• About
  • The Photo that Started it All

Uncovering Jewish Heritage

Uncovering Jewish Heritage

Category Archives: World War II

Allies in Włocławek

02 Friday Dec 2022

Posted by Marysia Galbraith in Association of Descendants of Jewish Central Poland, Cemeteries, Heritage work, Jewish Ghetto, Kolski, Museum, Polish-Jewish Heritage, Polish-Jewish relations, Włocławek

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

ADJCP Memorial Trip in May 2023, Faiance

Report #10 about Roberta Books and Marysia Galbraith’s trip to meet Polish partners in preparation for the ADJCP‘s memorial visit to central Poland.

Włocławek, September 12-16 and September 28

With a population of 107,000, Włocławek is the largest town in this part of central Poland, followed by Kutno which has 42,700 residents.

Włocławek will be the home base for the ADJCP memorial trip in May 2023. Roberta and I spent several days there to plan the trip and I returned a couple of weeks later to follow up on a few things. We reserved a block of rooms for the memorial trip in the Pałac Bursztynowy, a three-star hotel built to look like an old manor house, with an elaborate formal garden all around it. Roberta and I sampled the menu at the hotel restaurant. They have a good assortment of soups, salads, appetizers, and main courses, all tastefully prepared. The white asparagus soup with smoked salmon was particularly tasty. We also made arrangements with a bus company that will provide transportation during the memorial trip.

Roberta with a bowl of white asparagus soup at the restaurant in the Pałac Bursztynowy

In Włocławek, we met with partners who agreed to help organize activities for us. Included among our partners are schoolteachers Anita Kaniewska-Kwiatkowska who teaches history at the Automotive High School, Robert Feter who teaches computer science at the same school, and Monika Lamka-Czerwińska who teaches at a school for children with disabilities. They have led several award-winning programs in which their students learned about and did research about the city’s Jewish community. See for example Włocławek Zapomniana Ulica, a Facebook page that was developed as part of one of these projects. Another outcome of this project is a sign posted on Piwna Street with a QR code linking to a recorded message outlining the wartime history of the Jewish population in this place.

Włocławek Forgotten Street: Scan the QR code to hear the history of the street

On the morning of September 13, Roberta and I met students at the Automotive High School. We were escorted to the library, a room the size of a large classroom. Extra chairs filled all the space between the round tables. A reporter from the local paper came and took photos. Two students shot video for a class in television production with the plan to create a short program about our visit.

Students filed in one class at a time. In attendance were students studying psychology/pedagogy, computer science, and technical studies. This school also has classes for students with physical and mental disabilities.

Before we began, I spoke briefly with the first group that arrived, girls studying psychology and pedagogy. Their teacher Anita Kaniewska explained they will work with her on a project about Jewish history and culture and they will participate in our memorial trip. The room filled up. Over 80 students attended. We delivered our presentation in English and I’m surprised how well it went. A good number of the students understood, and those who didn’t know much English seemed attentive nevertheless.

Roberta and I took turns explaining our family connection to central Poland. Then we asked them what they knew about Jewish culture and religion, mostly as a way to fill in some details and point out similarities and differences to Polish culture and Christian faith. Finally, we invited them to ask us questions, which we answered. Their questions included:

  • What emotions do you experience when telling us your story?
  • Do you have any relatives in Poland today?
  • Did you know there is going to be a statue for Jewish people in Brześć Kujawski? There was a public pool but they closed it, because people found out it was a graveyard for Jewish people.

Afterwards, one of the teachers said she was very pleased with the students’ level of engagement. Even one of their students who has autism asked a question. Five girls from Anita’s class thanked us and told us how moved they were by our stories and our presence. They asked if they could give us a hug. It was very sweet.

Photos from our visit were posted on the school website.

We had to hurry to our appointment with the mayor. Anita accompanied us. Marek Wojtkowski, whose official title is President of Wloclawek, expressed support for the ADJCP and efforts to memorialize the city’s Jewish history. He agreed to meet memorial trip participants and to welcome us to Włocławek.

Together with Anita, we proposed two projects: a Jewish history trail with signs and QR codes outlining events that occurred in particular places around the city; and a portable exhibition on retractable panels that can be moved and set up easily. President Wojtowski supports both these ideas. He agreed to help obtain permission to mount the historical trail signs on buildings.

President Wojtkowski noted his background as an historian, and said it is important that this history return, especially for young people.  

Few traces remain of Włocławek’s Jewish community, which before the war numbered 20,000 people (20% of the city’s population). The two synagogues were burned down during the first days of the Nazi invasion on Rosh Hashana 1939. The cemetery was cleared of tombstones, and during the communist period a school was built on the site. In 2000, a group of descendants in collaboration with the city erected a memorial in front of the school in the shape of a matzevah. The text says in Polish and Hebrew “At this site Germans created a ghetto from which in 1942 they deported Polish citizens of Jewish origin to death camps.” Roberta and I lit candles for my relatives and all the others buried at this site.

