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After suffering hunger and receiving beatings from the Polacks, a few organized themselves in a group of twelve and decided to run away to the forest. One dark night they hid in a nearby forest with a group of Jews from Kelts. Some peasants from the village Maykov who knew about them attacked them and captured eight of them; the others got away.

While I was at work in the “shtshetnitse” a Polack from the village “Maykov” came and told the German guards that he had caught four Jews, but the business would only give him one kilo of sugar for each one. If the guards would pay more he would bring them more. An hour later he brought another four Jews and turned them over, since the others had fled. The Jews were promptly shot. Before their deaths they had screamed out to us to avenge the spilling of their innocent blood.

Those shot were: Khayim Shotland, Bernard Koen, M. Zoberman. We did not know the name of the fourth man.

Among the great persecutors at shop “C” were Shpadlo who had thousands of victims on his conscience; Vaytshik and Shevtshuk, who helped the German murderers may their names be blotted out to kill six thirty–six thousand Jews who were killed in Skarzshiske Osob and especially at workshop “C”.

There were another several hundred Polacks who tortured Jewish victims. On the bus was a horrible murderer who had many Jewish victims on his conscience. His name is Kotlenga Alshavi.

A People is Murdered – Marcel Yanka

After the big deportation of Ostrovtse Jews on the 10th of October, 1942, the remaining Jews, the workers, the “legals” and also those without workplaces, the “illegals”, were taken to a small area near the cemetery where a residence had been designated for them. Also those who had hidden in the town during the deportation and later returned to the Jewish ghetto. The conditions there were inhumane: ten to twenty people to a small room. The filth in that area had grown high and it was enough for the snow to melt a little and the whole ghetto was transformed into one big heap of mud and excrement. Because of the sanitary conditions there some cases of typhus illnesses had already begun to appear and there was real danger of an epidemic.

The ghetto was guarded by Polish policemen who frequently showed their “sympathy” for the unfortunate Jews by shooting without warning into the fence where a Jew was trying to buy a loaf of bread for money or to barter for some edible item. More than one Jew was shot running through the narrow path to buy food in the Polish shop. Such victims fell regularly.

They snatched up young people for work who had just come from their shift of eight or ten hours of hard labor, and the Ukrainians at the factory forced them to go on another ten or more hours loading wagons with iron or coal. People who had slept only through the night shift were dragged from bed to clean the courtyard or carry water for the Jewish police.

Turmoil seized the whole ghetto when it became known that an S.S.–man or gendarme was coming in. Everything was hidden within one minute. One could only hear the wild barking of the S.S.–man's dog, which had more than once sought the taste of Jewish blood… After they left, there were fresh decrees: they were looking for partisans and weapons. They brought out Jews to shoot. Every couple of days they openly shot a few Jews against the cemetery wall.

And over the quickly knocked–together fence of lathing and broken doors from former Jewish houses, which vividly reflected the huge extermination, one could clearly see the free world, the fine winter days, Polish passers–by dressed for a holiday, with gift packages for Christmas eve. Everyone was drawn to that freedom. The decision grew and festered: Not to stay any longer, not just look at the public. Let come what may! As the situation got tighter, all the more the urge and resolve grew to get out. People sought various ways to get false Aryan papers, which were called “;ognieshkies”. How they came to have that name was not known. It is a familiar Polish girl's name. In any case a Jewish girl who went over to the Aryan side named them “;ognieshkies” and from then on the name stuck.

The “ognieshkies” proved to be very effective. When they took Poles to work in Germany, many Jews with those papers smuggled themselves to Germany as Aryans.

The “maker” of those papers was a boy of 17, on whom lay the burden of supporting a family. He did his work very often at the risk of his life. He would go late at night – often in the company of a Jewish adjutant – over to an officer of the local magistrate to stamp the photographs he had brought with him onto the Aryan identification cards. The “maker” filled out the identification card as desired and replicated the signatures.

He was not the only one. Each person who wanted to go over to the Aryan side had to create such a false piece of paper for each case and so it became quite popular.

On the 15th of August 1943 the foreseen event took place: The second deportation. Many people, first of all the “illegals”, those who did not have work assignments, were sent for extermination to Treblinka. Youths who jumped off the trains and came back to the ghetto related the gruesome experience of those who were driven to their “last road”.

In the ghetto the workers were disgusted. Their urge to get our to the Aryan side grew stronger. It was the main theme the occupied each person in the ghetto.

Many people began to go over to the Aryan side; but many returned after a few days, pale, weary, with horrible reports.

