000 were registered prisoners of other nationalities.

Among those deported to the camp were about 232,000 children and adolescents under the age of 18. Most were Jewish children (216,000) followed by 11,000 Gypsy children, 3000 Polish children, and 1000 Russians, Belarusians and Ukrainians. They registered only 23,500 children in the camp. Only 500 children under 15 and 200 adolescents (under 18) lived to see liberation by Soviet soldiers on 27 January 1945. More than half of them were Jewish children. They were all extremely emaciated and ill. In 1947 a Polish parliamentary act transformed Auschwitz-Birkenau into Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum. In 1979, the sites of the former camp belonging to the museum were added to the UNESCO World Heritage List as a symbol of genocide. The expression of views denying dealings of destruction, the existence of gas chambers, and mass killing is called “Holocaust denial” and is prohibited by law in many countries, including Germany and Poland.

Diana (born in 1927) stayed with her parents in the Łódź Ghetto until August 1944. Then they were deported to Auschwitz. “The Germans told us we were going to work in another city. Along the way, people cried out to us: ‘Where are you going? Run away, they will kill you!’ It was hard to believe. On the ramp in Auschwitz, where we waited for the selection, I was still with my mother. (...)

“Shortly afterwards they separated me from my mother. She was sent to Bergen-Belsen. I ended up working in an armaments factory in Psie Pole near Wrocław. The work was very hard, the machines were dangerous, they could cut off your hands in an instant if you stopped paying attention. After all, we were hungry, tired, and cold. But apparently I didn’t look so bad, because the foreman told me to clean his office. He always left something to eat there.

“The first time, I was afraid to even touch the food, I thought it was a trap. But the foreman ordered me to eat everything. It lasted a few months, until December. The job probably saved my life. My cousin was with me, but she did not want to work; she said that she was ill and would lie down. Lying down weakened her even more, and she didn’t survive the later march from camp to camp, when they killed anyone who stood out from the cluster of driven prisoners. She was shot.When the front was approaching from the west we were loaded onto passenger trains, hoping that they would be bombed, and were taken to Bergen-Belsen through Czechoslovakia. From there we were herded to Buchenwald, where there was no room for us. They kept us there a few days anyway, and we were hurried on again, this time to Mauthausen for a few weeks, then to the Gross-Rosen. I was seriously ill by the time the liberation troops came. I received a penalty imposed by a supervising Ukrainian woman, because I couldn’t bring two trees at a time back from the forest, only one. She sent me to the typhus block, where I got infected. After the liberation, seriously ill with typhus and dysentery, I lay, eaten up by lice, in the infirmary established by the Allies. Fortunately, a doctor from Belgium took care of me. He asked me why I wasn’t eating and what I would like to eat. I replied fresh bread. Then he announced that he would send me to Sweden and I would get such bread there. And that’s what happened. Even on the ship on the way there, my suppurating glands were operated on. I lay in hospital for almost a year in Sweden.” Diana Russ

[1] Barbara Engelking, Feliks Tych, Andrzej Żbikowski, Jolanta Żyndul, Memory: The History of Polish Jews Before, During and After the Holocaust. (Shalom Foundation, Warsaw 2008), p. 170.

[2] Tomasz Kranz, Zagłada Żydów w obozie koncentracyjnym na Majdanku. Wyd. 2, Lublin 2010

[3] Befehlstelle – command post at 103 Żelazna Street which housed the headquarters of the “extermination team”. Herman Hoefle (the deportation commissioner) oversaw the transportation of Jews to extermination camps from there. The basement of the building contained a prison, while executions were performed in the courtyard.

[4] Dorota was Bronka’s older sister; she died during the Holocaust.

In the East

A large exodus to eastern Poland occurred after the Germans attacked the country on 1 September 1939. Thousands of refugees from central and western Poland escaped to the areas annexed by the Soviet Union under the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Jews made up the majority of these escapees. In the spring of 1940 the Soviet authorities began a “passporting campaign”, pressuring refugees to accept Soviet citizenship. These new passports included a note prohibiting the holders from living within 100 kilometres of the border.

At the end of June 1940 (as part of the so-called third deportation) 82,000 Polish refugees (84 per cent of whom were Jewish) were deported to the Soviet Union (mainly to the Arkhangelsk and Novosibirsk oblasts). Most of these Polish Jews deported to the East, estimated at around 70 per cent, survived. In comparison, less than 2 per cent survived in areas occupied by Germans. Not everyone returned to Poland, however; some were kept in the camps and places of exile, while some started families and stayed in the East voluntarily.

Miriam (born in 1934) lived with her parents and sister in Chorzów. When war broke out, the family fled to Ukraine from the Germans. “After many days of travelling we arrived in the Ukrainian forests, where we hid from the bombing. I celebrated my fifth birthday there. In the summer of 1940 (as a result of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact) new borders between Germany and the USSR were established. Polish citizens who refused to accept Soviet citizenship were considered enemies of the Soviet Union. One summer night Russian soldiers stormed into our house to arrest us. My mother, who had heart disease, refused to obey the Russians. The Russian soldier turned his gun on her, threatening to shoot her. My sister and I were next to my mother, but fortunately the soldier didn’t fire. It turned out that he was stopped by the commanding officer, who was of Jewish origin. The soldiers left, but returned the next night and forcibly loaded us into freight wagons on trains that went off into the unknown.

“The trains were filled with hundreds of people and there was no toilet. People relieved themselves next to the rails, in public, and during short stops. My family was located on the upper shelves of the car, where we could hardly sit. There wasn’t enough food. The hygiene was terrible. The dead were buried next to railway tracks. It seemed like this trip would never end. In fact it lasted two months. As a 6-year-old kid I couldn’t come to terms with a reality which was so unbearable. I ran away from it, closed my eyes, and plunged into a world of my own thoughts and dreams, which no one else had access to. It was my way of avoiding contact with the brutality of such a fate. Even these days people around me think I’m a dreamer, but back then I thought I had found the only way to survive such shame and suffering.

“One day the train stopped and we were ordered to take all of our belongings and get off. We arrived in Arkhangelsk - a village ‘at the end of the world’. From there, we walked for hours to a labour camp, on foot through marshes while being bitten by mosquitoes. We lived in this camp for eighteen months in cramped conditions with terrible hygiene. The winter dragged on endlessly. The frosts and snows were unbearable. My father worked as a lumberjack. My mother constantly got sick. My sister and I didn’t go to school because there was no school to go to. My sister taught me to read and write. She instilled in me a love for the Polish language and for Polish literature and poetry, which I cherish to this day. My sister was my only teacher besides being my friend. In 1941 when Germany invaded Russia, the Polish government in exile in London concluded an agreement with the Soviet Union, based on which we were given amnesty. The Soviet authorities allowed us to leave the labour camp and regain our freedom. Again, we were loaded into trains, this time going south. We didn’t know where to get off because German troops were moving quickly and we had to flee from them again. We had no food, and epidemics broke out. Sometimes we got out of the train to spend a few days at a station. Then we would get into another train. For several months we lived in poverty and hunger in Bukhara. Agnieszka, my Polish nanny, who lived through this whole adventure with us, fell ill with typhus and died. My father was falsely arrested while looking for work. He spent several months in prison, but he managed to escape. During his imprisonment we moved to Samarkand, where my mother’s brother and a few friends and relatives lived. We stayed in Samarkand until the end of the war. Conditions were relatively bearable, but there were also periods of starvation. Our parents sent us to the orphanage.

“We lived like a lost tribe in a lost world. We didn’t know anything about the unspeakable crimes committed against Jews in Poland and other European countries. We didn’t grasp the enormity of the tragedy until after we went back to Poland. (...) I don’t consider myself a ‘Child of the Holocaust’ [1]. I think I was on the very cusp of it. I wasn’t even a child hidden from the Germans. I enjoyed the rare privilege of surviving the war with my immediate family.” Miriam Sharon

[1] According to the Statute of the Association of the Children of the Holocaust in Poland, a person can be a member of the association if they were sentenced to death by the Germans because of their Jewish origin (and therefore stayed in ghettos, concentration camps, or extermination camps, or were forced to hide their identity). However, memories of people deported to the East are described in the Children of the Holocaust speak … series, presenting a fuller picture of the fate of Jewish children during the Holocaust.

After Liberation

It is estimated that approximately 350,000 Polish Jews survived the Holocaust (out of 3,500,000 living in Poland in 1939). They were forced to start over without their families, homes, and friends in an alien and often unfriendly environment.

Bronka was 12 years old when the Germans deported her to the camp in Gross-Rosen. “On 9 May 1945 Soviet troops opened the gates to our camp. Czech partisans also arrived. They started to clear the terrain of mines. I was seriously ill and I couldn’t even enjoy my freedom. I stayed in the camp hospital for some time. And then, penniless, in my one and only dress, I went to where they had sent Mum, Dorota, and the rest of the family to the ghetto. When I got there I experienced the scariest moment of my life: I didn’t find anyone. Not a single soul. I picture myself today as the small, gaunt (I weighed 33 kg) little girl wandering aimlessly over the cobblestones, like in some terrible horror movie. The street is long. I don’t see anyone. I only know that there is no point in my surviving because I’m all alone in this terrible, cold world.

“I howled, sobbing like never before or ever again. At night, homeless and miserable, I slept wherever I could: an empty porch or on some bunk in an abandoned flat. I don’t know what I ate or drank. I finally dragged myself out to where we once lived. I knocked on the door of my childhood friend, Mrs. Waluś. An older, childless, uneducated woman, a railwayman’s widow, she warmly received me like I was her own child. We went to sleep together in a single bed over which many sacred images hung. At night we were awakened by pounding on the window and we heard a man’s voice: ‘Are there any Yids in there?’ Our hearts beat faster, but I wasn’t afraid. My beloved Waluś jumped out of bed and shouted back loudly: ‘Go away! There’s no one here!’ They left. I remained with Mrs. Waluś for a few days. Former friends and acquaintances would visit us during the day. Soon a miracle happened! My brother returned from the War, a soldier belonging to the first Kościuszko Division. He found me. I was no longer completely alone.” Bronka Niedźwiedzka

POST-WAR POGROMS

After Liberation, around 1000 to 1200 Jews were killed in Poland. They were murdered by armed bandits and members of armed fascist anti-communist groups. In 1945 pogroms against the Jewish population occurred, among other places, in Rzeszów, Kraków, Parczewo, and Kańczuga. Within two months 100 Jews were killed in the villages of Przedbórz Suchedniów, Wierzbniki, Zabłudów and Suchowola [1].

In August 1945 the orphanage in Rabka (which housed 100 child Holocaust survivors) was attacked three times. Buildings were shelled with automatic weapons and attacked with grenades. The attacks were perpetrated by students from the Jan Wieczorkowski Private Spa Middle School for boys and were inspired by Father Joseph Hojoła and the teacher Edmund Chodak. [2] On 4 July 1946, a mob killed forty-two Jews in Kielce; the pretext was a groundless accusation that they had ritually murdered a Christian boy.

Jurek (born in 1938) was deported with his parents and brother to the camp in Płaszów during the liquidation of the Kraków Ghetto. He was then taken to Gross-Rosen and Auschwitz-Birkenau. His parents survived and his family was reunited after Liberation. “In 1947 our entire family went on vacation to Rabka. On 9 August tragedy struck the house where we lived: My mother, Sabina Cyns, and uncle Zygmunt Goldstein and his wife were shot by people who claimed to be members of the ‘Fire’ division. My father and I survived by hiding under the bed.” Jerzy Cyns

I DON’T WANT TO BE JEWISH

Jewish children hidden on the Aryan side were told to forget who they were. They learned new first and last names, they could tell others about their fictitious families, they could pray and sing church hymns. When the War ended, the word “Jew” reminded them of fear, humiliation, and loss. Forgetting it and blending in with their surroundings was their best option.

Irenka (born in 1932) hid on the Aryan side with nuns (among other places). “When the front passed, I returned to the nuns and in 1945 I went to school. Before that I didn’t go to school at all: war broke out when I was supposed to go to first grade, then the ghetto, then the nuns. Apparently I learned to read and write earlier at home, when I was six years old. (...)”. Irena’s mother survived Ravensbrück and died of stomach cancer in 1946. Before her death, she managed to see her daughter. “I had word that my mother was dead, but earlier she sent some people to come get me in Międzyrzec: they were Jews. How would I fit in among Jews? I was engulfed in ‘the holy Catholic faith’. I perceived Jews as something inferior. The nuns instilled such a belief in me. ‘They crucified the Lord Jesus’.

“I’m supposed to go to the Jews? Not a chance. They urged me for a long time. I was a kid, probably around 13 then, I made silly faces behind their backs. I showed off in front of the nuns, saying: ‘I won’t give up the holy faith, I won’t go to Palestine (Israel didn’t exist yet) with any strangers.’ They would even go to the police, trying to get me back. But to no avail. I stayed with the nuns for so many years that I ended up feeling a kind of block and resistance due to their attitude toward Jews.I was drawn to boys from a Jewish boarding school but felt repelled by them at the same time. Hearing them speak Yiddish would make my skin crawl. I couldn’t get used to it. I assumed someone would come soon and restore order in ‘this matter’. I couldn’t believe that they were so calm, that they talked and laughed. I didn’t fit in with them. I would look at them and I liked the people that looked the least Jewish. The most Jewish-looking ones terrified me. I would run like the dickens from them. It was the same later on. I would run from the Jews, then I was drawn towards them. It would finally seem like ‘I can be with these Jews’, then I couldn’t again. I would run away and pretend not to have anything to do with them; some time later I was attracted to them and would come back. Since I was a small child I had to deny that I was Jewish, and it left its mark in not allowing me to think straight, see, and live.” Irena Bołdok nee Likierman

In January 1943 the father of 9-year-old Jochewed took her from the Warsaw Ghetto and handed her over to their pre-war maid to take care of. “Immediately after the Liberation my first destination was the Ghetto, that is, the ruins of the Ghetto. I believed that I would find something under the rubble, I truly believed it. With newspapers, soda water, bread rolls, with anything for sale, you could most likely meet me in the ruins of the Ghetto. The Jews took me from the street with a stack of newspapers and since I was just a child, they impressed me with decent clothes and new shoes. First, the Central Committee of Jews transferred me to the Śródborów Orphanage in Warsaw.