Memorial to Włocławek’s Jewish Community at the site of the Jewish cemetery and the wartime ghetto

Meeting with Mirka Stojak, September 28

When I returned to Włocławek on September 28, I met with Mirka Stojak, who for over 20 years has been meeting with and assisting Jewish descendants who have visited Włocławek. Mirka has documented the lives of Włocławek’s Jews in historical texts, prose, poetry, and on her webpage Żydzi Włocławek. Each year, she gives presentations at schools where she tells the stories of the city’s Jewish residents and reads her original poetry and stories. She has also worked with students on theatrical and musical productions on related themes. Longin Graczyk of the Ari Ari Foundation has worked with Anita and Mirka on other projects. Most recently, Mirka led a “Sentimental Walk” around historic Włocławek in which she told the stories of Jewish residents who used to live at various addresses. The Ari Ari Foundation and the local government where among the sponsors of the event. The ADJCP is listed as well!?!

Poster for the “Sentimental Walk”

Mirka will join Anita and Longin on the organizing committee for our memorial trip. She is also happy to prepare a presentation or to lead a walk for our visit, though she does not speak English so it will need to be translated.

Since retiring last year, Mirka has devoted even more time to writing. I bought her latest book Pamięci Włocłaswkich Żydów (In Memory of Włocławek Jews), a combination of history, stories, poems, and the memoir of Jakub Bukowski, who turns out to have been a neighbor of my cousins. Bukowski mentions Mirka Kolska, my mother’s first cousin, was one of classmates.

I visited the city museum to see the extraordinary exhibition of faience pottery. This industry was started and dominated by Jewish industrialists. Many of the woman who painted the floral designs were Polish. During the war, the industry was taken over by the Germans and then passed into Polish hands after the war. During communism, the factories became the property of the national government. The last factories closed right around the time communism fell. They were unable to reorganize within the emerging capitalist economy.

I hope we include the exhibition in our memorial trip.

Part of the faience exhibit in the city museum

Picnics on a Mass Grave?

30 Wednesday Nov 2022

Posted by Marysia Galbraith in Association of Descendants of Jewish Central Poland, Commemoration, Memory, Museum, Nazi Camps, World War II

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Chełmno nad Nerem, Death camp, Mass grave, Mass murder

Report #8 about Roberta Books and Marysia Galbraith’s trip to meet Polish partners in preparation for the ADJCP‘s memorial visit to central Poland.

Chełmno nad Nerem, September 11

On September 11, we started the day at the Chełmno Death Camp. Though the parking lot was full, the camp itself was empty. Most people were in the neighboring church. It was Sunday. The mass, emitted from speakers outside the church, wafted across the remains of the death camp.

No English-language guide was available, so the woman at the office/ticket desk showed us around herself.

The camp is on the site of a former pałac, or mansion. Prisoners would be told it was a health resort. They were given postcards and encouraged to write home that they were safe and taken care of. Then, they were told they needed to wash before entering, which made sense to many because diseases like typhus were common in the ghettos they came from. Prisoners were brought to the basement of the mansion to undress. They were instructed to fill out inventories of the valuables they had with them and then hand everything over for safe keeping while they showered. They were told they can present their inventory later to get their valuables back. Instead, they were murdered.

Map of the mansion at Chełmno. “E” marks the location of the trucks converted into gas chambers.

The Nazis destroyed the camp when they retreated. But the outline of the mansion’s basement walls remain. We walked along a raised walkway and looked down into the spaces where people undressed and then were led down a corridor and outside into a truck set up with what looked like shower heads inside. Sometimes, prisoners were even given slivers of soap as they entered. In actuality, these trucks were designed for mass murder, their backs converted into the Nazis’ first gas chambers. Up to 100 people were gassed at a time and then prison work units would remove the bodies, which were taken by truck to the forest about 7 km away. Initially the bodies were buried, but later they were burned and the ashes buried.

They knew that what they were doing was wrong. Why else would they destroy the evidence?

At the burial site in the forest, I needed space to be with my own thoughts. I walked alone under an imposing Communist-era concrete monument balanced on tapered concrete supports. On the side facing the road is a bas relief of people in various states of suffering, with the single word “We remember” (“Pamiętamy”). On the back side, in uneven block letters, is written, “We were taken, from the elderly to infants, between the cities of Koło and Dąbie. We were taken to the forest and there we were gassed, shot, and burned…Now we ask that our future brothers punish our murderers. The witnesses of our oppression, who live in this area we ask again for these murders to be publicized throughout the world.”

Communist-era monument at Chełmno Death Camp

At some point, the Communist leaders made a point of building commemorative monstrosities like this. There is another one at the Stutthoff Concentration Camp near the Baltic coast.

I caught up with Roberta and Yosef when we got to a big field of mass graves. “This is the most important place to see,” Roberta said. Otherwise, we didn’t talk about it.

The graves are delineated by concrete borders filled with white gravel. This is to mark the burial sites, and also to prevent bone fragments from moving up out of the ground. People have been known to search for bones here and take them home as souvenirs.