They said that they were blackmailed on the outside. There were many traitors going around. One person related that near the exit gate, a Polish policeman demanded 5,000 zlotych from a girl. Another said further that, when the police recognized a Jewish girl in the passage–camp among those traveling to Germany he promptly shot her. All these reports held many people back from setting out, but a large number did not look at all that and held to their old decision, out, whatever may happen. And they went out into the dark night in search of rescue.

Despite the large number of “ognieshkies” holders a very small number seemed to leave and a very negligible number stayed out. Life was hard in the ghetto and hard on the outside.

The day arrived for the liquidation of the ghetto. On a certain early morning they – including Ukrainians – deported the people to the barracks. There they lived in an enclosure with guard towers with armed Ukrainians looking down on them. The“ognieshkies” maker was not among the prisoners. He had left with a group of Zionist youths to fight in the Warszawa ghetto. As we later realized, that group of young men and women from Ostrovtse excelled in the fight for the honor of the Jewish people in the Warszawa ghetto uprising.

The imprisonment of the remnants of Ostrovtse in the barracks began a second chapter of troubles for those few remaining Jews…

An S.S.–man tortures an old Jewish woman

My name is Chaya Rosenberg. My parents' names were Shimon and Dina. We had a flour mill at 18 Mlynska Street, Ostrowiec, Poland.

When the war broke out and that cruel and bitter day was determined that all Jews were to die, I was issued my Aryan papers under the name Helena Pirkawska. With these Aryan documents, I often left the ghetto, and I was able to buy bread for my family, as well as for other poor Jews who were in the ghetto.

One day before they sent the Jews out of the city, I wandered around as an Aryan and for 15 days I wandered without knowing what to do with myself. I traveled from one city to another city without any clear purpose. Until one day the Gestapo caught me in the cellar, and I was sent to a forced labor camp in Germany.

When I got to Germany, we were sent to stay at the Brandenburg school, and the next day everyone was assigned a different kind of work. I had to sew new trousers. To my great joy, I met a Jewish girl from Lodz there. We worked 10 hours a day under the tight supervision of the SS.

Shortly thereafter, we were all taken from the camp and sent to a tank factory. In this factory, we worked 12 hour shifts, night or day. In this camp, 6,000 foreigners from all nationalities worked. Every nation was in an isolated compound surrounded by barbed wire. There were also many prisoners of war. Our salvation was to eat 100 grams of bread and a pint of watery soup per day.

You can imagine how great my fear was, a Jewish child who might be found among so many gentiles. I was very scared that I would speak a word of Yiddish while sleeping, and then SS would appear immediately.

When we were back from work broken and crushed, the gentiles used to “bark” at the Jews. It was a hard and terrible task for the Jews to stay alive. I suffered both physically and morally. I did not know what my future held, and I did not believe that there would be an end to this suffering.

On May 8, 1945, we were liberated by the Russians. They took us out of the camp and we settled with their entire army. They planned to send us to work in Siberia. Later, they assigned us to a French transport, and so I arrived in France. I suffered greatly because I did not know the language, and everything was foreign to me.

I lived in France for many years and then moved to Argentina. In all the countries where I traveled, I didn't feel any warmth. More and more, I felt that my precious home was gone forever.

Today I live In Israel with my son, who came to volunteer to our country. He's a military man and this is my greatest compensation for the hardest things I've been through in my life.

A woman doing forced labor

With blood, tears, pain, and rage, Let it remain in your memory forever Wherever you will go or travel. I hope that I will never be separate from you Always share in pain and in joy, On 11th of Iyar a rage came pouring down, That is when they shot our father. We cried for our young father For his tragic, too early death, Who tried to diminish our terrible pain With his struggle for a daily small piece of bread. But one tragedy hastens after another The murderous Germans, the vicious cannibals, Had prepared a place for thousands of dead A pogrom, a slaughter, even bigger. The blessing for Rosh Chodesh [first day of the month of] Cheshvan was said on Shabbath day But the Jews of Ostrowiec already felt the affliction, You went to Bodzechów on Shabbath night [Saturday] And all the rest of the Jews waited. The great tragedy happened On Rosh Chodesh on a Sunday, Three days without bread, without water, they were taken into the field, And only then, almost fainting, taken to the train.