“They wanted me to be a child. Naturally, I wasn’t a child anymore. I already knew what money was, how it could be spent, I knew that one could score, barter, hustle. I was 11 years old. ‘Why should I be a child all of a sudden?’ So I ran away from Śródborów. I didn’t want to be the least bit Jewish, I somehow went with the flow that I was Polish. For me it was a complete tragedy that I was to go to a Jewish orphanage. This was why I escaped. (...)”

Jadzia stayed in several orphanages: in Bytom, Chorzów, in Bielsko. She escaped from them several times. “They closed the Children’s Home in Chorzów and took us to Bielsko. Slowly but surely I regained my childhood there, spending a few beautiful years there, which I remember so fondly to this day. (...) I would insult other children by calling them Jewish. If I didn’t like something when we played volleyball or palant [Polish baseball] or dodgeball I would cry: ‘You lousy Jew’. I was simply afraid to be Jewish. (‘Let him be a Jew, why should I be Jewish?’) I was no longer Jochewed, I was already Jadzia. It was them, ‘they’ were Jews ... I wasn’t a Jew. (...) One day I brought my prayer book to the orphanage manager. I told her: ‘I am no longer a Christian.’ When I gave her this prayer book, explaining that I didn’t need it, I immediately became a Jew.” Jadwiga Kotowska

IN THE ORPHANAGE

The Central Committee of Jews in Poland [3] declared childcare a priority and established a department that dealt with setting up homes for Jewish orphans. In July 1944 a children’s home in Lublin was established for 140 children (later transferred to Petrolesie in Lower Silesia). In 1945 three therapeutic and educational centres were established (in Rabka, Zakopane, and Szczyrk), and eight outposts were established for healthy children. In total there were around 1000 pupils. Orphanages took in children from poor and broken families in addition to orphans.

In 1946 the first group of Polish repatriates came from Russia, including more than 136,000 Jews. Therefore more orphanages were needed. They were established in Śródborów, Świder, Niemcza, and Legnica. Zionist organisations also set up orphanages that prepared children for life in Palestine. Such centres operated in Wrocław, Wałbrzych, Zabrze, Sosnowiec, Szczecin, Warsaw, and Łódź. Jewish orphanages were gradually shut down and combined with Polish institutions, and in 1950 all Jewish institutions were nationalised.

In 1941 or 1942 the parents of Irenka (born in 1937) placed her under the care of a Polish woman friend. She could pass for her daughter and went to kindergarten and then to school. She had enough to eat but was often beaten by her carer. After the War, when Irena was in the fourth grade, her “mother” informed her that she wasn’t her child and took her to the Jewish Committee in Łódź.

“From there a man took me to the orphanage in Helenówek. A teacher there took me in: Mrs. Maria Milsztejn. She came up to me and I raised my hands, covering my face and head. ‘Don’t be afraid, I won’t beat you, children aren’t hit here.’ These were the first words I heard in an orphanage. During dinner I sat next to my friend Lusia. Lusia began to tell me that her father had a few watches. I said, ‘Your father is as rich as the Jews.’ ‘Yes, my father is Jewish, and we’re all Jews here as well.’

“My despair knew no bounds, but then I gradually got used to it. From the depths of my soul I pondered: ‘But I was also always told that I was Jewish. Too bad, you have to come to terms with fate.’ I became very fond of Mrs. Falkowska, the orphanage manager. I wanted her to be my mother, and she once asked, ‘But what would the other children have to say about that?’ Yes, she was Mother to all of us. She played this role for all those children who had survived disaster. We didn’t wear the same clothes. She didn’t want us to look like children from an orphanage. We had our own dressmaker. Each girl had a different dress. As a result, we didn’t feel like orphans, but like young princesses. I will never forget this.” Irena Wójcik

From September 1942 eleven-year-old Emanuel hid with his parents and sister in villages around the town of Nowe Brzesko in Kraków province. In the middle of December 1944 his mother went out for food and never came back. She was murdered by the partisans. “We were exhausted, sick and remained under threat. My father went to Kraków, where a Provincial Jewish Committee had already been created. There he arranged for an orphanage to take us in, which initially was located on 38 Długa Street. We submitted testimony before the Historical Commission about how we survived the War. My father, as it turned out after he was examined, was sick with tuberculosis. He underwent treatment drawing upon the help of the Jewish Committee. I had difficulty walking, and along with my sister, was referred to the newly created Zakopane sanatorium for sick children. The orphanage was located in a ‘Forest Castle’ villa on Chramcówki Street in Zakopane. The house was protected around the clock by armed Jewish guards. An orphanage was also founded in Rabka, serving as a sanatorium for children at risk from tuberculosis.

“After some time the children from Rabka came to stay with us in Zakopane. The house in Rabka was shut down after an armed attack. Children told us about the unfolding events of the attack and fighting at the house, which was defended by Jewish guards. The gang didn’t manage to seize the orphanage; the attack took place at night. The orphanage in Zakopane was financed by Joint Supervision and meals were very good. They also caught us up on the elementary school curriculum, and external examinations were organised. I earned my fifth grade graduation certificate in this way.

“As a result of constant threat, the orphanage in Zakopane was closed down at the end of 1945 and most of the children were taken abroad to France and to what was then Palestine. My sister and I went back to the orphanage in Kraków, which was located on Augustianska Street. We still had good living conditions.Many children came to the orphanage who had returned from the Soviet Union after the War. I went to a Jewish school located at 6 Estera Street, which functioned legally as a state school. Every school year we went through two years of material to make up for time lost in the War.” Emanuel Elbinger

Izrael (born in 1934) escaped from the Warsaw Ghetto. He hid in villages around Błonie, working as a farmhand. He lost his arm in an accident at work. After Liberation he remained in the countryside and tended cows. When winter came, there was no work left for him to do and he had to leave.

“In 1946 I found myself in Wawer near Warsaw. I didn’t admit to being Jewish and received Holy Communion.In 1948 two unknown Jews came to Wawer and wanted to take me with them. I picked up a few stones and climbed up a tall tree. From there I started to scream that I would kill anyone who tried to approach me. They didn’t give up and brought a policeman who fired into the air. This scared me enough to come down from the tree and they caught me like a hare. They took me to a boarding school for Jewish youth on 28 Jagiellońska Street. There, for the first time in so many years they bathed me with fragrant soap, shaved my head, and dressed me up in new clothes and brown shoes. Of course, that same day I ran away ‘from the Jews’ back to my village. But in the evening, when I was about to go to sleep in the barn with the cows, the manure stench drove me out and I decided to voluntarily return to the dormitory, where Mr. Kozak took me in. He asked me what my real name was because I didn’t look like Jerzy Staniak.

“I didn’t remember anything, of course, except my place of birth and my father’s occupation. On the second day Mrs. Rapaport from the dorm went with me to Błonie to look for my ‘roots’ there. In Błonie we found a house on Warszawska Street where I was born. When we knocked on the door to the first apartment, an elderly woman came out and the moment she saw me shouted: ‘Srulek, you’re alive?!’ and then she fainted. We learned everything from her about my family, about my real name, how many brothers and sisters I had and all their names. She also told me that my mother and my brother David were shot by the Germans on the highway to Warsaw. (...) After a few weeks, I was sent to an orphanage in Helenówek near Łódź. My first meeting in the orphanage was with the director of this house, Mrs. Maria Falkowska.

“When I arrived at the orphanage I was completely illiterate, even though I was already 14. Mrs. Lunia Gold, who was a teacher, began to teach me to read and write. Then I was enrolled in a night school on Kiliński Street in Łódź. Later I attended TPD (Children’s Friends Society) school. After finishing primary school I continued to study at the College Preparatory, and within two years I matriculated. I went on to study mathematics and in 1960 I received a master’s degree.” Jerzy Frydman

The family of Chuwcia (born in 1933) came from the small town of Turka. Her parents were transported to Auschwitz. The orphaned girls - Chuwcia and her sister Estera - hid in bunkers in the forest with local peasants until Liberation. “As part of repatriation I came to Poland with my cousin and her husband and was given to the Jewish orphanage in Bielsko-Biała. My life as a child began anew here after so many experiences, sufferings, and exiles. They brought me to the orphanage in September of 1945 on a sunny afternoon. Immediately (I remember this so vividly) I received a toothbrush from Nurse Estera, something I never had until then, which is probably why it is so firmly rooted in my memory. Everything in this house was new, interesting, and extraordinary to me, yet I still remained sad.

“I missed my sister, who didn’t come to Poland with me. She remained in Turka [4] with a married couple she met in the forest, whose repatriation was being drawn out. I felt overjoyed in the spring of 1946 when my sister walked through the door of the orphanage in Bielsko-Biała. I took up every activity here. In addition to studying, which I always treated very seriously and which initially caused me a lot of difficulty, I learned bookbinding, tailoring, and dance. My learning difficulties were understandable. I didn’t study during the entire war period, I spoke only Yiddish and Ukrainian up until then, and suddenly I had to switch to Polish. In addition, I am shortsighted and I didn’t wear glasses. Due to my hard work I graduated from primary school with very good grades.” The author graduated from medical school and became a doctor. Chuwcia W.

Just before the liquidation of the ghetto 12-year-old Ela escaped from it through a tunnel under the barbed wire in Ludwisin close to Jabłonna. Her deceased mother’s friend, Krystyna Klarczuk, took care of her [5]. Ela stayed in several orphanages run by nuns. After the Warsaw Uprising was crushed, she stayed in the Pruszków camp and then ended up in Chorowice close to Skawina. A housewife there took her in to help around the house.

“An old teacher became interested in my fate. She believed that remaining in the countryside would be a complete waste of my potential. I’m there looking after cows, picking beets, taking care of a child, and shelling peas. I’ve got a hard life there and I’m going backwards in the long term. Immediately after becoming free, when Kraków was liberated by the Russians, this teacher sent me to Emergency Welfare in Kraków. I get there. The children are in a terrible state: they’re from the camps, from forced labour, they’re sick and itchy with scabies. The emergency services are absolutely destitute. There’s nothing there. The older girls have to go through the whole city to Szlak Street with this big pot to the soup kitchen, which serves soup to the poor. The soup was later served to children. Sometimes it was soup, sometimes porridge.

“It was in 1945, immediately after Liberation. I entered the room and saw children who had scabies – scabies with pus pouring out. I didn’t want to get scabies too, because I already had lice and ulcers. Getting scabies would be the last straw. I decided: ‘I will lie on the floor under the table’ (in a hall, where there were about twenty children). I was 15 years old then.

“Since the women in the emergency services stated that I was intelligent, I was therefore able to get into the orphanage in Kraków. There was nowhere to sleep. They brought in a lot of straw to the yard and we stuffed this straw into mattresses and slept on them. There was nothing to eat. The food was still being brought in from the soup kitchen. Now I was a 15-year-old girl who had no elementary school diploma, but was already of high school age. This orphanage sent me to high school.

“There’s one thing I still don’t understand – how I managed with the curriculum, not having attended school throughout the occupation, being in the ghetto, being in the camps, being a servant - how I was able to manage in school. I don’t know. It was some kind of miracle. I started to get on with some of the subjects in school. Not all of them. As for the Polish language, I got by because I was very well read. I spoke properly, so I could speak out on various subjects. Geography could be learned, history as well. But with a terrible math deficiency, where you had to know the basics to continue at a higher level – I couldn’t handle it. Started the first year of high school and didn’t graduate. I was held back for a second year because I didn’t know the basics. Then after I repeated that year it started working out. (...) People who wanted to raise children appeared. I had more than one offer. (...) In the orphanage I was perceived as an intelligent child, so when people came and wanted to adopt children they would send me, among others. But after a short stay (I went to one lady, I went to another, I went to a third family) I decided: no. And I stayed in the orphanage. I finished school and I had nowhere to go from there, because I didn’t have any family. I developed a burning desire to acquire knowledge.” [6] Ela Waśniewska

In December 1941, the parents of Adaś put him under the care of Greek Catholic Studite Order monks in Uniów close to Przemyślany [7]. He was 3 and a half years old. In 1946 the Greek Catholic Church was banned, the monastery was dissolved, and the children were taken to an orphanage in Złoczów. Adaś didn’t last long there; he escaped and returned to the monastery. In 1949-51 he lived with an elderly former nun in Przemyślany. Then friends of his parents found him and helped him repatriate to Poland.

“They put me on a train. We stayed in different cities for a few days at a time. More children boarded the train at each stop. In the early spring of 1951 I got to Grodno. In Grodno we were washed and dressed in new clothes. Over 3000 children collected from all over the Soviet Union went to Poland. (...) We arrived at Duszniki-Zdrój. For two months families searched in the ‘Odra’, ‘Nysa’, and ‘Bałtyk’ state children’s homes. A Lithuanian with a tiny sister along with Adam Seinfeld and me were the only ones not picked up. (...) The four of us were taken to an orphanage in Kraków. It was occupied by war orphans, mostly Jews.’Such bad luck,’ I thought. ‘This spells trouble.’ (...)

“The orphanage in Kraków was beautiful and was well equipped thanks to American charities. The poverty there would be unimaginable nowadays, but children in orphanages often had better standards of living than those from normal families. In our house the storerooms were full of new clothes. I could choose what I wanted. (...) We orphans really weren’t lacking anything in those conditions. Neither food nor clothes. Children had a sense of community: they were convinced that they had no one apart from each other. And there was Mrs. Gostyńska, our manager. At one point, she even wanted to adopt me.

“During the lesson someone came into the classroom with the director and told me that I was summoned to juvenile court. I had no idea what it was all about. It turned out that it concerned adoption. The woman judge asked: ‘Does the minor agree?’ I said: ‘No.’ I wanted to decide for myself. (...) Mrs. Gostyńska became my legal guardian.” Adam Daniel Rotfeld

JEWISH SCHOOLS

The first schools run by the Central Committee of Jews in Poland (CKPŻ) were established in September 1945 in Łódź and Dzierżoniów. At the end of the 1945-46 school year there were already twenty-four of them (including eighteen taught in Yiddish). The following year there were thirty-three CKPŻ facilities that had over 3000 students.