Mass graves marked with stone borders and gravel, beyond the Star of David

Survivors and their descendants have put up monuments alongside the massive expanses of burials. Some commemorate Jewish communities of particular towns, and some include long lists of the names of those murdered. Near the remains of a crematorium, now mounted in a low concrete wall, is a higher wall with an arched opening. On both sides, smaller plaques were put up by families to commemorate their murdered relatives.

Memorials at Chełmno

Several years ago, a friend told me that people would come here for picnics. As we left, Roberta said there used to be rock concerts near the Communist-era monument, too. What were they thinking? Or, rather, how is it that they weren’t thinking about this as a place of martyrdom and tragedy?

Roberta looks back at the mass graves

Over lunch in Koło, we didn’t talk about any of this. Maybe we just needed a break. Or maybe it was the result of a kind of protective amnesia. If you think about it too much it will just drive you crazy.

1939 Battle for Central Poland

07 Monday Dec 2020

Posted by Marysia Galbraith in Kutno, World War II, Włocławek, Żychlin

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Military map, Muzeum Uzbojenia Poznan

While going through photos, I came across this map from the Muzeum Uzbrojenia in Poznan showing the movement of the Polish army (shown in red) through central Poland when the Nazis invaded in September 1939 :

Red arrows show movements of Polish armed forces through central Poland in September 1939

It’s a little hard for me to read, but I believe Poland had a stronghold in the Kutno region and for a few days they held back the Nazis (shown in blue).

This region is exactly where my family came from. My great grandmother was born in Żychlin and eventually settled with her husband and children in Włocławek. They would have been long gone when the war started, but some of my grandmother’s siblings were still living in Włocławek. Here’s another layer of memory I need to integrate into my family story. How profoundly destabilizing it must have been for them to watch as the Polish forces fell and they became foreigners in their own country.

Trip to Jewish Central Poland in 2022

06 Wednesday May 2020

Posted by Marysia Galbraith in Brześć Kujawski, Heritage work, Kutno, Nazi Camps, Polish-Jewish Heritage, World War II, Włocławek, Żychlin

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

ADJCP, Association of Descendants of Jewish Central Poland, Memorial Trip 2022

It turns out I’m not the only one who dreams of doing Jewish heritage work in the land of my ancestors. The Association of Descendants of Jewish Central Poland has just gained nonprofit status and welcomes members.

It started at the initiative of Leon Zamosc, who reached out to others on JewishGen seeking information about ancestors from the region around Kutno and Włocławek. As the message from the founders explains:

The concept of a regional organization of descendants developed out of an initiative to visit the districts of Wloclawek, Gostynin, and Kutno in order to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the destruction of the region’s Jewish communities during the Shoah. About 60 JewishGen researchers responded to the initial invitation, including 16 who volunteered as consultants for the planning of the Spring 2022 trip. In those early exchanges, some participants proposed the creation of a more permanent organization that would allow us to develop other activities related to the cultural heritage of the region’s shtetls. After studying the options, a subcommittee of 9 participants suggested ideas for possible activities and recommended the establishment of the ADJCP – Association of Descendants of Jewish Central Poland.

On the 2022 trip, we’ll participate in memorial activities at the Chełmno Death Camp. We will also learn about the history and culture of Jewish residents of the region, spending time in the larger cities of Włocławek, Kutno, and Gostynin. In additon, participants will have the opportunity to participate in small group excursions to the smaller cities and towns where their ancestors lived. We hope to contribute to a heritage project while we are there.

2022MemorialTripMap

Our Story in MyHeritage Blog

04 Monday May 2020

Posted by Marysia Galbraith in Bereda, Family, Genealogy, Identity, Israel, Kolski, Photographs, Polish-Jewish relations, Post-World War II, Pre-World War II, Warsaw, World War II, Włocławek

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Colorized photos, MyHeritage

Now, the English-language MyHeritage blog has a story about us: Hidden Photo Reveals a Secret Past and Reunites a Family, written by Talya Ladell.

The article also contains cool colorized photos. You can compare the black and white originals with the color copies by dragging the cursor over the image.

helena-Colorized

Babcia Halina in Florida during the 1950s. Colorized photo

Cousins Reunited by a Photo and a Family Tree

23 Thursday Apr 2020

Posted by Marysia Galbraith in Bereda, Family, Genealogy, Israel, Kolski, Photographs, Polish-Jewish relations, Post-World War II, Pre-World War II, Survival, Trauma, Warsaw, World War II, Włocławek

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Cousins reunite, Finding family, MyHeritage

I met my cousin Pini Doron in 2013 when I found his family tree online and wrote to ask if we might be related. He asked for proof, so I sent him the photo in the header of this blog, which he recognized from his own copy. He wrote back “welcome to the family” and ever since I have felt embraced by my extended family in Israel, with Pini at the heart of it. The photo, which includes both of our grandmothers, confirmed that we are cousins.

Last week, we were contacted by Nitay Elboym, who writes for the MyHeritage Hebrew-language blog. He decided to write about our family in commemoration of Holocaust Remembrance Day. It’s a story of connections and separations that span a century.