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Then you stayed in Bodzechów And they took me to Starachowice I pictured your life While your entire life vanished But one thing sustained you, the efforts To at least safe your brothers, To keep them alive. I labored there day and night Was treated like the worst slave Harassed, labored, given nothing to eat, Sick, filthy, the worms feasted on me. Anguish, pain from the entire world Thirst, hunger, heat, cold, But my heart inside me pressured me To run! I thought of this all the time. I held out the loneliness, but not any longer. Prepared to escape. Even against all the ammunitions I played with my life Just to be with you – these were my efforts. I went on the road from Starachowice to Ostrowiec Trudging day and night I hoped as if I would be going to the Garden of Eden But again had no one to shelter me. I think it rained at that time Then I met you and your friend. Again, anguish without an end. You have to go back to Bodzechów In order to remain in the institution [establishment, outpost, school?] To continue pursuing the knowledge of life. You stood behind the doors In fear that they should not take you to Tsoyzmer [Sandomierz], But there was still much destined for me So, they brought you back to Bodzechów.

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It was a very joyous day They would not separate us again It would not be long before we would see one another It passed as if nothing happened. On 6th day of Shevat, another rage, a second roundup Masses encircled us Ripped away our beloved brothers We were left as if without wheels. But there was a miracle for us both The Nazi devil did not swallow us up We were both sad Our hearts bleed for the new losses. But the goal of revenge gives us strength Our dream: to break the German neck Not to differentiate between the best and the worst Beat them, annihilate them, from the youngest to the oldest. And then life went on together Without any dear ones, without a mother, Shared ever bite, Doing not one thing without the other's knowledge. Shared the pain just as we shared the bread No disagreements between the two of us But this does not last long. There is a rumor going around about another roundup. It lasted only three months But the devil cannot have enough There is talk that the barracks are all ready They did not make them too grand. It happened two weeks before Pesach [Passover] One hundred and twenty men were taken away to Bliżyn You were hiding then By a non-Jew, someone old but familiar.

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We were counted and sorted out in our place And later, after our march Hundreds of dead were taken away. We were guarded very heavily in the barracks I didn't really care, I only thought of you. I went to work only on the fifth day Got the chance to bring you out of hiding. The Jewish police rules in the barracks Their past, my oh my, Th entire nation later Considered them as traitors to their brothers. We went regularly to work They looked at us like demons and snakes We worked with all our energies, soaked in sweat Only one G-d knows of the anguish and slavery. You got sick while you were working and then got a cough And I hardly dragged myself with an ailing foot And then suddenly good news from the other side They say that the Russians are getting closer. To flee from the camo to the free world Oy, for that you need a lot of money, With your best friend You came to an agreement. She took upon herself to pay for all the costs. This is your friend and good person Yocheved Alter[1] She also wanted to save her brother[2] It is really a wonder about her fine deeds, It is too little to give her a beautiful thanks. Everything was calculated, done with earnest It was the 7th of Sivan All of us three from the brickyard, Her brother Naftali from the factory, For us there was no going back.

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We waited for the Christian[3] for a long time Then he finally came And he found us trembling with fear in the cold. They took us and we were all faint We arrived at twelve at night. It was light in the Christian's home, even though it was late He was waiting impatiently for us – we saw. We receive a glass of tea, and we go to sleep. But the Christian is not satisfied, He figured he would receive more money We so want to put away our tired bodies. He demands that we sign over our houses to him We negotiate a price with him What can we do, he has to be our provider And protect us from all evil. The attic remained our home, or the ditch, Sometimes at night we went into the house. There was also a young Jewish boy with us, He had a glib tongue, He told us all kinds of things Also, sometimes we even enjoyed it. We kept going with life, the difficult one, Bitter grimaces cover our faces in pain, We did not think the war would last for years For so long not to be able to go off and keep moving. Our bones are frozen, the winds are blowing, The time is running, it is already time for selichos[4], Holding ourselves together with energy, the hair is waving, Remember, we were living with the war for already six years.

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I wish you now, that all should be with blessings and not curses [part of Rosh Hashana prayer]. Let us be free And finally see the German destruction… Presented by the sister Henia Kudlowicz-Sylman, Peru[5]

		(On the tombstone in Hebrew:) Yitzchak Kudlowicz Who was murdered On 1st day of Iyar, 5702 [April 18, 1942] By the German murderers May their blood be avenged.
A tombstone who, the author of this poem, himself, after the liberation, etched this out on the gravestone of his father, who died in the war. This tombstone was later destroyed by Polish citizens.