They followed an eighth-grade elementary school programme similar to state schools. In addition, students learned Jewish history, literature, and Yiddish and Hebrew. The school was not religious, and they had Saturdays off. Jewish secondary and vocational education schools were created as well as Zionist (Hebrew language) facilities subject to the He-Chaluc organization [8] and religious schools. In June 1945, the first facility for preschool children arose. A year later more than 2000 students studied in religious schools. [9] In 1948 the liquidation of Jewish education in Poland began - Hebrew schools were closed, while Yiddish ones were taken over by the state or combined with Polish institutions.

From 1941 Halina (born in 1935) stayed with her parents in the Drohobycz Ghetto, followed by a labour camp. Her mother decided to escape. They hid in a Ukrainian peasant’s house until [10] Liberation. Her father was killed during the liquidation of the camp.

“In May 1945, my mother, my aunt, and I took an evacuation train to Kraków. Drohobycz was already in the Soviet Union and anyone who felt Polish left for Poland. (...) In Drohobycz I was instructed in Ukrainian and studied for less than a year. That was in 1944 and from September 1945 I was already in Poland, in Kraków. In the fourth grade my mother moved me to a Jewish school where they taught in Yiddish and Hebrew. At school there was a dorm, a kind of orphanage. Children who had only one working parent went home after a full school day, while Jewish war orphans stayed in the dormitory. I really didn’t like this school, but I had to attend it because of the dormitory.

“The school was on Esther Street in Kazimierz, the Jewish district. It was an old wooden house with creaky floors and rats and mice. Not so pleasant. (...) I made it through there until the end of elementary school. Later the school moved to Skawińska Street to a pre-war building that was bright and spacious with big windows. (...) There were quite a few students, but I don’t remember how many of us there were. (...) Jewish history was taught, along with Polish history. The students were Jewish war orphans who came from all over Poland. We would go to summer camps. I remember a trip to Karpacz. I also remember that there was a troop of Jewish Boy Scouts at school. They were brought up to be future kibbutz members. I had girlfriends. They were fully orphaned. They treated me like a ‘rich girl’ because I had a mother. I came back home at night, they stayed. I know that later they all moved around the world.” Halina Bania

ANTI-SEMITISM

The unfriendly and even hostile attitude of many Poles towards Jews didn’t change after the War. Returning Holocaust survivors were often treated with hostility – it was feared that they would want to live in homes occupied by Poles during the War and demand the return of property. Even children were victims of anti-Semitic behaviour.

When the War ended, Marysia was 12 years old. She returned with her mother to her hometown, Konin. “We went back to wait, because they would surely come back… No one came back. A very dramatic period in my life ensued that shaped my character forever: my hyper-sensitivity, my sense of excessive pride, my distrust of people. I, the only Jew in school, became the victim of cruel anti-Semitism. Nobody wanted to sit with me, I sat alone on the school bench, they called me a Jew, I had no friends... I was different, in fact, small, black-haired, serious, with no memories of early youth. I didn’t know how to swim or ride a bike, I had no grandparents, uncles, or godmother - all these attributes of being normal. I read other books. They even kicked me out of the Polish Scouting Association, because I could not take an oath. A boy who sympathised with me got his nose broken because he defended a Jewish girl. At that time I decided to run away from home to Palestine.

“My mum had a completely different experience: friends from before the War, maids and mill workers, received her very warmly. They would bring stored items (for example, Foreman Bunikowski brought a box of silverware hidden by grandma Rózia), photographs, paintings, and even tablecloths. (...) One day instead of going to school, I went to the station and took a train to Łódź, because I heard that the rabbi there was gathering Jewish orphans for emmigration. I wandered for a long time and then I told him that I was an orphan. My mum found me there and took me back. Later she filed papers to Israel, but to no avail. After that I wrote a ghetto diary, but it didn’t help – it didn’t unburden my heart. (...)” Maria went to Warsaw, graduated with a degree, and had a family. One evening in 1968 the phone rang in her apartment. My friend Kazik from Konin called: ‘Marycha, do you need anything?’ This question warmed my heart.” Maria Leszczyńska Ejzen

IN NEW FAMILIES

The post-war fates of Polish and Jewish orphans were similar. Both groups remained in orphanages till they were adults or (usually the younger ones) were adopted.

During the uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto, 4-year-old Krysia escaped through sewers to the Aryan side. Sister Julia Sosnowska happened to be passing next to the sewer manhole. She took care of the girl and placed her in an orphanage in Ignaców near Mińsk Mazowiecki. Krysia stayed there until October 1945. “From there, overseen by nuns, I was transferred from the temporary emergency shelter on 75 Nowogrodzka Street to Katowice for adoption purposes. Because a suitable family couldn’t be found for me in Katowice, I was placed in the ‘Caritas’ house with Father Markefka in Katowice-Bogucice. I stayed in this house until 19 March 1946 when a very patriotic childless couple from Siemianowice Śląskie, Maria and Alojzy Bula, decided to take me from the orphanage and adopt me. Because I lacked a birth certificate they never legally adopted me, and yet they were my parents as long as they lived. My adoptive father took part in three Silesian uprisings. In the third uprising he lost his leg.

“Mr. Bula had been a civil servant before the war. When the Second World War broke out, both of them were left without any livelihoods. They were thrown out of their flat and suffered oppression. Mr. Bula promised God during the War that if Silesia became Polish after the war, he would take in an orphan, and he did just that. I happened to be the honorary recipient. In 1946 I started attending primary school in Siemianowice and graduated in 1953. In the meantime, my adoptive father died of a heart attack. My adoptive mother, a slightly older woman born in 1895, didn’t get a job or a pension for me. We subsisted on 232 złotys from her husband’s pension.” Krystyna Kalata-Olejnik

Andrzej was born in August 1944 in the Stutthof concentration camp. The female prisoners carried him out to the SS camp laundry facility from the camp hospital in a laundry basket. There, with the tacit approval of officers and kapos, he was hidden for a few months and was then taken by SS escort from the camp. The boy was taken to a Catholic orphanage in Wrzeszcz run by the Sisters of St Elizabeth. He was to be transferred to a German family. After the liberation of Gdańsk the sisters moved the child to Łódź.

“In June or July of1946 the sisters of St Elizabeth handed me over (in an informal adoption) to a childless married couple, a Polish Catholic family. They lived in Łódź at 67 Narutowicza Street. When I saw my future father’s hands outstretched toward me, I immediately clung to him without thinking twice and fell in love with him. This was Wacław Kaźmierczak, a director-editor at Łódź Film Studios. (...)

“From mid-1946 my life began anew in my adoptive parents’ house. I had a standard of living that very few children enjoyed. But did I feel good? My mother treated me like a toy, not giving me any real affection. She scolded me and enforced obedience by frequently beating me with a dog lead; the dog could also get hit when he growled in my defence. In fact, I was brought up by a constantly changing rotation of maids.

“My father was absorbed in professional work and furthermore stayed in Warsaw more and more often, and so didn’t notice the destructive toll of his wife’s overbearing approach towards their adopted child. (...) Yet I have to give my mother credit for enabling me to avoid tuberculosis or even death, because she could procure penicillin, vitamins, and medicines from American packages in Łódź. It increasingly occurred to me that I was not merely physically different from my parents, but our relations weren’t like normal ones between parents and children, either. My mother never showed any love for me, and my father was quite verbally reserved. He cut himself off from domestic affairs, claiming he had to work, walk the dog, shop, or attend meetings. (...)

“My mother died in 1983. My father became very close to me five years before his death. (...) When the doctor told me that my father had a few hours to live, I had to ask him who I was. And I did, saying, ‘Dad, you were, are, and will be my father, but my blood type indicates that I am not your biological child; is it true that I am a child of the Stutthof concentration camp?’ My father confirmed my origins and the fact that I was born in 1944 in a concentration camp, but he no longer remembered my name and didn’t want to talk about it any more. He passed away the next day.” Andrzej Kaźmierczak

One-year-old Tadzio went to the ghetto in Czortków in 1942 with his whole family. [11] Then he was sent to Świdowa to a labour camp, where his mother died. Just before the liquidation of the camp his father smuggled him out in a backpack. They hid in his father’s home village of Różanowce as well as in the forest in provisionally dug pits. They survived like this until Liberation in March 1944.

“I ended up in preschool in Opole (and perhaps an orphanage) for Jewish orphans and half-orphans. A wild and silent child of the War, I avoided other children, I kept away from them. Teachers were also unable to cope with me. The cook was finally able to get through to me. Kindness, a piece of chocolate, a handful of almonds or raisins, and caring words slowly did the trick. I got really attached to her. I had friends inside the nursery in addition to street children. I was in the kitchen often, made friends, exchanged chocolate for bread with lard, had a great time and felt great. Maybe it’s because of me and maybe not, but my friend from preschool (the cook) and Father met, became friends, and eventually got married.

“Elfryda Niesporek, a Silesian from Bytom who was a miner’s daughter, wanted to fix what Germany did to us, and I think she succeeded. My second mother (because after all she did for me, I couldn’t call her a stepmother) did everything to help me forget about living through the injustice of war. I have her to thank for the person I am today. She raised me, she was with me when I needed her, she lived through all my quizzes, dictations, tests, and finally exams just as anxiously as I did. Due to her efforts I was pleased to come home from anywhere (Wrocław, Warsaw). I know my birth mother was a beautiful woman and she saved my life. I had a father once again, a mother, and family warmth, and what they call a normal, happy family. (...)

“When I attended the first grade of primary school, I once inadver-tently stayed for religion lessons: ‘Tadzio, you can’t stay here for religion lessons. After all you are Jewish,’ my teacher told me, showing me the door. The result of her very ‘educational’ approach in this matter was frequent fights and high aggression from my colleagues. In this way they reminded me very clearly who I was and where I belonged; some people’s version of faith didn’t turn out nearly as beautiful and wonderful as I had imagined. I came home beaten up, and the school headmaster informed my parents that I had beaten someone up. My father moved me to a school run by the Friends of Children Association. Although the school was located far from my home, at least I wasn’t treated like a leper or apostate.

“My second mother also had some very painful experiences. She was a Catholic, and a very pious one at that. One day a confessor told her she was a disgrace and had no right to enter any church because she married a Jew. Many years passed before she dared to go to Mass and confession again, where another confessor missionary recognised her marriage and pronounced her child care an act of generosity while branding the former confessor a fool.” Tadeusz Iger

UNKNOWN SURNAME

Many of the Jewish children rescued from the Holocaust lost their surnames, especially the youngest ones. They didn’t know where they came from, or who their parents were, or what their dates of birth were. They couldn’t find their loved ones, because they didn’t know whom to look for. Relatives could never find a trace of them, because the children had new identities.

Four-year-old Ilonka was given to the Sisters of Charity to be cared for under a false name. Her mother and grandparents died in the Warsaw Ghetto. Her father was arrested in Lvov by the NKVD and exiled to Kazakhstan. He survived the War, returned to Poland, and spent the rest of his life looking for his daughter. He died in 1969.

“In the spring of 1943, I found myself in the Sisters of Charity convent in Kamionek. From then on my carer became Sister Maria Pietkiewicz, the head of the convent and a person with her heart in the right place, though she tried not to show it. She acted curt and unapproachable, and she aroused fear and obedience, and not just among the children in her care. I was the only fully orphaned child in the convent who didn’t have any distant relatives. I felt really sad when other children went home to their families on Sundays and holidays while I had to stay behind by myself. As I grew a little older, I complained to the Mother Superior, but she got angry: ‘What do you mean you don’t have a family, we are your family!’ And this is how it would remain. After the War, many families wanted to adopt children. I vividly remember a conversation with a friendly married couple travelling to the United States. They said that we got lost in such a vast war and they were really happy to have finally found me. I believed every word they said, but Sister Maria flatly refused give me up, despite seeming initially willing to consider it. She said that she wouldn’t give me up to anyone. I finally felt that I was someone important to her and perhaps even someone she loved.

“She really cared about me. She dressed me in UNRRA [12] clothes and liked to take me to the city. Passers-by would stop and say, ’What a lovely child...like a doll’. She was very proud of me, though she would admonish the servants not to praise me so much in the convent. She was afraid that I would become conceited. I also remember that she didn’t allow me to spend time in the kitchen with secular women. Religious plays or nativity plays were sometimes arranged in the convent and I would get to play the role of the Virgin Mary. She used to say that this was how she imagined the Blessed Mother. She would also tell me that the Virgin Mary visited the temple as a girl.

“The Mother Superior always occupied a small room in the basement behind the refectory. It was located next to the kitchen, pantry, dining room, changing rooms, and the maid’s room. When I got a little older the Mother Superior moved me out of the dorm and arranged for me to sleep in the corner of the dining room, separated from the tables by a massive Gdańsk wardrobe. I was always close to my guardian now because of this. She entrusted me with the care of the pantry. My duties included cleaning and preparing sandwiches for children from the boarding school. When I started to mature, the Mother Superior began to worry that girls returning from holiday might initiate me in matters of sex. (...) She asked me about the conversations I had with my friends and was very pleased when she found out that we didn’t discuss such matters.

“When I was 8, I found my way into Sister Stefania’s class. This sister displayed a strong aversion to boarding-school girls, particularly so in my case. I experienced many problems and felt humiliated for all three years that she taught me. When she entered the classroom I would cower at my desk, hoping I would become invisible to her. All in vain. She constantly sent me to the Mother Superior, for example complaining that I was wearing a very short skirt and demoralising the other children, or that I didn’t have some school material, erasers or pencils, even though the whole class could have lacked these items. She often kicked me out of class. I felt so lonely, humiliated, and helpless that I prayed to God with all my might to take me to Him, just as he had already done with my parents. I bitterly recall being punished by being left alone in a dark hallway. When everyone had forgotten about me, I wept all night, hugging our friendly doggy and sleeping on his bed.