You can find it in Hebrew at the Internet news service YNet:

אחרי 70 שנות נתק: גילה בארה”ב בני משפחה שנעלמו לאחר השואה

and in the MyHeritage blog:

בזכות תמונה ואילן יוחסין: בן לניצולת שואה גילה בני משפחה שנעלמו

I’ve attached the text in English. I used Google Translate and then edited it. This is the article that appeared in the MyHeritage blog. The YNet version only has minor differences.

1916BabiasFamily_color

Colorized photo of the family from about 1916. Marysia’s grandmother is sitting on the left and Pini’s grandmother is standing on the right

Thanks to a photo and a family tree: a Holocaust survivor son has found family members who disappeared

 By Nitay Elboym

April 21, 2020

74-year-old Pini Doron of Hod Hasharon is a longtime MyHeritage user who built a family tree for many years dating back to 1800. Pini thought he had already finished his search, when he received a message with an old family picture. This time, he realized immediately, it was an extraordinary discovery.

“I get a lot of inquiries from people who think they’re related to me,” Pini says. “I am usually skeptical of my relation to them, so I politely ask everyone to explain how we are connected. In this case too, when I received the message, I responded that I would love to know what our family relationship is,” he recalls.

“Actually, at that time, I was pretty much at the beginning of my family history research,” recalls Marysia Galbraith, a professor of anthropology at the University of Alabama, USA. “I was looking for bits of information wherever possible. But when I saw Pini’s family tree on MyHeritage, I knew it was about me, I just didn’t know how. In short, I had no idea how to prove to him how I was related to his family tree, so I just sent the only picture I had. Besides my grandmother, I didn’t know who the people were. Then he answered me ‘Welcome to family.’ His reply almost made me cry. ”

Operation Rescue

The Piwko family lived in the town of Wloclawek, Poland. At the outbreak of World War II, Pini’s grandparents – Pinchas Kolski and his wife Rachel (nee Piwko) – and their two children, Mirka and Samek, were left there while Pini’s father was saved because he and his two brothers were sent to Israel before the war to work the family lands in Kfar Ata. “Because their city of residence was close to Warsaw, they were transferred to the Warsaw ghetto right at the beginning of the war, around 1940,” Pini says. “In the ghetto, Samek was murdered, and my grandfather died of illness. So my grandmother and her daughter Mirka were left alone, looking for a way to survive.”

1941RachelMirkaKolskiAtPinchasGraveInGhetto

Mirka and Rachel Kolski at Pinchas Kolski’s grave in the Warsaw Ghetto

Meanwhile, Rachel’s sister, Halina, lived in relative safety outside the Warsaw ghetto, because after divorcing her first Jewish husband, she remarried a Christian man named Zygmunt Bereda. “Rachel and Halina’s father were not ready to hear about this relationship. So, when she married a Christian, he sat shiva on her,” said Pini. “Her sisters tried from time to time to keep in touch, but because of their father, the connection got weaker.” Halina and Rachel’s father, who passed away around 1930, could not have imagined that it was precisely the person who, because of his religious identity, he rejected, would save not only his daughters, but also his other descendants.

When Halina told Zygmunt that her sister was in the ghetto alone with her daughter, he decided to come to their aid despite the risk involved. “Zygmunt was a very successful businessman with a lot of property. In addition, he probably had many connections, which opened doors to him that were closed to others,” explains Marysia. “He used these connections to forge documents for Rachel and her sister, which allowed them to escape the ghetto.”

BabciaPuertoRico

Halina Bereda, Marysia’s grandmother. She and her Christian husband saved the family

ZBeredayoung

Zygmunt Bereda. A Polish Christian who saved the family of his Jewish wife

But the matter did not end here. Zygmunt and Halina protected the two after they left the ghetto and hid them in buildings they owned throughout the war. At the same time, they were able to forge additional documents that allowed them to leave Poland to Switzerland, and from there, in 1949, the two immigrated to Israel.

“Years of disconnection ended thanks to a surviving photo and family tree on the MyHeritage website. Ever since we started chatting, I have found that Marysia isn’t only a wonderful person, she is also a thoughtful researcher,” says Pini. “She has set up a blog where she writes personally and collects her interesting findings. Everything she does is well organized, backed up by documents, and she knows how to find almost everything. She even studied Polish, which probably helps her a lot in genealogical research.”

The wheel turns over

At the end of the war, Warsaw was devastated by the bombings. The many businesses and houses that Zygmunt owned were also destroyed. He and Halina lost their property and had no place to live. The rescuers now needed help, and the one who came to their aid was the former wife of Samek, Rachel’s son who died in the Holocaust. After the war Halina and her daughter Maria, Marysia’s mother, immigrated to the United States and settled there.

“The truth was kept from us,” says Marysia, who has grown up as a Christian all her life. “For years, family members have been whispering about being Jewish, but never really getting into it. I have spent a long time trying to figure out why my mother and grandmother hid their Jewish heritage and why they were not in contact with Rachel. I think the trauma of the Holocaust left a deep scar on my grandmother. She thought, “If they don’t know, then it won’t hurt them.” That’s probably why they didn’t keep in touch with Rachel and her descendants in Israel.”

Since the family tree has linked Pini to Marysia the two speak regularly, and they have also met in Israel and in Poland with other family members. “When we went to the graves of our families, the sight was unusual. On one side of the cemetery wall are Jews with a rabbi, and on the other side are Christians with a priest,” Pini recalls. “But what is important? In the end, we are human beings and destiny connected us together.”

DSC00438

During the roots journey to Poland. Pini stands to the left and beside him Marysia

PinisTree

Pini’s Tree showing the family connection between Pini and Marysia

The image that led to the discovery – now in color

To revive the old image that made the exciting discovery, the company’s investigators used the MyHeritage In Color ™ auto-coloring tool and sent the result to Pini and Marysia. “It’s wonderful,” says Marysia. “I’m going to share the colorized picture with my family, including my 90-year-old aunt who will be especially happy.”

1916BabiasFamily_color

Colorized photo of the family from about 1916

The Odyssey of a Polish Jew

28 Tuesday Jan 2020

Posted by Marysia Galbraith in antisemitism, Jewish Culture, Memory, Names, Polish-Jewish relations, Pre-World War II, Survival, Tarnów, Warsaw, World War II

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Roman Szancer, Roman Szydłowski, The War Began in Tarnow

Roman Szydłowski grew up in an affluent assimilated Jewish family in prewar Tarnów, a medium-sized city southeast of Krakow. His “Recollections,” published under the name The War Began in Tarnów, breezily describe the many relatives and acquaintances who populated his youth, though it is jarring how many of their lives were cut short by wartime assaults against Jews.

Szydlowksi_Wojna_cover

The War Began in Tarnów, by Roman Szydłowski

Szydłowski’s book reminds me that Poland is a small country, in the sense that citizens who travel in elite circles know each other, or know of each other. A person raised in a family like Szydłowski’s rubbed shoulders with famous actors, writers, and politicians. Simultaneously, World War II lurks on the edges, and at times overtakes Szydłowski’s narrative, as for example when he describes the explosions at the Tarnów train station, an act of German sabotage that happened on August 23, 1939, a week before the official invasion of Poland began.

The book is interesting for its intimate portrait of everyday life before, during, and immediately after World War II, but it does so from the particular lens of the moment in which it was written: 1982, when Poland was under martial law following the suppression of the Solidarity Movement that had sought to reform the state socialist system. Szydłowski was 63 years old and looking back on his life as he approached retirement. That time and place might explain the glaring absences in his otherwise vivid, detailed, and immediate recollections.

Born Roman Szancer in 1918, the author grew up in comfort in a large apartment at the center of Tarnów. His family owned an enormous mill which his great grandfather established in the early 1800s. It is notable how little Judaism figured in his early life story—it was a factor but hardly a defining one. His first recollection of anti-Jewish sentiment involved one of his classmates who called him “you Jew” in a way that sounded like a slur. Roman couldn’t understanding why being Jewish would be an insult, but he replied in kind, “you Catholic.” When their teacher found out, he made them stop, threatening them with corporal punishment. Later, Roman and the other boy became good friends.

The Szancer family took pride in their unaccented Polish and their assimilation, not only into Polish culture, but also into elite European culture more broadly. As a child, Roman visited relatives in Germany and Austria. His grandmother, a cousin of Austrian philosopher Martin Buber, was the only one in the family who spoke Polish with a strong accent; they had to talk to her in German.

Roman portrays himself as a proud defender of Poland. About the rise of Hitler in Germany, he writes “We feared for the future of Poland, though none of us anticipated that our country, which we considered stable, would soon be pillaged by the Third Reich” (p. 60-1). Szydłowski mentions just a few instances when his early life was touched by prejudice. The first girl he fell in love with was Catholic, and “there were those who couldn’t reconcile with the fact that ‘that Jew goes out with such a pretty Polish girl’,” so they spread rumors that broke them up (p. 74). A few years later at the Jagiellonian University, Jews were separated from the Catholic students and confined to the so-called “ghetto benches.” This didn’t affect Roman directly because he had what people called “a good look.” In other words, he didn’t have the stereotypical features or mannerisms associated with Jews and so could sit wherever he wanted. He makes a point of saying that only the leftist students objected to the “Aryan paragraph” restricting Jews from student organizations; the majority of the student body voted in favor of the restrictions.

Another incident illustrates how distant Roman felt from traditional Jewish life. He describes a Hassidic wedding he attended in the summer of 1939 in a mostly Jewish town. The residents dressed differently than he was used to seeing in the towns around Tarnów, in round hats with small rims, shorter jackets and their pants tucked into manure-covered shoes. About the wedding he writes, “I’m left with an impression of something very colorful, but so far away and foreign as if I found myself suddenly on a distant continent” (p. 125).

Szydłowski’s wartime experiences read like an adventure story, making startling shifts from descriptions of carefree youthful high jinx to hair-raising brushes with death. Because he had connections, he was able to drive east ahead of the invading German army and find refuge with relatives near Lviv (part of Poland before the war, the Soviet Union after 1939, and Ukraine today). He describes his apprehension by Soviet authorities, deportation to the Far East, and eventful return to Lviv, one chance encounter leading to another that eventually got him back to relative safety.