“After finishing elementary school, I was invited by a classmate to her grandmother’s house for the holidays. Her grandma gave us a lot of freedom, so we would walk around in the woods and meadows. I hadn’t seen such landscapes before because I had never left my home in the convent. I remember these holidays as the most beautiful moments of my childhood. While I was happy to see the convent school shut down, closing the dormitory scared me. I was afraid of being sent to an orphanage, to complete strangers. I was 14 years old and really missed my loved ones, even though I barely knew them. I was sure that if any of them were still alive they would find me. As soon as I could leave the convent grounds, I went to the Polish Red Cross. However, no one was looking for ‘Marysia Kołakowska’.” Ilonka Fajnberg

Marian lived with his parents in Vilnius. He left the ghetto with his father. He didn’t know his real name or date of birth. A Polish woman named Mrs. Bobrzyczka hid him until Liberation. “Immediately after the War, there was nothing to eat. Mrs. Bobrzyczka gave me to the orphanage and told them that I was a ghetto child and that she didn’t know my name. She said she told them to record my name as Michał Bobrzyk and that the rest of the data were made up. Every week I visited Mrs. Bobrzyczka and she gave me food. (...) After a while, we returned to Poland, but Mrs. Bobrzyczka stayed in Vilnius.” Marian Bobrzyk

Jerzy has no idea when or where he was born or who his biological parents were. “I only know that I have Jewish origins. My biography begins on 15 October 1944. On that day there’s an entry in St. Peter and Paul’s parish register in Lublin naming me Jerzy Janusz and saying that my parents are named Jan and Leokadia (née Kowalczyk) Dołębski. It became accepted that I was born on 15 October 1942 In Hrubieszów. For a long time I tried to find out certain facts about myself, but I always received false information. Originally I found out that I was an illegitimate child of Leokadia Dołębska, later that I was taken from an orphanage. Still later that I was found in Lublin in a building that had once belonged to Jews. Recently my father began to tell me about a Frida Neumark from Hrubieszów who could have been my mother. They also told me that when they found me and took me away with them I had a ribbon around my wrist with the inscription ‘Tomcio N’.” Jerzy Dołębski

Dorota was born during the war, but she doesn’t know anything else about herself. “Even as an adult, after trying very hard to gain permission to view my documents, I found a record in a Lublin orphanage from 1942 of a girl, ‘NN’, who was registered as being born in 1941. This record definitely concerns me because it contains the name of the married couple who took me from the orphanage in 1943. They later became my adoptive parents. It seems to me, however, that I was older than the record indicates because I could already speak. (...) I always knew that I was Jewish. How could I have found out about this? Could I remember anything from very early childhood, before I was put in an orphanage? Maybe that’s what they called me in the orphanage? When I was a little older I played in the yard with other children, who also called me ‘Jew’. (...) I’m not lonely. I have my own children, I have grandchildren and friends. But I’m still NN.” Dorota Szałajka

In 1942 Teresa found her way by chance into the house of Kazimiera Ciarkowska, and she became her daughter. “I was taken out of the Warsaw Ghetto in a suitcase as a child. In 1942 I was about 2 years old. My real father carried me out in a tunnel dug by the Jewish Fighting Organisation. The tunnel led from Muranowski Square in the Ghetto to a maintenance pit in the tram depot at 7 Sierakowska Street (right next to the Ghetto). (...) My father gave me to Mrs. Kazimiera Ciarkowska at 6 Sierakowska Street while I was sleeping with my mouth taped shut. Mrs. Ciarkowski’s husband, Kazimierz, and her brother-in-law, Władysław Janus, worked at the tram depot. (...) Mr. Leon Szeszko saved Jewish children from the Ghetto in the tram depot - unfortunately, he was killed in the Warsaw Uprising and some of the children ended up without any documents. I, Teresa Wieczorek, among others, belonged to this group. Handing me over to Mrs. Ciarkowski, my father asked her to keep me for just one night. He said that the Germans were driving everyone out of the Ghetto, that he must still go back for his 7-year-old son, Salk. He promised to come back the next day. (...)

“No one reported back the next day. The terrified Ciarkowski and Janus couples (they lived together) were afraid to shelter a Jewish child. According to Mrs. Ciarkowska’s memoirs, Mr. Janus wanted to dump me by the Ghetto wall. However, in spite of arguing about it, they hid me, hoping that someone in the family would contact them to settle the charges and make arrangements for payment. Mrs. Ciarkowska always told me: ‘I didn’t get a single penny for you, they just brought you round.’

“A lot of families hid me. They allowed me to survive, but none of them wanted me permanently. (...) They constantly moved me about. Finally, I ended up back with Mrs. Ciarkowska. When the Ghetto Uprising broke out, it became clear that no one would come for me.

“On 7 May 1943 a birth certificate was sorted out for me with Ciarkowska as a surname and recording my date of birth as 23 December 1939. It was drafted by Salesian priests at the church near Kawęczyńska Street. It contained the following note: ‘It was the parents’ fault that the baptism was delayed’. And so I stayed with the Ciarkowskis with no identity, no real date of birth, and without a real surname.” Teresa Wieczorek

Jadzia (born in 1940) stayed with her family in the Vilnius Ghetto. After the death of her husband and two sons, her mother transferred the girl to the Aryan side for safekeeping. When the mother was shot dead, the girl’s guardians decided to give her to the Germans. Władysław Seroczyński saved her life. The Seroczyńskis baptised Jadzia as their daughter. She was 4 years old.

“The War had ended, and my new parents wanted to get to Poland as quickly as possible. They took the first transport to the country to repatriate. They wanted to erase all traces of evidence that I was a Jewish foster child. But they weren’t successful. Returning Poles from Vilnius were sent to Pomerania; my godfather was also sent there. He took the secret of my origin along with him to Poland, and by word of mouth it reached the town where I lived with my parents. In the first years after the War, Jewish organizations looked for children hidden by Polish families during the occupation. I remember that two men came to our house and began to enquire about me. My father got very angry, locked me in my room, and talked privately with the uninvited guests. He managed to convince them that I wasn’t Jewish.

“My parents didn’t want to part with me. Having saved me from death, they considered me their own child and grew to love me. They never told me the truth, even though the whole town knew it. Before I grew up I didn’t understand comments and jokes directed at me. As I got older, however, I began to wonder what was wrong with me. When I asked my mother, Marianne, if I was her daughter, she would start crying rather than answer.

“There was a boy who lived in my parents’ house for a few years who was their distant relative. I explained to myself that my mum was mine, not his, that people were mistaken in saying that I was a foster child. I still remember how much it hurt me when someone called me a Jew. I was about 13 years old, I cried my eyes out, then got downright hysterical. Then I personally decided I would never talk about it. Sometime around age 16 I accepted the news that I could be Jewish, and didn’t let it interfere with my everyday life. I didn’t feel the need to uncover facts about my origins, and above all I didn’t want to hurt my mother with questions. Besides, since there were very few Jews in Pomerania, they weren’t a topic of conversation or anti-Semitic outbreaks.” Jadwiga Hreniak

On 15 May 1943 a Polish policeman carried Ania out of the Warsaw Ghetto. She was taken care of by Stefania and Albin Dubiniecki [13]. The girl was baptised as their daughter. Her adoptive parents assured her a safe and loving home. It wasn’t till after they died that she heard that she was an adopted child. “(…) After my father’s death anonymous letters start coming - written letters and drawings, addressed to me, sent by mail. I found out something about myself from them - that I was a Jewish child, a foundling, randomly dropped off, etc. It was very painful. After the first such letter I went crying to my mother, who still denied everything. But by now I could see that she was really affected by it. As a result I stopped going to her with all my dilemmas - I could see now that I wouldn’t find out a lot, and at the same time I really pitied her in such situations.

“I began to guess more and more about my roots, however. Different strangers came to my home, talked seriously with my mum, and became silent when I entered the room. I was already a teenager growing up; I could easily overhear too much. Out of the blue, after one such conversation, Mum said, ‘Maybe we could go to Palestine? ’However, she didn’t explain anything else. I was starting to subconsciously feel that many things weren’t quite clear: Where was ‘my home’? Who was my legal guardian? Previously, these questions hadn’t made sense. I felt very connected to my parents anyway.

“In November of 1958 Mum already feels very ill; soon she will die, practically in my arms. (...) Two days after the funeral, the representatives of the Jewish Community in Katowice came to me. They said they would take care of me and help to clear my flat on 14 Teatralna Street (...) While I was clearing the flat I came across a manuscript signed by Mum and addressed to the Jewish community, which showed that I was a child carried out of the Jewish ghetto in Warsaw by a Polish policeman. This was on 15 May 1943. The baby had a card with the name Anna by its side, with the date of birth 13 October 1942. That’s it – except a postscript on a piece of paper that entrusted me into the care of God and good people.” Anna Szpanowska

IN ISRAEL

In July 1946 there were approximately 250,000 Jews left in Poland. As a result of the the Kielce pogrom (4 July 1946), 92,000 people left over the course of a year. In total, between 1945 and 1947, 160,000 Jewish Holocaust survivors emigrated. Shortly after the War, many people left Poland illegally; refugees were assisted by Zionist Coordination within the framework of a mission code-named Bricha. [14] After the Kielce pogrom, Polish authorities quietly permitted Jews to travel West through Szczecin and the Czech border. You could also legally go through the Department of Emigration Committee CKZP, and HIAS [15] and Pal-Amt. [16] In 1948, after the State of Israel was established, the Communist authorities greatly reduced the number of emigration permits. In 1949, thirty thousand Polish Jews emigrated with “one-way tickets” – without the right to return, losing their Polish citizenship.

Lea (born in 1938) lived in the ghetto in Ostrowiec, then in a convent in Brwinów, and after Liberation in Jewish orphanages in Zatrzebie and Helenówek. “My angel-faced cousin led me straight from the convent to the orphanage near Warsaw. On a sunny day in the summer of 1945, my teacher called me to her room and quietly but firmly told me that I wouldn’t get collected by anyone because my whole family was killed during the War. I was fortunate enough to finally live in a house that didn’t need a basement as a hiding place. I got a lot of great food, and things were so good that I didn’t dare demand life’s ‘luxuries’ like a mother and father.

“A month passed, and I was called into the room of my beloved teacher once again. The woman washed my face, re-braided my hair and solemnly announced that a visit from my ‘father’ awaited me. My warning instinct, thoroughly honed during the War, forewarned me that nothing good would come of this. Held firmly by my hand, lingering, and looking for a way to escape, I walked silently behind my teacher. After a few minutes, we reached the headmaster’s shed. Three men stood in the doorway: two of them were tall and elegant, emanating confidence. An old man leaning on his crutches stood between them. He had a swollen body and his head was hanging low. Eyes filled with supplication stared at me from behind the eye sockets of a shrunken yellow skull – like the haunting glances of beggars who occasionally frequented the convent where I lived during the War. This man mumbled something incoherently, but the sound of his language was completely alien to me. I ran out and hid under the bed in the orphanage clinic. (...)

“My life began when I was 12, the day when a crowded ship filled to the gunwales with Holocaust survivors dumped its human cargo on to the docks of Haifa. A driving rain descended upon us, but then it stopped raining and the sun appeared from behind the clouds, its warmth immediately drying puddles of water. My father [17], briefly explained to me, ‘This is a symbolic welcome. The Homeland sun dried our tears. The beginning of our lives will be here. From this day on you will speak only Hebrew. We will no longer speak the cemetery language.’ This was in November of 1950. (...) The Iron Curtain, which deeply affected Polish-Israeli relations, also cut us - children rescued from the Holocaust – off from the past full of difficult memories, fear, loneliness, and bereavement. (...) I spent my childhood in one of the most beautiful neighbourhoods of Haifa, in the home of my aunt, my mother’s sister. We didn’t speak Polish at home because of my father’s wishes, and to gain the acceptance of my peers in a new country I had to stand out in two areas: to learn excellent Hebrew and to excel in sports. Adding to my father’s boundless joy, I started to attend a ‘real’ Hebrew school in Haifa at the age of 13. Here’s his little girl, rescued from the Holocaust, a frightened and introverted little girl, who got into one of the best schools in the country. (...)

“Many years passed and my father couldn’t find solace in our new homeland. He didn’t want to bring children into a world in which there is no god, and therefore decided not to remarry. During the holidays, when the two of us sat at the table in our flat in Haifa, he used to say: ‘Do you see this room? If everyone had survived we would have had to knock out the wall and connect the two rooms so a large table could be accommodated for the whole family. Eighty people were erased from the face of the earth, and the world still exists as if nothing had happened’.” Lea Balint

After Liberation, Jewish Zionist organizations decided that orphaned children should go to Palestine. They were taken away from Polish families and orphanages and placed in Jewish orphanages and kibbutzim. In September 1946 they housed nearly 13,000 children who were illegally transported to Czechoslovakia as part of the “Bricha” mission effort. In the autumn of 1940, ten-year-old Josek was with his mother and sister (his father died in Palmiry) in the ghetto in Jadwisin. From September 1942 he was in hiding on the Aryan side. Zofia Lisowska and her sons saved him.

“In the spring of 1945 I found out from friends that orphaned Jewish children would be able to go and settle in Palestine. What was I supposed to do all alone? (...) I still felt a deep longing for my lost family. As things stood, I decided to fulfill my old dreams. Aunt Dora [18] didn’t challenge me. Before leaving I visited my Polish friends and saviours, the Lisowskis. I told them that I would never forget them. Soon, in the summer of 1945, our entire group was composed of 200 young Jews who were going from Poland to Palestine. We were leaving as Greek children who were taken during the occupation from Greece to Poland. I took on the assumed name Josef Andos for the purposes of this transport. This whole masquerade was necessary because the Polish authorities back then didn’t allow Polish citizens to leave the country. (...)

“We sailed on board the SS Dobros to Haifa on 19 May 1946. Here I received a referral to Usha Kibbutz in the Zewulum Valley, where I lived and went to school. In Israel I took the surname Carmeli and the first name Josef.” Josef Carmeli aka Josek Inwentarz

[1] Barbara Engelking, Feliks Tych, Andrzej Żbikowski, Jolanta Żyndul, Memory: the History of Polish Jews before, during and after the Holocaust. Shalom Foundation, Warsaw 2008, p. 189

[2] Karolina Panz, “Why those who suffered and held in so much had to die. Jewish victims of armed violence in Podhale between 1945-1947”. Jewish Holocaust. Studies and Materials nr. 11 2015

[3] The Central Committee of Jews in Poland was the political representation of Jews against the government in 1944-1950, it dealt with organising help for Jews who survived the Holocaust.

[4] Turka - the present town is located in western Ukraine

[5] Krystyna Klarczuk was awarded the medal of Righteous Among the Nations.

[6] The author of these memories completed a two-year course in pedagogy, cultural studies, and Higher School of Adult Education and pedagogy at the Jagiellonian University.