After Hitler broke the German-Soviet nonaggression pact, he witnessed the most horrific events of his own wartime experiences. Thousands of Jews were slaughtered in Lviv, their blood running through the streets. He returned to Tarnów, where he moved freely, neither wearing the Star of David nor staying in the ghetto as dictated by the Nazi occupiers. By December 1941, he settled in Warsaw, where he changed his last name to Szydłowski, thus gaining the protection of a Polish surname. He writes breathlessly about the richness of the culture in the city, where he attended classical concerts, theatre productions, and university classes. All of these activities occurred “underground,” without the knowledge or sanction of the occupying forces.

He explains, “Warsaw during those years was a city impossible to describe. Terrifying contrasts collided at every corner. Luxury alongside poverty, tragedy next to debauchery, death and delight, everything compounded to the maximum. People lived as if in a trance, unsure of tomorrow. Everyone knew they could die soon, so they wanted to get the most out of life” (p. 155). After being arrested under suspicion of conspiracy, and imprisoned in Pawlak Prison, Szydłowski was mysteriously released. He made a quick retreat to the countryside near Krakow, where his “most carefree period of occupied life began” (p. 162). He spent the summer at the ancestral palace of a gentry family who treated him like an esteemed guest. The refuge was an illusion, he admits. A year later, months after he had moved on, German police came and shot the whole family.

What might explain the absences in Szyłowski’s narrative? Why doesn’t he mention the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in 1943, even though he was living in Warsaw at the time? He lived in the “Aryan” part of the city under his assumed name, but he must have witnessed the armed revolt mounted by the last remaining Jews in the ghetto. The fighting continued for 28 days until most of the partisans were either killed or took their own lives. Why doesn’t he discuss the massive scale of the Holocaust? He makes no mention of the millions who died, nor any details about the death camps. He does not address the nearly complete absence of a Jewish population in Poland after the war. The annihilation of Poland’s Jews only peaks out in the many biographies of family and acquaintances that ended with them murdered by military police or Germans.

Szydłowski’s recollections also elide any direct criticism of communism. He simply gives a matter-of-fact description of the arrival of Soviet troops after the Germans retreated , without addressing the heavy hand the Soviet Union played in shaping the postwar state-socialist republic. He writes directly about joining the Communist Party in 1946, but only indirectly about his disillusionment and retreat from the party just a few years later. Throughout his narrative, he acknowledges his socialist leanings, as well as the socialist and communist affiliations of his friends, but he also makes a point of emphasizing his disinterest in politics.

Szydłowski ran out of time to finish writing about his 35-year career as a theatre critic and journalist. He died in 1983.

What a difficult way to walk through life, carrying so many ghosts in your memories. And yet, Szydłowski speaks with the voice of an optimist.

img_20190625_140213202_hdr

Remains of the Szancer mill, June 2019

Livestream of the ‘Unforgotten’ Event About Renia Spiegel’s Diary

08 Thursday Nov 2018

Posted by Marysia Galbraith in Memory, Przemyśl, Survival, Uncategorized, World War II

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Ariana Spiegel, Elizabeth Bellak, Renia Spiegel

I’m counting down the minutes before I tune into this event at the Smithsonian Institute today:

80 Years after Kristallnacht: Diarists of the Holocaust

This is Renia, who was murdered on the streets of occupied Przemyśl at the age of 18 in 1942. She left behind a diary that through some miracle found its way to her family in New York.

NOV2018_N14_SpiegelDiaryPrologue.jpg

Renia in Skole in the 1930s (Courtesy of the Bellak family)

I grew up calling Renia’s sister “Aunt Elizabeth,” but she never mentioned her sister until a few years ago. Encouraged by her daughter Alexandra, they started looking for someone to translate the diary from Polish to English, and Elizabeth started talking about her hidden past. It’s an extraordinary story about two extraordinary sisters. Both Elizabeth and Alexandra will share their stories at 1 PM eastern time today, November 8, 2018.

 

Would You Live in the Ghetto?

20 Monday Aug 2018

Posted by Marysia Galbraith in Commemoration, Jewish Ghetto, Krakow, Memory, Podgórze, Post-World War II, World War II

≈ Leave a comment

The Stare (Old) Podgórze district of Kraków, nestled between the Vistula River and the hilltop Bednarski Park, has experienced an incredible resurgence over the past several years. What used to be a neglected part of the city, with crumbling townhouses and drunks who congregated in the town square, has become the home of restaurants, cafes, galleries, and museums. A new pedestrian bridge links Podgórze to the heart of Kazimierz; the rhythm of footsteps over the pedestrian walkway causes sculptures suspended from wires to totter like the acrobats that are depicted.

 

Pedestrian Bridge connecting Podgórze and Kazimierz, Krakow.
Pedestrian Bridge connecting Podgórze and Kazimierz, Krakow.
Sculptures of acrobats suspended on wires, by Jerzy Kendziora.
Sculptures of acrobats suspended on wires, by Jerzy Kendziora.
A biker pedals by a sculpture of an acrobat suspended on wires, historic Podgórze in the distance.
A biker pedals by a sculpture of an acrobat suspended on wires, historic Podgórze in the distance.
The pedestrian bridge between Podgórze and Kazimierz, Krakow.
The pedestrian bridge between Podgórze and Kazimierz, Krakow.