[7] Andrzej Szeptycki, Metropolitan of the Lvov Greek Catholic Church, called on all subordinate churches to also hide Jewish children among Ukrainian and Polish orphans. Together with his brother Klemens (the abbot of the Studites monastery in Uniów ) he organised (relying on Basilian monasteries and Studites of both sexes) a support network through which hundreds of Jews were saved.

[8] He-Chaluc - Jewish youth organisation that prepared young people for return and life in Palestine.

[9] Alina Cała Hanna Węgrzynek, Gabriela Zalewska, History and culture of Polish Jews. Dictionary, WSiP, Warsaw 2000

[10] On 6 August 1944 the Red Army entered Drohobycz.

[11] The Czortków Ghetto was established in March 1942 and had a population of 6.8 thousand residents. In August of that year it held its first liquidation effort, when more than two thousand Jews went to the death camp in Belzec, while in October 500 people went to the Janowski Camp in Lvov. The Ghetto was finally liquidated in June 1943.

[12] UNRRA - United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, provided help after the end of World War II. In 1945-47 two million tonnes of goods were sent to Poland, including agricultural machinery, trains, farm animals, grain, medical equipment, clothing, and several million food parcels and other things.

[13] Stefania and Albin Dubiniecki were posthumously honoured with the Righteous Among the Nations medal and the Commander’s Cross of the Rebirth of Poland order.

[14] Bricha - from Hebrew: escape.

[15] HIAS (Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society) - an international charity assisting Jewish immigrants who worked in Poland until 1950.

[16] Pal-Amt - Jewish Agency Immigration Office - an organisation supporting Zionist emigration to Palestine. It operated until 1948.

[17] The author’s father was then 48 years old, he was a widower, a former prisoner of the Auschwitz concentration camp as well as forced labour camps.

[18] Dora Śnieg was the sister of Joska’s mother. In 1945 she left Poland and settled in the United States.

The Righteous

Anyone hiding Jews in occupied Poland was liable for the death penalty. Hans Frank, the Governor of the General Government, issued an order on 15 October 1941 (repeated by General Government governors of constituent districts) that Jews who left their designated neighbourhoods (and those who knowingly assisted them) would be condemned to death. It was forbidden to provide Jewish refugees with housing, food, water, or transport, or to do business with them. Flat owners weren’t the only ones held responsible for hiding Jews; everyone who lived in the same building was also held responsible. In the countryside the Germans also often applied the principle of collective responsibility, punishing the neighbours of those who hid Jews. This penalty was more widely applied after it had been in effect for a year. Approximately 80 per cent of those executed were villagers.

Polish historians have so far been able to determine the names of 704 Poles murdered for helping Jews. Germans, threatening the harshest penalties, demanded that the occupying authorities be informed of any instance involving hiding fugitives. Individuals performing bottom-rung administrative functions were held the most accountable: navy policemen (so called from the colour of their uniforms), village leaders, village guards, and building caretakers. The death penalty acted as a deterrent, but many of the republic’s citizens (mainly Poles, but also Ukrainians, Belarusians, and Lithuanians) took it upon themselves to save their Jewish neighbours. Historians estimate that at least 200,000 people in occupied Poland participated in this operation. [1] People of all walks of life took part: well-educated individuals, those lacking education, the wealthy, the poor, the clergy and nonbelievers; people from both right-wing and left-wing circles. Some of them did it for the money, but the vast majority were guided by their humanitarian instincts. Tens of thousands of Jews survived until Liberation thanks to them (10,000 to 11,000 survived in Warsaw). Participating in the rescue efforts required tremendous courage, to say nothing of dedication and a sense of organisation. The rescuers, however, didn’t consider themselves heroes: they were simply acting in accordance with their professed principles and moral codes.

In 1953, the Israeli parliament (Knesset) established the Yad Vashem World Holocaust Remembrance Centre in Jerusalem. One of its main objectives became to honour rescuers with medals and certificates of the Righteous Among the Nations (Chasid Umot ha-Olam), established by the Knesset in 1963. A medal with the Talmud inscription “Whoever saves one life, saves the whole world” is the highest Israeli civilian honour awarded to non-Jews. The Yad Vashem medal committee awards grants to individuals and families who risked their lives without compensation to rescue Jews during World War II.

During a ceremony in Israel or in their countries of residence righteous individuals receive a medal bearing their name, an honorary certificate and the privilege of entering their surnames on the Wall of Honour in the Garden of the Righteous Among the Nations at Yad Vashem.

Righteous individuals could originally plant their own tree in the park surrounding Yad Vashem, but this tradition has been abandoned due to a lack of space. The Avenue of the Righteous contains a tree planted by Władysław Bartoszewski and Maria Kann on behalf of the Żegota (Council to Aid Jews - more on p. 194). The Hebrew Bible uses a tree to symbolise goodness and nobility. Survivors (or their relatives) may apply for the title of the Righteous being conferred on someone. Yad Vashem will continue to remain active as long as requests are made: by 1 January 2020 the title had been awarded to 27,712 people. [2] Poles have received the most Righteous Among the Nations titles (7,112 people). However, thousands of unknown heroes remain. Some perished, and some have remained anonymous because the title was never bestowed on them, and some feared a backlash and never admitted to their heroic deeds.

Righteous and rescuers who were never commemorated with medals also need to be included in our collective memory. The newly established Museum of the History of Polish Jews has a project entitled “The Polish Righteous – Recalling Forgotten History” which documents the history of support and displays it on the Internet: www.sprawiedliwi.org.pl (the website was founded in 2008 by the Jewish Historical Institute Association, and they gave it as a gift to the Museum of the History of Polish Jews in 2012). They are also involved in educating the public.

The family of Marysia (born in 1934) was hiding in the village of Swoszowice near Kraków with “Aryan” documents. “On 11 August 1943 three Polish policemen and our terrified host came to our flat. There was a quick exchange of German words. My parents were facing the wall, I was by my mum’s side. My mum whispers a command and I run towards the door right under the policeman’s hand, I run out into the hallway, then into the garden, and continue on down the road. Still running, I run away to the town of Łagiewniki, to my parent’s dear friends, Augusta Trammer and her mother.

“My parents, along with a group of about sixty other people, were taken in the direction of Wieliczka and shot somewhere. I couldn’t find their grave or where they were killed. (...) The house in Łagiewniki, where I found refuge, was a meeting place for the Home Army. My appearance drew the neighbours’ attention and they began to blackmail my caregiver. It became very dangerous; many people’s lives were at risk. In March 1944, with only a bag of sugar and an image of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, I was taken by some strangers to Czersk near Góra Kalwaria, to an orphanage run by the sisters of the Order of Servants of the Blessed Virgin Mary. (...) Mrs. Augusta Szemelowska (née Trammer) lives in Kraków. She was awarded the Righteous Among the Nations award for saving (not only) my life.” Maria Feldhorn

Eleven-year-old Ewa stayed in the Rabka Ghetto with her mother and younger sister (her father had been drafted into the Polish army and had disappeared without a trace). In May 1942 the Germans began to liquidate the Ghetto. Both of Ewa’s grandmothers were killed at that time and her grandfather was killed a few weeks later.

“My mother decided we would escape from Rabka in the face of such a terrible tragedy. My Uncle Edward asked his wife’s relative (a Pole) to take us out of this hell. This noble man came and took us (the children) with him. Mum and Lola [3] had to stay, because they hadn’t yet had their fake documents made. A man named Marian Sikorski saved our lives by getting us out of there. He had a wife and three small children, and he ran a school in the small village of Szerzyny. Then, in the autumn of 1942, he picked us up from the Skomielno train station. You could hardly tear my little sister away from my mum’s and Lola’s embraces. We rode by train for a couple of hours, I don’t remember exactly how long it took. We got off at Siepietnica, then took a horse-drawn carriage to the Sikorski household. We children didn’t have any papers. On the way home we stopped next to the mayor’s to drink some water. ‘Nice black-haired girls,’ the mayor said. ‘Probably Jewish.’ ‘No,’ Mr. Sikorski replied, trying to hide his fear with a smile. ‘These are my wife’s relatives.’ Words cannot describe the extent of his feat. After all, his whole family could have been executed by firing squad for helping Jews. For his selfless and heroic act he was (unfortunately posthumously) awarded the medal of the Righteous Among the Nations. His daughters Bożena and Lidia accepted the medal in his name.” Ewa Janowska-Boisse nee Kleinberg

Edmund (born in 1931) lived in the Lwów Ghetto with his family. When his parents died he was left alone with his twin sister. “Yet Divine Providence watched over us. Before the liquidation of the Ghetto we were taken in by an Aryan family who had known my parents before the war. They saved my life but were unable to save my sister. It was a very noble family with ties to the Home Army. I owe them my miserable life. I was hiding in the house of Mr. Stanisław Grabowski, who was honoured by the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw and by Yad Vashem in Jerusalem with its medal of the Righteous Among the Nations. All together, his whole family received four such medals.” Edmund Rudolf de Pellier

Janeczka (born in 1934) escaped to the Aryan side with her mother and sister just before the Kraków Ghetto was liquidated. They received support from people working with Żegota. “Krysta [4] was taken care of by Mr. Aleksander Kamiński [5] from Kraków, who handed us over to Weronika (Zofia Kossak-Szczucka) at the Warsaw train station. I didn’t find out till much later (January 1997) that Mr. Aleksander Kamiński was also of huge help to my sister in Kraków: he fed her while she was in the hospital and after she got out, and he helped transport her by horse-drawn cab before she came to Warsaw with her underground liaison Krysta. He also helped arrange counterfeit documents and money for Ewa. Since my sister had Semitic features, they bandaged her face during the ride as though she were a sick infectious child. She reached Warsaw safely thanks to this.

“It was Weronika, of course, who picked her up at the station. [6] In 1997 I was contacted by the Yad Vashem Institute in Jerusalem, and they asked me to confirm that Mr. Aleksander Kamiński participated in saving our family, since our liaison Krysta had asked to honour him posthumously with a Righteous Among the Nations medal. When replying to Yad Vashem I strongly emphasised how much he deserved the medal for his honorable act.” Janina Pietrasiak

In 1942 a Polish railwayman led 3-year-old Esterka out of the Tarnów [7] Ghetto. “As a small child I remember two things: staying in the basement on piles of uniforms, and the fear, constant fear. When they heard the door opening, they buried me, a 2- (later) 3-year-old child, under heavy coats and I had to lie quietly under them. (...)

“My father would leave the Ghetto because he worked as a rolling stock renovator. He met a railwayman at work who promised to take care of his child. I left the Ghetto in 1942 in this way. I never saw my loved ones again. At night the supervisor and his son led me out of the Ghetto, and the next day I had a new name and was taken to Dębica to my saviour’s distant relatives. Probably because my neighbours informed on me, after threee months in Dębica I returned to Tarnów, now as a cousin from Lwów.Thanks to this, I survived the war. (...) My guardians adopted me after an exhaustive search for my extended family, becoming everything to me in the process. Together with my daughter, I planted a tree in their honour in Yad Vashem in 1987. I also collected their Righteous among Nations medal awarded in 1984. Unfortunately, they were no longer around to receive it.” Estera Rosner

In February 1943 eight-year-old Lila’s mother led her up to the Warsaw Ghetto gate and told her to go to the other side. Her carer (who later became her foster mother) was waiting for her there. They survived the Warsaw Uprising together and passed through the camp in Pruszków [8]. They later worked in an armaments factory in Brzeg on the Oder, and after liberation they returned to Warsaw.

“Our home on Towarowa Street was demolished. We were destitute, hungry, and had no clothes. But neither I nor my adoptive mother would beg on the streets. (...) A neighbour from Towarowa Street was able to find us and later take us in. We lived with her, her husband, and her daughter in one room on Nieborowska Street. (...)

“We lived like this until the autumn of 1945. Then my foster father returned from exile in Germany; he had been deported to a forced labour camp in Glogau after the Warsaw Uprising. Together we took over a burned-out flat on Częstochowska Street and we moved in. There were no windows, floors, kitchen, doors, or even an entrance. We didn’t have any pots, furniture, or food. But we did have the will to live. (...)

“After receiving my baptismal certificate (I don’t remember when it happened), I became the daughter of my adoptive parents. I called them Mum and Dad. The whole time, however, I was hoping that someone from my birth family would find me. I turned to the Polish Red Cross for help, but unfortunately this yielded no results. (...) I know that I owe my life to my adoptive family, my carers. For their generosity, effort, dedication, and courage, I made sure that they posthumously received the medal of the Righteous Among the Nations.” Liliana Sterling

Esterka stayed in Kołomyja Ghetto [9] with her father and stepmother. The liquidation of the Ghetto began in the early spring of 1943. When her father was killed during one of the Aktions, her stepmother placed the 8-year-old girl on the Aryan side for safekeeping.

“I was led out through the cellar of a pharmacy where my stepmother worked and which bordered the Aryan side. My stepmother and her sister sought to escape through Romania, and I don’t know what happened to them. My ‘grandma’, Helena Śledzińska, together with her son Leopold and daughter-in-law Maria, hid me. I had false documents and was known as Jadwiga Śledzińska, the illegitimate daughter of Leopold Śledziński.

“My caregivers were good to me. They taught me to read and write, as well as to learn different prayers and the catechism. Anonymous letters arrived several times accusing them of hiding a Jewish boy, since I had no hair and walked around in a beret. Helena Śledzińska suspected one of the neighbours and she went to him and made a scene. She was a very energetic and feisty person. They also made a show of not changing my lifestyle; I would still play in the garden and go out into the street.

“I remember that whether I was in the Ghetto or with my new guardians, I always held a firm belief that I would not die. I believed that I would live. In 1945, after the war, my carers and I went to Warsaw as a part of the repatriation of war refugees. I was given to the Central Committee of Jews in Poland, and from there to an orphanage in Zatrzebie near Falenica. Mr. and Mrs. Śledziński no longer contacted me, which really hurt me, but I didn’t know their address. (...) I was finally able to find my wartime caregiver at the end of the sixties. In 1990, Leopold Śledziński, along with my now deceased mother, were awarded the Yad Vashem Righteous Among the Nations medal. During a trip to Israel in 1994, I found a sign with their names on it in Yad Vashem.” Dziunia Estera Tattelbaum aka Tajtelbaum

Wiesio (born in 1935) had a Polish father and a Jewish mother. When the war broke out the Jewish part of his family ended up in the Warsaw Ghetto. “After the capitulation of Warsaw, I moved in with my Jewish grandparents on Chmielna Street. Later my grandparents and uncle were put in the Warsaw Ghetto. I don’t remember if they took me along, and my father later got me out of the Ghetto, or if he did it right away. Since I was blessed with a so-called ‘good appearance’, I didn’t have to sit in the closet or under the bed (like my ‘racial’ peers), though that didn’t mean that I wasn’t in danger.

“I don’t remember when got to 3 Widok Street, where Mrs. Anna Choynowska’s love was almost motherly. She was my father’s friend and owned the Pod cyranką restaurant. Mrs. Choynowska was a remarkably kind woman with a charming smile. She certainly knew what could happen to her for keeping a Jewish child, yet she decided to keep me safe. Unlike my fellow Jewish children, I lived like a Polish child. I would come to the restaurant or walk around Warsaw where I was often accosted by German officers. They would pat me on the head and offer me sweets.

“My aunt (because this is how I addressed Anna Choynowska) wanted to save my mum, Elżbieta. She rented her a flat at 8 Widok Street. They would bring her food from the Pod cyranką restaurant. But my mum didn’t heed the good advice: she often came to the restaurant despite her ‘bad [that is, Jewish] appearance’. This contributed to her arrest in 1942.

“Around that time the Gestapo also arrested my father. He was imprisoned in Pawiak prison, where he spent about two months. He caught sight of my mother during one of his walks. They exchanged greetings. My father came back from Pawiak but unfortunately my mother never did. The circumstances of her death remain unknown. After his release from prison my father continued helping my aunt in running her restaurant. He received information that my mother was dead. He met a certain lady and married her. His wife lived on Wilcza Street in Warsaw. My father moved in with her. He went to Cyranka every day for work. One day two Gestapo officers showed up and asked about my father. My aunt didn’t give them his address, explaining that she didn’t know where my father lived. They went to see the superintendent of the building, and he must have given them the address, because a moment later they flagged down a rickshaw and we rode to my father’s place. He opened the door. They talked to him for a short while and then asked him about his ex-wife. He said: ‘My wife was Jewish’. The Gestapo said goodbye to my father and we got back into the rickshaw as if nothing had happened. The Germans left. What happened a bit later could be attributed to the previous incident.

“This was in the evening and my aunt had put me to bed. I heard the doorbell ring and jabbering in German. The Germans had come to pick me up. My aunt was extremely determined to fight for me. The fight was long and almost hopeless, and finally she bribed the Germans with gold. I had been rescued. My aunt would have done anything for me, although I was too young to realise how much she loved me. Shortly after this incident we happened to be leaving a café on Krakowskie Przedmieście, and we stumbled onto a patrol composed of an SS man and a navy-blue Polish policeman. They ordered me to enter the gate and to pull my shorts down. I was circumcised. My aunt said that I had problems with phimosis and during surgery they realised that the foreskin needed to be removed, which was performed by a surgeon. The (blue) police officer convinced the German that I was a Gentile, and I once again managed to dodge a dangerous situation in one piece. (...)

“In 2009 I contacted Yad Vashem through the Israeli Embassy to grant Anna Choynowska the title of ‘Righteous’ posthumously. She fought heroically for my life. She never bore any children herself. I became the child she had always dreamed of. I will add that she was a wonderful, normal person and everyone who ever met her loved her dearly.” Wiesław Bieniek

In the autunm of 1940, ten-year-old Josek wound up in the Jadwisin Ghetto with his mother and sister (his father was killed in Palmiry). From September 1942 he hid by himself on the Aryan side. “It was already mid-November 1943 when it got unbearably cold and grey. I realised that I couldn’t stand it any longer. (...) After a few days I went to the Lisowskis’ doorstep again, hungry and shivering from the cold. But I didn’t go inside, I hid and waited until I saw one of Mr. Lisowski’s sons. Finally, I saw Witek returning home. But he didn’t recognise me even when I was talking to him. What a tragedy! We grew up together for eleven years in one yard, now he didn’t recognise me! I must have fainted from the emotional blow. When I woke up, I was sitting stark naked in a bathtub. Mrs. Lisowska (and her three sons Janek, Wiesław, and Witold [Witek]) were beside me. I remember that Mrs. Lisowska was washing me and told Janek to burn my clothes. This was such a delight: hot water, soap, and friendly faces.

“During my bath Mrs. Lisowska was kneeling by the tub, crying and saying, ‘Dudek, kiddie, what am I supposed to do with you? I run a shop and my house is always full of strangers, groups of friends are always coming to see each of my sons. Where will I hide you? My husband was killed in the war, do I have the right to bring death upon myself and my children?’ I didn’t fully grasp everything that Mrs. Lisowska was saying. I was so stunned and happy that nothing new could disturb my peace.

“But I remember Wiesław answering his mother with the following sentence: ‘If our father were alive, then Dudek would stay with us’. Mrs. Lisowska stood up, looked at the children’s faces and asked Janek and Witek: ‘Do you think so too?’ They both responded yes. Then she said, ‘Well then, we’ll let Dudek stay with us as long as possible. But our entire lives must change from this moment on. The slightest mistake can cost all of us our lives.’

“I was very weak and I didn’t truly grasp the importance of the words she had just uttered. Only when I regained my strength, did I realise how great Mrs. Lisowska’s dedication was, as well as the attitude that her sons showed. I moved into a small but cosy room on the first floor of the Lisowskis’ home. I had a chair and a comfortable bed and plenty of tasty food. After a few weeks I gained enough weight to slowly return to my plump pre-war figure. I sat for hours at a slight distance from the window watching what was happening on the street below. But I had to move around silently because many different people often came to the Lisowski home. Evenings were the best. We all sat down to supper when all the doors were locked and the thick curtains were drawn. (...) My friend Witold Lisowski visited me in Israel and I told him my life story and war adventures. Both he and his mother Zofia were awarded the Righteous Among the Nations title by Yad Vashem.” Josef Carmeli aka Josek Inwentarz

From 1943 eleven-year-old Kasia stayed in a Turkowice orphanage run by the Congregation of the Little Servant Sisters of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Sister Irena [10] was her teacher. “Our wartime teacher tried to get us to forget and not think about the War. She treated danger as a challenge, preparing for death every day. I didn’t realise this when I was in Turkowice. She talked about it many years later. One of the Germans once told her: ‘Sister, if I weren’t so fond of you, you’d be lying in a ditch with your Jewish women long ago.’ She constantly watched over me. (...) Sister Irena went to Israel and personally received the medal of the Righteous Among the Nations there. She was accompanied by Fredzia and Stefan, survivors from Turkowice who moved to Israel after the war. A plaque with the name Sister Irena was laid in Yad Vashem.” Katarzyna Meloch

Ruta (born in 1935) escaped from the Brzeżany Ghetto with her parents [11]. She was placed in a Polish family, but she soon fled back to her parents. “The second time round a priest I knew named Kostołowski put me up with his friend: Malvina Lipińska from Urlów, a village in the Tarnopol voivodeship. I stopped being Ruta Linder there and began my life anew as Maria Kamińska. I took this name because when Mrs. Lipińska read a list of people who were shot I remembered this particular name and surname. I got a false baptismal certificate, I had to learn prayers (different ones from the ones my mother had taught me), and I stopped being a child. From then on I was constantly afraid that someone would recognise me. I lived like the other rural children. I took cows to pasture and fed the chickens and turkeys. I missed my parents so much that I tried to kill myself by banging my head against the wall, but I only managed to bruise my head rather than kill myself.

“We lived in the Ukrainian countryside and Bandera’s army started to worry us. We would have to leave this village to save our lives. Surprisingly, the Germans helped Mrs. Lipińska out. German and Austrian officers lived in our quarters with us. They let us use a truck and transported us and our belongings to Czchów on the Dunajec in the Kraków voivodship. We lived with Mrs. Lipińska’s sister, Mrs. Maria Barącz. I was there as a relative.

“I called both women ‘Aunt’, and everybody knew that my parents were killed during bombing raids. Mrs. Barącz had a very nice house which also housed a pharmacy. The Germans occupied the front rooms for their headquarters. The house was cramped since Mrs. Barącz had taken the entire family under her wing. I remember that I slept in a small child’s bed the whole time. There was a Jew who hid behind the house in a woodshed under the firewood. The girls in this family belonged to the Polish Home Army. This family was very noble and heroic. Unfortunately, both sisters have died. I have maintained contact with their daughters and granddaughters. I once wanted to get them a Righteous Among the Nations medal. In response I heard: ‘You know, Marysia, that’s completely unnecessary. You’re alive, and that’s the greatest possible reward’.” Maria Kamińska (Ruta Linder)

Marek (born in 1936) lived with his parents in Tarnopol. When the Soviet army invaded, the family was deported to the town of Mikulińce. “We were forced into hiding when the Nazis occupied our eastern territories. A Pole named Jan Misiewicz (who currently lives in Poland) hid me, my parents, and my mum’s two sisters there until the end of the War. He kept us in a shelter that he had made in the barn himself. We endured very difficult conditions there; we lacked daylight and toilets until Liberation. (...) This man who kept us safe was invited to Israel: this is something I have to mention. He was given the title of ‘Righteous Among the Nations’ there. He was also invited to California by the local rabbi, who also owes him his life.” Marek Teichmann

JEWISH PARENTS

Very few Jewish parents managed to save their children. They simply couldn’t accept the fact that their children would die along with them. They made heroic efforts, which often cost them their lives, to ensure that their offspring would survive the Holocaust. “We were saved by our loved ones. Others only came after them...There aren’t any medals though for birth mothers and fathers of the children of the Holocaust. Our lives are their reward.” Katarzyna Meloch

Ania was born in 1940 in a town in Reich territory bordering the General Government. A Polish woman named Mrs. R. took the young Jewish woman and her baby under her care. “In any case if they ever came for my mother, I wouldn’t be with her. At night my caretaker took me in. I had to survive. (...) “We both cried and held one another. My carer tried to pull me away from my mum. And we parted with one another as though we would never see each other again. My mum then howled in despair long into the night while I was full of tears, shaken, I couldn’t sleep.” Anna Maria

The father of Kasia (born in 1932) was killed in the first days of the German-Soviet War in 1941. Her mother perished that same year. “My mother, Wanda Meloch, was the first and most important person who rescued me. I was 9 years old when the Germans arrested her in Białystok and killed her. She knew she would die. She wasn’t able to fight against destiny, but she was able to imbue me with her strong faith to save her daughter. She came up with an idea of how to rescue me. For many days and nights in Białystok she taught me to memorise her brother Jacek Goldman’s address in the Warsaw Ghetto: 12 Elektoralna Street. I wasn’t allowed to forget. She would wake me up at night checking to see if I had remembered. I remember to this day. (...) Jacek’s address was entrusted to a child’s memory: it was a kind of testament, summoning her beloved brother to replace the child’s mother and father when she was no longer alive.” Kasia sent her uncle Jacek a letter in the Warsaw Ghetto, and it reached the addressee. The girl’s family hired a woman to take her from Białystok to Warsaw.

“Wanda Meloch gave me my life twice; the first time when I was born, the second time, coming up with a scenario to save me. By moving to Warsaw, I avoided the fate of the children of the Białystok Ghetto. They were deported to the showpiece Terezin Ghetto in Czechoslovakia [12], and from there to Auschwitz to be murdered.” Katarzyna Meloch

Zosia (born in 1935) lived with her parents in Kraków. Her father moved to the Ghetto, while her mother decided to stay with her in the Aryan part of the city. “And my mother later rented a flat in Borek Fałęcki. Today this is Podgórze, a part of Kraków, but back then it was a thatched-roofed village. And my mother rented a flat there, simply saying that Germans threw us out of our flat and that my father went to war and never returned. Which was actually true to a large extent, because the Germans had in fact thrown us out of our flat. Mama had already somehow obtained an identity card in the name of our pre-war maid, I remember very well.

“I don’t know how exactly - she probably bought this identity card; I don’t know, because I never knew the details. The Ghetto hadn’t been created yet, because this was in the beginning, in 1941. The two of us had lived in Borek alone for a long time by the time the Kraków Ghetto was established. Today I admire my mother’s courage and intuition. How did she know not to go to the Ghetto, because that would have meant the end? How did she know? She was the one who decided that we wouldn’t go to the Ghetto. She was the one who decided that we had to hide and live as Poles. And she was the one who acquired an identity card and rented a flat for us. I remember that my father visited us once, somehow quietly for a few hours, since the landlady wasn’t at home, and then he was gone. My father went to the Ghetto, he couldn’t hide with us. Men were very easily exposed, not to mention that neither my mother nor I looked Jewish, whereas my father did. So much so that he went to the Ghetto. At first the Ghetto wasn’t closed off yet. I remember a trip to the Kraków Ghetto, we went to see my father. It was an awfully long way. Because we lived in Borek, even further than the so-called Borkowska Mountain, and we had to go back up there, where Lwowska Street is today. It was an awfully long way to our flat from this point all the way past the Borkowska Mountain. We went there on foot. And that was the last time I ever saw my father. He was cheerful and said that everything would be all right and that he was in good health.

“My father probably worked in the workshops as well; they sewed something for the military: he was a furrier, after all... He probably hoped they’d need him and he’d survive. I don’t know how he died. I say, ‘I don’t know,’ because my mother and I never talked about it after the War, as if I couldn’t care less. (...) I never asked my mother how she knew what would happen to the Jews...I think she was just an intuitive woman ...she had a keen feel for it but it wasn’t possible to know it. You had to sense this somehow, feel that the Ghetto was a trap. She had an identity card and worked! Because her pre-war dentist friend gave her a job in Kraków. (...) She would go to work in Kraków throughout the entire War. It was a way to survive, she earned money. But she took risks every day. Someone could have recognised her.” Zofia Radzikowska

Four-year-old Zygmunt stayed in the Lwów Ghetto with his parents. “In November 1942 my mother was murdered. My father made me a hiding place in the attic of the building, since the Germans searched for children to murder them first. After the Lwów Ghetto got even more cramped, my father could no longer hide me in the spot he had previously prepared in our building. He then worked on ‘the Aryan side’ as a stoker in a shoe factory. Along with his friend he prepared a new hiding place for me under a pile of coal. He managed to get me out of the Ghetto (I was then 4 years old and my mother was dead). My father returned to the Ghetto every day and realised that he could die or that someone could discover my hiding place in the factory. Therefore, he tried to contact various Poles he knew who might decide to take me to their homes from there. Mr. Piotr Bąkowski took on this mission. He was an inspector in the Lwów University Botanical Garden. He brought me out of the factory and then hid me with his mentally-ill relative, who lived in the Botanical Garden after the hospital for psychiatric patients was liquidated. Unfortunately, I don’t know her surname.