Old Podgórze is also the place the Nazi governor Hans Frank selected for the Krakow Jewish ghetto on March 3, 1941. “Within two weeks, 18,000 Jews were ordered to move to 320 buildings, whose ‘Aryan’ residents had previously been forced to vacate.” [1] Presumably, the district was selected because of its distance from the center of town, further isolated on the other side of the river. By March 20, Podgórze was closed off by a high brick wall; whether the symbolism was intentional or not, the undulating curves along the top edge evoked Jewish headstones stacked side by side. The ghetto shrank in 1942, when residents were taken to their death in camps like Bełżec, and was completely liquidated on March 13-14, 1943. The ghetto existed just two years, but the fact that it existed at all in this very place clashes uncomfortably with the district’s rebirth.

I have written about Podgórze before, and about the way the district captivated me. In fact, I’ve sometimes remarked that if I were to buy an apartment in Krakow, I would want it to be in Podgórze. But that was before I knew what happened there during World War II, before I started to explore my Jewish heritage, before historical markers brought difficult history back into the public sphere, and before the phantom walls of the ghetto became part of my inner map of the district. When I visited Krakow earlier this summer, I decided to rent an apartment in Podgórze to get a better feel for the place. Could I live there, knowing what I now know?

I found a place right in the heart of what used to be the ghetto, in a newly renovated building right beside a ruin, and across the street from the iconic red brick mikvah building that now houses one of the city’s most prestigious art galleries.

 

Podgórze, crumbling ruin beside new renovation.
Podgórze, crumbling ruin beside new renovation.
Former mikvah, now Starmach Gallery, Podgórze, Krakow
Former mikvah, now Starmach Gallery, Podgórze, Krakow

I took long runs past St. Joseph’s Church on the Podgórze Market Square, over the hills of Bednarski Park, and through the narrow streets.

 

St Józef's Church, Podgórze
St Józef’s Church, Podgórze
Fragment of Jewish ghetto wall, Lwowska Street
Fragment of Jewish ghetto wall, Lwowska Street

I visited the remaining fragments of ghetto wall. A short section on Lwowska Street includes a plaque on which is written in Hebrew and Polish: “Here they lived, suffered, and died at the hands of Hitler’s torturers; from here they were taken on their last road to the death camps.” A larger section separates a school yard from the park; I came upon a group of Israeli teenagers whose armed guards asked me what I was doing there. I came to see the wall, I replied. I watched for a bit as their animated tour guide seemed to be reenacting the experiences of ghetto captives.

 

Tram stop at Ghetto Heroes' Square
Tram stop at Ghetto Heroes’ Square
Tram stop at Ghetto Heroes' Square
Tram stop at Ghetto Heroes’ Square

I waited for trams at Ghetto Heroes Square, sitting on the chairs that are part of the memorial to those who waited at this very spot to be transported on that final road to their deaths.

 

Map of Podgórze, including Jewish ghetto boundaries.
Map of Podgórze, including Jewish ghetto boundaries.
Memorial in Ghetto Heroes' Square
Memorial in Ghetto Heroes’ Square

Could I be witness to this on a daily basis? Maybe if I lived in Podgórze, but outside the borders of the ghetto? But that seems no better—to put myself in the position of those who watched from outside the walls.

So my love of this space—a quiet corner just a short walk from the heart of the city—battles with the discomfort of flashes of a painful history.

Could I live there? Could you?

[1] Potel, Jean-Yves. 2010 Koniec Niewinności: Polska Wobec Swojej Żydowskiej Przeszłości. Translated by Julia Chimiak. Krakow: Znak. P. 128.

50.036502
20.015518

What if…

04 Saturday Aug 2018

Posted by Marysia Galbraith in Family, Memory, Polish Culture, Polish-Jewish relations, Post-World War II, Warsaw, World War II

≈ 2 Comments

Just about every time I come to Warsaw I take a pilgrimage to this spot.

The view down to where my mother used to live, when Kościelna Street continued straight at the bottom of the stairs.

My mind turns inward to the way I remember it in my imagination, based on my mother’s stories and archival photos. Back then, these stairs led to a neighborhood of narrow streets where old cottages sat beside brick businesses, and where my grandfather built my grandmother a three story villa behind a cast iron fence.

When I visited today, I pictured roads instead of pathways. With buildings on either side. The villa would have been straight down and on the left, just after the path that runs perpendicular.

For some reason I started to wonder what my mother’s life would have been like if there hadn’t been any war. Would she have married her first love, a priest? Or would he have decided to honor his vows to the church? No doubt, she would not have waited to have children. I imagine her with four, including the daughter that was born instead of me, only 10 years earlier. No need to wait through the war, dozens of surgeries, migration, and illness to start a family. Would she have resigned from her dream of becoming a doctor, or found a way to balance her home and work responsibilities? Maybe she would have lived with her active young family in the villa, where her mother could help.