“I stayed there for over a year in very difficult conditions until the liberation of Lwów on 27 July 1944. My father also survived the occupation, taking part in battles against the Germans in Jewish self-defense units. I was in a state of extreme emaciation when he picked me up. Throughout this period my hair wasn’t cut and I wasn’t bathed or regularly nourished, so I had difficulty with speech, movement, and recognising people. My treatment lasted for over two years.” Zygmunt Wolf

Ewa (born in 1931) moved to the village of Święcany with her mother and sister after leaving the Rabka Ghetto. Her mother used a false identity card. “The stamp colour was different on my mother’s identity card from the one on the photo that was affixed to it. This was a death sentence. My mother came up with a desperate idea to spill ink on the image, and if the Germans checked her ID she’d explain that her children made a mess, accidentally spilling an inkwell on it. She was ID’d several times during our stay in the countryside by the German military police. I remember one of them whistling upon seeing the stained identity card. My mother told him the children-spilling-ink story. He patted us children on our heads and went away. The second time a different German, after seeing the identity card, made a ‘joke’ - he pulled a revolver from his belt and held it to Hanka’s [my sister’s] head. Instead of shooting it he said: ‘pif-paf!’ laughed and went away. I can’t even imagine what my mother was feeling then. (...) “My mother had some valuables, clothes, and bedding with her, only as much as she was able carry away when leaving Rabka. She slowly sold these things off to pay for housing and food. The clothes gradually got torn, the money was running out. We grew out of the worn-out shoes. My mother had the local shoemaker make us clogs. Their uppers were made of my dad’s pre-war ski gloves. We were plagued by lice, fleas, and cockroaches, as well as scabies. The pangs of poverty began to hit us hard. To get dinner, we children had to take our host’s cows to pasture. Country children taught us how to walk barefoot on the stubble so it wouldn’t sting our feet: we had to run so that the stubble would lie flat as our feet came down on it and then it wouldn’t hurt.

“We will always remember hard times when, on rainy days, barefoot, stiff from the cold, hungry and praying with tears in our eyes, we prayed for the cow-herding hour to come sooner. We were too afraid of our landlady to do it earlier. The winters back then were cold and severe; by the end of the War we never left the house because we lacked warm clothing and shoes. Fortunately, in the midst of all this misery many different people helped my mother. Lola [13] would come to visit us to make it seem as though we didn’t need to hide (she was also hiding with Aryan papers herself). Risking her own life, she would bring us money from Aunt Zosia [14], who was already staying in the Kraków Ghetto then. A priest from a nearby parish would also visit us, bringing us food from time to time. I remember his name was Józef Wilk. A teacher named Maria Wnęk would go out in blizzards to come and see us. She was Mr. Sikorski’s relative. She slogged a dozen kilometres on foot to teach us catechism and how to behave in church.” Ewa Janowska-Boisse nee Kleinberg

Ada (born in 1935) was able to get out of the Próżan Ghetto with her mother and sister. They survived the occupation in Narew, using false documents. “After escaping from the Ghetto my mother leaves me and Renia in Narew (where we hide) and goes to another town or village where no one knows her to steal a cross and a holy picture from a church. She wants to display them in the house as evidence that we are Catholics. She steals them and returns after dark. Renia and I are really crying, devastated that she’s gone. My mother’s face is grey, and she is shaking with fear. It is also a fear of separation, because, after all, the three of us are the only ones left out of our entire enormous family. This fear lingers and keeps coming back in different circumstances, for example, when she works as a cook for the Germans. She steals a piece of sausage and brings it home under her cloak. She gives it to us and commands us to eat it quickly. She sits on the bed alone and shakes with fear. They could shoot her for stealing... The same fear causes her to get hold of some hydrogen peroxide to gradually lighten Renia’s hair. This little girl, my little sister, suddenly becomes a blonde.” Ada Boddy

Hania (born in 1940) was in the Warsaw Ghetto with her parents. In 1942 the family escaped from the Ghetto and hid on the Aryan side, using false documents. “In August 1943 some blackmailers paid us a ‘visit’. They took away all of our material goods and also frightened our hosts so much that we had to leave the flat. My parents decided to end their lives. They had already lost the rest of their family and the occupiers would certainly have killed them. I was with my mother, in the depths of the Vistula River, and my father was under a train’s wheels since he was a good swimmer. Details of this drama are described in Władysław Smólski’s book, Enchanted Years (PAX 1964), in the chapter entitled ‘Mercy’. My mother and I were rescued by river workers who happened to be passing, by sand dredgers who were rowing a boat. My father has no grave and the circumstances of his death are unknown. We survived the rest of the occupation, initially with the help of the Żegota operation and with people associated with it. With their help my mother found employment as a lice feeder at the Institute of Hygiene. We were able to survive until the end of the occupation under a new surname due to her job. Thanks to other people’s help my mother regained faith in people and in herself.” Hanna Raicher

Danusia was born in 1942 a month after the death of her father. Her mother never revealed what his surname was. She used false Polish documents until the end of her life. “I met my mother consciously when I was 4 years old. When the War ended I was 2 years old (because the war ended in 1944 in Lwów). I was being hidden for a year. When the Ghetto was being liquidated, my mother passed me on to a certain lady...The lady was friends with German officers: a fun-loving lady, but she was a wonderful person. She cherished me but never allowed me to call her ‘Mama’. ‘I’m your aunt’, she would repeat over and over. But the War was over and my mother didn’t come back. It wasn’t until the War had been over for two years that my mother remembered that she had a child. I was at this lady’s house, and I probably would have stayed there permanently.

“By 1943 it was clear that the ghettos would be liquidated. and my mother gathered everything that she had and bought a flat for my guardian, ‘Mrs. Zosia’. She handed me over to her while returning to the Ghetto herself. Deportations of people began the next day. The Ghetto was being liquidated and a German officer ejected my mother from a column of people. She was a blue-eyed blonde, petite and tiny. After he took her out of the column she had nowhere to go; she had no money, she had nothing. She didn’t want to come to me for fear of exposing me. So she went to a church and sat down; the church was cool (it was summer) and she sat in a pew. The sexton’s wife came and asked her what she was doing in the church. She knew from gossip that my mother had nowhere to go...and was just sitting there. She took her to her home, but she couldn’t admit to hiding someone, because she had a daughter who worked in a German institution. She lived on the ground floor and people dug holes under the floor to keep potatoes and coal there. And my mother stayed there for almost a year until Liberation. She only went out at night, when the sexton’s wife would let her wash herself. Of course, she also made sure that my mother was fed. When the Russians liberated Lwów, they found my mother in a state of complete stupor and took her to the hospital. She stayed there until she began to recover enough to remember that she had a child, and then she came back for me.” Danuta Cukierman

Chana (born in 1935) and her little sister Róża, who was two years younger, were taken care of by their widowed father. When the Germans came they had to leave for the ghetto. “My father learned that Jews would soon be deported to extermination camps. He began hastily searching among his contacts to find us a place to hide. He had previously taken me to a certain family to show them what I looked like, and he told me to memorise the way to their house. “One day he said, ‘Go through the wires and go see those people that we met, do you remember?’ There was a barking dog. I was surprised, because this wasn’t the road that we took earlier. I walked and walked through the wires through what seemed like a very high meadow. I saw a red brick house in the distance. At one point I heard someone screaming in my direction and then I saw a guard with a long rifle on his back (I remember it to this day). I was very scared but I approached closer, and he screamed even louder. I crouched down in the grass to hide behind it but he continued to shout. I was afraid to run, so I walked slowly back to the wires. I saw my father and sister by the wires.

“Dad was very surprised. ‘Why did you come back?’ he asked. I told him that a man with a rifle yelled at me. My dad was so upset that he told me to go again. I cried, I explained that I was too afraid to go, that I wouldn’t go, so he let me stay. I felt happy. On that same day in the late afternoon, he walked me to the gate, gave something to the guard, gave me a light push so I would leave faster, and I found myself outside the ghetto walls.

“The walk was full of interesting things: I saw drunken Germans in uniform walking by with wobbly drunken women; they would mumble something and laugh. I saw people scurrying in different directions. I was a very curious child, I would look around and go places blindly, without thinking of the way. I think God was leading me. Finally I went down a small, less busy, street. I walked straight into the street from the pavement. There was ice on the pavement which broke under my shoes. This really amused me. A man passed by and asked where I was going. I didn’t answer. He told me, ‘Don’t step on the ice because you’ll get sick – you’re already very wet.’

“Finally, I saw a row of cottages and I heard a dog barking from one of them, so I went and found out that I had made it to the right address. The lady took my clothes to dry them out, and my father came very late in the evening to find out if I had got there safely. (...) After getting me out of the ghetto my father fervently started looking for a hiding place for my sister. She never seemed to have any luck. She would end up in worse places and with worse people than I had: she would live in basements with rats running around her, and she was hungry and suffered from the frost. Some people demanded more money from my father, threatening that they would give my sister up to the Nazis. Our father was very watchful; he would immediately change my sister’s location if he sensed danger. Not on his own, of course, but with the help of various acquaintances. This time he reacted quickly and decisively. My sister went to Mr. and Mrs. Zielonka’s place near Swięciany.” Chana, Róża

Fredzia (probably born in 1935) hid in an underground bunker in the countryside with her entire family. One day her grandparents left the hiding place and never came back. Then she lost her father. She and her mother began to tramp on foot... Hungry, tired, and penniless, they were wearing the only clothing they had. They knocked on peasants’ doors: a different person’s every time...the peasants would secretly give them slices of bread. Sometimes they would receive a piece of sugarbeet, the kind you give to cows, or a potato, and then they were driven away immediately.

It was 1943. Fredzia and her mother had been wandering the roads for two years. She was now 7-and-a-half years old. One day she and her mother saw (from a distance) two Germans riding on horseback with a Polish peasant walking beside them and pointing at them. They had been afraid the whole time that this would happen: someone informing the Germans about them. Fredzia recalls: “My mother still had time to whisper to me: ‘Remember, I’m not your mother. You’re a Christian, your name is Fredzia Kowalska, and I was a maid in your house...your mother died, your father is a soldier, he went to the front, you must absolutely not say that I’m your mother!’ I was dumbfounded: after all, a moment ago we were so very close to each other. I objected: ‘Mama, do you love me? How could you say such a thing?’ And she spoke to me very meaningfully: ‘It’s because I love you so much... And be careful: You don’t know any Yiddish words’.”

(...) Fredzia and her mother were taken to a prison surrounded by a high wall where the girl was interrogated on her own. “That’s Helena, our maid” she said about her mother. She repeated everything flawlessly. “I have no mother, my father was drafted, only Helena takes care of me …” Fredzia charmed the investigators with her big-eyed innocent gaze. (...)

“I betrayed my mother terribly, but my will to live was so great! Children did such things. Adults think that they wouldn’t be able to… I never believed that something so horrible would happen either. And then years later I had a guilty conscience because I had listened to my mother!” They locked Fredzia in a cell with women thieves. Her mother was in a nearby cell. “... and the next day I saw my mother...I was overwhelmed by suffering and remorse that I had left her...Suddenly her eyes got red and scary, she staggered unsteadily and tore her hair out, screaming in Yiddish: ‘Wu is main kind?’ [Where is my child?] (...) Our separation had driven her mad.”

Fredzia managed to convince the Germans that she wasn’t Jewish. She was placed in a Polish peasant’s house. Day after day she approached the prison wall and looked for her mother. One day a woman with disheveled hair was thrown into the yard and a shot rang out. The woman fell over... “I recognised her black dress, it was my mother!” by: Katarzyna Meloch [15]

In July 1942, the Germans began the final liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto. The parents of 9-year-old Margarita decided that they needed to hide her on the Aryan side. “My father wasn’t present, and my mother called me to her, so that I would be with her and away from the others. She told me that my father would take me out of the Ghetto and place me somewhere safe until the end of the War. When I protested that I didn’t want to be safe, I just wanted to be with them, my mother told me for the first time that ‘resettlement’ could actually mean death. This meant nothing to me, and I said that I could die, as long as we died together. We both cried and hugged each other, but after a short while my mother said that she didn’t want to die; that they would find a way to save themselves when I was safe, but that this wouldn’t be possible if I stayed with them. My mother asked me again the next day if I would agree to leave. She told me again how much she wanted to live, but that as long as they were worrying about my life, my parents couldn’t worry about theirs. Once they knew that I was safe, they would be able to do things that wouldn’t be possible with a child by their side. They prepared a place for me in a convent, where I would be well taken care of. When the War was over, I would definitely come back to them. She spoke as if everything had already been decided, and my consent wasn’t the least bit important. I remember my mother’s arguments and how much she said she didn’t want to die, so she looked at me, still waiting for my permission, so I said that I agreed.” Margarita Turkow

Irenka (born in 1937) hid with her mother in Warsaw on the Aryan side. They lived separately and each of them had forged documents with a different surname. “She appeared in February 1943, saying that she was going to Germany for work. I started to cry and I said: ‘I can eat dry bread, as long as we can be together.’ My mother decided to take me with her. In March 1943 we found ourselves near Singen am Boden in a village located on the Swiss border. Because we had different names, I took on the role of the daughter of my mother’s deceased friend, who had promised to take care of me before my mother died.

“I called my mother ‘Frau Katarina’, and only at night, clinging to her, could I quietly call her ‘Mama’. My mother worked hard in the fields and as a maid in the Klopfer family. I helped work in the garden at the age of 6, and in the evenings I glued signs (the hosts ran a grocery store) and I helped their son with his homework. There was a Gestapo building across the street from us and the Gestapo commander really scared me with his huge and very dangerous dog. I still dreamed about this Gestapo officer and his fierce dog many years after the War ended. The host that my mother worked for was a decent man. He wasn’t a fascist, and he even let my mother listen to the radio that he kept hidden in the cellar. Unfortunately, he was shot before the end of the War, when he was serving as as a border guard. His diabolical old battleaxe of a wife beat me, although it comforted me that she also beat her own children. Before the War ended my mother contracted a blood infection and wound up in the Singen hospital, and at that time I was placed in a home run by German nuns. I remember the Mother Superior slapping me in the face, shouting: ‘Polnische Schweine!’ [Polish pig]. If she had known who I really was I wouldn’t be around to write these memories today.” Irena

Hania (born in 1926) lived in the Warsaw Ghetto with her mother. She cites a story she heard from a young mother in her memoirs. “I was pregnant with Januszek then, it was in the fifth month of my pregnancy when it all began. We were really thinking about what we should do now. We had lost hope that we would be able to save him, but he should live! We were very fortunate that this man agreed to carry him out of the Ghetto and drop him outside. There was an orphanage on the ground floor of his building, and he would leave him on the stairway on the top floor. Then they would have to take care of him. A doctor I knew was trying to escape from the Ghetto. I gave her the address and she promised that if she could survive the War, then she would go to the orphanage and see what had happened to my son. How would she know which child it was? He had a birthmark on his neck. It was terrible that I would never see him again myself. But we had to do this.’The child’s mother is crying, but the young parents are cool and calm, considering the unfolding situation, but it apparently calms them down to feel that they’ve fulfilled their duty.” Hanna Wehr

Six-year-old Halinka and her parents stayed in the Drohobycz Ghetto from 1941 and were later taken to a labour camp. “A Jewish policeman warned us about the liquidation of the Ghetto - it was later called ‘Bloody Thursday’. My parents were young and strong and they were qualified for work. (...) My parents packed me into a backpack and were escorted to the camp. (...) Children weren’t allowed there - it was a labour camp, not a concentration camp. My mother would hide me in an old loft or in refinery forms. These were akin to cake tins, a dozen centimetres long, one on top of another. I would lie there all day and night. My parents would bring me something to eat at night or when people were driven to work outside the camp. My mother was employed in washing and ironing an SS officer’s linen. She would take me to the barracks when the main guards were off duty.I remember this one moment: my mother was ironing SS shirts, and I sat on the bunk and played with a bundle of white cotton thread. Suddenly my mother, who was standing and ironing at the door, saw a German approaching. She quickly shoved me under the bed. I was holding the end of a ball of yarn, and it rolled out under the SS officer’s feet. He kicked it under the cot. Hadn’t he seen me? Maybe he didn’t want to see me? My mother gave him his laundered shirts. I thought this spelled the end. (...) The local Ukrainian partisans, knowing what awaited the prisoners, cut the wires surrounding the camp. My father decided not to escape. My mother tried to get a Ukrainian outfit for herself and for me and we crawled under the cut wires at night. It was late autumn or winter. We walked through the stubble and I cried terribly because I had a lacerated leg. My mother picked me up and carried me, to get away from the camp as quickly as possible and walk to the main road. Fate watched over us, because a Ukrainian named Znak who lived near my grandma’s house happened to be passing that way. (...) My mother recognised him and begged him to take us with him.” Halina Bania

Jadzia was a year old in September 1941 when she went to the Vilnius Ghetto with her family. “My father, Samuel Murhiakiel, and my two brothers, teenagers, were killed in one of the Ponary mass executions; I don’t know when they died. My mother wanted to save me at all costs. She decided to get me out of the Ghetto and entrust a Polish family to take care of me. She turned to our former neighbours from Zwierzyniec, whose son was my brother’s friend before the War. She believed that he would survive the War and pick me up from my carers. I was carried out of the Ghetto shortly before its liquidation [16]. They left me at an agreed upon place in some bushes between two houses. A carer picked me up from there. My mother pinned a card with my birthdate and name (Jadwiga) on my clothes. (...) I think that my guardians were well paid by my mother. My mother was in the Ghetto alone, without a husband or children. She must have greatly missed me and been really worried, because she decided to get out of the Ghetto and see me in spite of the danger. She probably bribed the guards and went to the Aryan side. She was shot by a German patrolman there. Some people on the street found her body and buried it in the Jewish cemetery. I don’t know who they were, but I am very grateful to them. When news of my mother’s death reached my carers, they decided to rid themselves of trouble and hand me over to the Germans.” Jadwiga Hreniak

Tusia [17] (born in 1939) lived in the Brody Ghetto with her parents [18]. Her father died and her mother attempted to save her by getting her over to the Aryan side for safekeeping. “For fifty years I didn’t know my real name, date of birth, or who my birth parents were. I was one of many Jewish children rescued by a Polish family. I found myself in Maria Kucharska and Mikołaj Titarenka’s home during Easter of 1943. (...) They became my parents. I was a blue-eyed blonde and could easily pass for their daughter. I was baptised in the Równe church and issued a birth certificate dated 7 February 1939.

“Many years later I found out that I was actually born in the latter part of 1939. (...) After the War my [adoptive] parents repatriated to Poland. Transports from the East were directed to the Recovered Territories [former German territory, now the western side of modern Poland]. I grew up there and started a family. I always knew that I was Jewish; my adoptive mother often shouted this at me. (...) My birth mother managed to survive until Liberation, and then she began to look for me, but she had no idea who took care of me during the War. Józef, the man who took me out of the Ghetto and placed me with the Titarenkow family, was murdered by the Germans, and any trace of me was gone. I was already living in the Recovered Territories while my mother wandered around Wołyń for nearly a year and a half. My adoptive parents had no other children besides me. They didn’t want to part with me and therefore didn’t report me as a Holocaust survivor to the CKŻP [19]. My mother couldn’t find me since I had new personal data and I wasn’t on any list.

“Convinced that I had perished during the War, she decided to emigrate to Israel. Along the way in Austria, she met and married a Łódź Jew named Jakub Rajchman. My older half-brother Eli was born in Innsbruck. My younger half-brother Chaim came into the world eight years later in Israel. My mother never learned Hebrew; she spoke Polish with her husband and sons. This is why Chaim knows Polish today – he spent more time with his mother than his brother did. My mother, Helena, called Lena by loved ones and friends, died on 7 January 1977, at the age of 58. She didn’t live to see the day that her daughter would miraculously arrive in Israel. Fate never let us meet again.” Romualda Mansfeld-Booth

[1] Barbara Engelking, Feliks Tych, Andrzej Żbikowski, Jolanta Żyndul, Memory: The History of Polish Jews Before, During and After the Holocaust. (Shalom Foundation, Warsaw 2008), p. 170.

[2] Source: Yad Vashem, the name and number of the Righteous Among the Nations by country of origin (https://www.yadvashem.org/righteous/statistics.html)

[3] Lola Schifeldrim was a close relative of the Kleinberg family

[4] Krysta - Dr. Aleksandra Mianowska, Home Army soldier, RGO activist, Żegota worker.

[5] Aleksander Kamiński – educator and Boy Scout activist, member of the Grey Ranks Headquarters, editor-in-chief of the “Information Bulletin” of the Home Army Headquarters, founder and commander of the Small Sabotage, author of Stones for the Rampart (July 1943), awarded a Righteous among the Nations medal posthumously in 1991.

[6] Weronika: Zofia Kossak-Szczucka’s wartime pseudonym

[7] The Tarnów Ghetto was established in June 1942. Approximately 40,000 Jews were confined (among others displaced from Czechoslovakia, Austria and the Third Reich). In September, 3500 people were deported to the Bełżec death camp, the second transport took place in November. The liquidation of the Ghetto began on 2 September 1943. Approximately seven to eight thousand Jews were deported to Auschwitz, while others were deported to the Płaszów camp.

[8] 6 August 1944 the Germans established a transit camp (Dulag 121) in the former Rolling Stock Repair Plant in Pruszków, which gathered inhabitants of Warsaw (and the surrounding areas) expelled during and after the Warsaw Uprising. Between 390,000 and 410,000 people went through the camp. Of them, 150,000 were deported to forced labour camps in the Reich or to concentration camps. Others (women, children, and old people) were resettled to western General Government districts and left destitute.

[9] In October August 1941 the Germans entered Kołomyja and arrested and shot 3000 Jews in the forest near Szepaniwcy. In December approximately 1000 Jews who had foreign identity cards were killed there. In March of 1942 three ghettos were created for nearly 18,000 people from Kołomyja and the surrounding area. From April to September, 12,000 were sent to the Bełżec death camp. On 2 February 1943 the remaining 2000 Jews were shot and killed.

[10] Sister Irena was Antonina Manaszczuk, a Starowiejska nun (1906-2012).

[11] The Brzeżany Ghetto was established in May 1942 and closed in December. Its inhabitants were exterminated in several stages. They were shot in the surrounding forests and cemeteries and in a death camp in Bełżec. It finally ceased to exist on 12 June 1943. An estimated 5500 to 6500 people died there, maybe even up to 16,600. Brzeżany was in the Polish Tarnopol province until 1945, but is currently in Ukraine.

[12] The Theresienstadt Ghetto was founded in November 1941. German propaganda presented it as a “model” neighbourhood where displaced Jews lived and worked under the care of the Third Reich. In fact, it was a huge concentration camp. Over 140,000 people were evacuated from the Czech and Moravian Protectorates, from the Reich, the Netherlands, Denmark, Slovakia, and Hungary over a period of four years (around 35,000 to 60,000 died). From October 1942 the Germans began deporting Jews from Theresienstadt to extermination camps, among others Auschwitz-Birkenau. In total 87,000 people were deported including several thousand children.

[13] Lola Schifel was a close relative of the Kleinberg family.

[14] Zofia Minder née Kleinberg was the sister of Roman Kleinberg’s father.

[15] Text printed in Więź No. 6 entitled “Three Trials” pp. 42-51, based on the article by Ilat Negew 28 April 1989 from Jediot Ahronot. Halina Birenbaum translated it from Hebrew for Katarzyna Meloch.

[16] The Small Ghetto was liquidated in October 1941 and its inhabitants were murdered in the Ponary Forest. Soon the extermination of inhabitants of the Large Ghetto began. By the end of 1941 a total of about 33,500 Jews lost their lives in Niwy. In the Ghetto, which became a work camp, about 12,000 people lived legally and about 8,000 remained in hiding. The Vilnius Ghetto was finally liquidated in September 1943: the old and the sick were sent to extermination camps in Sobibor and Majdanek or shot in Ponary. The remaining 7000 were taken to labour camps in Estonia and Latvia.

[17] Tusia and Estusia are diminutives of the name Estera.

[18] From 13 January 1942 to 21 May 1943, more than 10,000 people lived in the Brody Ghetto. During the November 1942 Aktion, about 5500 Jews were deported to the death camp in Bełżec. About 1000 people died as a result of a typhoid epidemic in the Ghetto. The final liquidation took place on 21 May 1943; most of the inhabitants were taken to the concentration camp at Majdanek and the rest were killed on the spot.

[19] CKŻP - Central Committee of Polish Jews: it dealt with keeping a record of Jewish Holocaust survivors.

Instead of an Afterword

Those rescued from the Holocaust (both children and adults) suffered from identity problems after the war. They were only too aware of who they were: after all, they were Jews who had been persecuted by the Nazis. Many were burdened by the question of who they wanted to be (and who they wanted to be perceived to be). To a large extent anti-Semitism, resentment, and even hostility from Polish Christians towards Jews formed the basis of these dilemmas that they experienced during and after the War (and still do to this day). They also suffered from the peculiar shame of being Jewish. A constant drumbeat of propaganda from fascist, nationalist, and Polish sources also presented Jews as dirty, filthy, immoral, and disgusting non-humans.

Some who were rescued lacked the strength to fight for their place in society. They hid (and still hide) their Jewish origins. They were afraid of losing their jobs or being excluded from families they had married into. The prospect of loneliness was too much to bear and they needed friends, even ones they didn’t completely trust. By concealing themselves in this way, however, they only confirmed their Jewishness to themselves. Others genuinely lost their Jewish identity, either through involvement in the Catholic religion, or conversely, by rejecting all religion outright. They acknowledged that they were no longer Jewish. But for societies that were spoon-fed anti-Semitism for centuries, one is Jewish by being born in a Jewish family. You are Jewish if others consider you Jewish. Many who without hesitation self-identified as Jews went (or wanted to go) to Palestine, Israel, or other parts of the world. Those who felt a connection with Poland but didn’t want to re-experience the fear and popular resentment (and even hostility at times) also left. Changing their country of residence didn’t always change much. A psychologist, born in Germany, wrote that he felt like a stranger - both in Germany and Israel. “You feel like a stranger in your own life.” This feeling troubled him deeply.

Some stayed in Poland by choice. They didn’t worry about their identityor try to forget that they were Jewish. This was just their place on earth, their language, climate and landscape, almost their destiny. They treated anti-Semitism like any other social pathology.

Personal identity dilemmas proved to be one of many of the lingering effects of the Holocaust. “Children of the Holocaust” who remained in Poland by choice generally solved this problem by embracing a Jewish as well as Polish identity. Family and wartime suffering formed the basis of a Jewish identity, while a Polish identity stemmed from attachment to their country and personal contribution to social life, science, scholarship, and culture. History gives them the full right to embrace their dual identity. Jewish families settled in Poland centuries ago. This was their homeland.

Halina Szostkiewicz, member of the Children of the Holocaust Association in Poland, editor (together with Katarzyna Meloch) of volumes III and IV of reminiscences, Children of the Holocaust Speak..., author of “I only feared my mother” (Volume III)

Table of Contents

We Couldn’t Understand Why...

Introduction

The Outbreak of War

In the Ghetto

Everyday life

Education

Hunger

Death of loved ones

In hiding

Umschlagplatz

Escape

Uprising

On the Aryan Side

Among the Poles

Behind the wardrobe

Good and bad appearance

Working to survive

A new religion

Religious orphanages

Blackmailers

Children in the Gestapo prisons

In a hostile world

Ordinary heroes

Foster mothers

Polish relatives

Jewish Aid Council (Żegota)

In the Camps

Majdanek

Ravensbrück

Gross-Rosen

Auschwitz-Birkenau

In the East

After Liberation

Post-war pogroms

I don’t want to be Jewish

In the orphanage

Jewish schools

Anti-Semitism

In new families

Unknown surname

In Israel

The Righteous

Jewish parents

Instead of an Afterword