And the daughter that was born instead of me would no doubt be a grandmother, with a grandchild the same age as my son.

Without the Nazi invasion, Poland’s Jews would not have been murdered, and the Soviets would not have imposed 45 years of state socialism. Instead of being destroyed, Warsaw would have continued to grow, its Jewish population an important component of the city’s economic and cultural vitality. Poles would have had to figure out how to live within a country full of diversity, where the Polish nation could not be defined as ethnically pure or exclusively Catholic.

Would my family still have hidden their Jewish heritage in such a Poland? I wonder. What do you think?

← Older posts

Categories

  • Anthropology (32)
    • Archives (13)
    • Fieldwork (7)
    • Research Methodology (7)
  • antisemitism (12)
  • Association of Descendants of Jewish Central Poland (16)
  • Catholicism (8)
  • Conference (1)
  • Discrimination (1)
  • Family (66)
    • Bereda (17)
    • Kolski (13)
    • Piwko (22)
    • Rotblit (3)
    • Walfisz (3)
    • Winawer (7)
  • Genealogy (11)
  • Heritage work (50)
    • Commemoration (18)
  • Identity (17)
  • Israel (5)
  • Jewish Culture (72)
    • Cemeteries (38)
    • Museum (6)
    • Synagogues (29)
  • Jewish immigrants (8)
  • Jewish Religion (1)
  • Memory (59)
  • Names (14)
  • Photographs (6)
  • Pifko-Winawer Circle (5)
  • Poland (105)
    • Baligród (1)
    • Bolimów (1)
    • Brześć Kujawski (5)
    • Buk (1)
    • Dukla (2)
    • Dąbrowice (1)
    • Gdynia (1)
    • Gostynin (1)
    • Gąbin (1)
    • Izbica Kujawska (1)
    • Kazimierz (4)
    • Kowal (1)
    • Koło (1)
    • Krakow (7)
    • Krośniewice (1)
    • Kutno (6)
    • Kłodawa (1)
    • Lesko (8)
    • Leszno (1)
    • Lubień Kujawski (1)
    • Lubraniec (1)
    • Lutowiska (3)
    • Piła (3)
    • Podgórze (2)
    • Poznan (11)
    • Przemyśl (2)
    • Radom (1)
    • Radymno (1)
    • Sanok (1)
    • Skierniewice (5)
    • Sobota (2)
    • Tarnów (2)
    • Warsaw (18)
    • Wielkopolska (1)
    • Wronki (7)
    • Włocławek (18)
    • Zasław (2)
    • Łódź (1)
    • Żychlin (15)
  • Polish Culture (10)
  • Polish-Jewish Heritage (50)
  • Polish-Jewish relations (49)
  • Post-World War II (22)
  • Pre-World War II (18)
  • Reclaimed Property (1)
  • stereotypes (3)
  • Survival (9)
  • Trauma (3)
  • Uncategorized (4)
  • Victims and perpetrators (1)
  • World War II (37)
    • Jewish Ghetto (8)
    • Nazi Camps (3)
    • Polish Underground Army (3)
  • Yiddish (4)

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email. Your email address will not be shared.

Archives

  • January 2023 (2)
  • December 2022 (7)
  • November 2022 (2)
  • October 2022 (5)
  • September 2022 (1)
  • January 2022 (1)
  • August 2021 (1)
  • December 2020 (2)
  • July 2020 (1)
  • May 2020 (3)
  • April 2020 (1)
  • March 2020 (1)
  • January 2020 (2)
  • May 2019 (1)
  • February 2019 (1)
  • November 2018 (1)
  • September 2018 (1)
  • August 2018 (3)
  • July 2018 (1)
  • June 2018 (1)
  • May 2018 (1)
  • April 2018 (2)
  • March 2018 (2)
  • February 2018 (2)
  • January 2018 (2)
  • December 2017 (2)
  • November 2017 (2)
  • October 2017 (1)
  • September 2017 (3)
  • August 2017 (3)
  • June 2017 (2)
  • May 2017 (3)
  • April 2017 (1)
  • March 2017 (2)
  • February 2017 (1)
  • January 2017 (2)
  • December 2016 (2)
  • November 2016 (4)
  • October 2016 (1)
  • September 2016 (6)
  • August 2016 (2)
  • July 2016 (1)
  • May 2016 (4)
  • April 2016 (2)
  • March 2016 (3)
  • February 2016 (4)
  • January 2016 (3)
  • December 2015 (3)
  • November 2015 (5)
  • October 2015 (5)
  • September 2015 (3)
  • August 2015 (4)
  • July 2015 (3)
  • June 2015 (3)
  • May 2015 (4)
  • April 2015 (9)
  • March 2015 (3)
  • February 2015 (2)
  • January 2015 (5)
  • December 2014 (4)
  • November 2014 (9)
  • October 2014 (2)
  • September 2014 (1)

Copyright Notice

All original text and images are copyright © Marysia Galbraith. Please contact the author before quoting.

Blog at WordPress.com.

  • Follow Following
    • Uncovering Jewish Heritage
    • Join 109 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • Uncovering Jewish Heritage
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...