Footnotes:

1. Yocheved was hiding with Henia Return
2. Naftali was brother of Yocheved Alter who also went into hiding Return
3. Refers to Righteous of Nations Henio Malkiewicz , see https://jewsofostrowiec.com/henio-malkiewicz/ Return
4. prayers said a week or more before Rosh Hashana Return
5. Henia later moved to Israel Return

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When the Germans attacked Poland on September 1, 1939, I was in Ostrowiec with my parents, who lived at 26 Kościelna. There were 17,000 Jews in the city then. Terrible panic ruled the city on that day. Ostrowiec experienced unceasing bombing by the Germans. Many Jews and Poles fled the city. But there was nowhere to run, because everywhere suffered from the same sense of panic.

The Germans entered the city on September 7 at 3 in the afternoon and quickly filled the city. On September 8, we learned that the Germans had shot 6 Jews, among them one Rosenberg who was going to shul in his tallis and tefillin to pray.

On September 8, signs appeared in the city ordering the populace to remain calm and to turn over to the military government radios and weapons.

The Germans were already holding 12 Poles as hostages, and they gave out orders concerning the hours when people could be in the streets.

Life in the city withered. Stores were closed. But the Germans themselves opened the Jewish stores and robbed them, and when they had satisfied themselves with Jewish goods, they divided the rest among the Poles.

There were many soldiers in the streets all the time. Later on, the German civil administrative government arrived.

In October, the Gestapo arrived, consisting of 12 men. They were always changing. Only two of them, Peter and Bruno, were permanent. With their horrible cruelty they threw a scare into everyone. A German named Tesko was in charge of Jewish matters. I remember also a Gestapo man named Holweg–he spoke Polish very well. Among them there were also Karshtin, Wagner–and one whom people called “the Prince.” There were also among them some Folkdeutsch–one from Lodz, Malitzki, and one from Warsaw, Ostman, who before the war was called Ostrovski and was a well-known sportsman. Later on he was killed in Ostrowiec by a Polish woman from Poznan.

In September, the Judenrat [Jewish Council] was created. In December, Jews from other cities began to come to Ostrowiec, cities such as Lodz, Poznan, in general from Wartegaal, because at first things were quieter in Ostrowiec than in other cities. Poles from Poznan also came to the city, many of them persecuted Jews. Right after their arrival they seized the Jews' stores and made themselves wealthy.

The Poles from Poznan also drove the Jews out of their apartments and took them for themselves. The problem of apartments was generally severe, because in addition to Jews and Poles, many Germans and Folkdeutsch came to Ostrowiec and appropriated apartments.

Particularly hard hit were those who were formerly wealthy but had no reserves from earlier times. They had to come get aid from others. The Judenrat had created a division for community aid, and needy Jews by the thousands besieged the Judenrat.

In the first months of the German occupation, the Judenrat opened a people's kitchen on Iłżecka Street where, until the war, there had been a “Mizrachi-shul.” There they distributed between 2,000 and 3,000 meals

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a day. At first the meals were good and satisfying.

All the inhabitants received food cards, according to which each person received at first 400 grams of bread daily, a little sugar, from time to time some soap. As time passed, there was only bread, and the portions became ever smaller: first 300 grams, later 200 grams a day, and in the middle of 1940, they completely stopped worrying about food for the Jewish population.

The division for community relief was able from time to time to distribute sugar, potatoes, coal, clothing, medicine, etc. to the people.

In addition to the aid from the Judenrat, refugees from the different cities organized themselves into so-called landsmanshaftn in Ostrowiec. These looked after the people from their cities. There were kitchens for Konin Jews, Lodz Jews, which the wealthier Jews from those cities supported financially.

In those early months, the Judenrat also created a clinic where doctors and other medical personnel worked voluntarily and gave free help to the indigent population.

Heading the hospital was Dr. Meyer from Ostrowiec. Someone who gave him a great deal of help was Kuperman, who helped to organize the hospital. He stood by his side and directed with him. Later on, he himself became with ill with typhus and died.

There was an organization of women to help those ill in the hospital and outside of it. I worked with them as a secretary. The chairwoman

Release card from the Jewish Hospital

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of the organization was Mrs. Shteyn from Krakow. She abandoned her home and her children and with great generosity devoted herself to the needy of Ostrowiec. Our duties consisted of collecting underwear and clothes for the sick people in the hospital, because they had to lie there on bare straw or straw mattresses. We created financial resources and especially provided scores of daily lunches, We employed many women in this work, especially younger women. We gathered everything from the local population, which responded in a brotherly fashion. They gave eggs, cake, sugar, milk, lemons for health. Generally the work of collecting the lunches and distributing them was very well organized. We divided the city into quarters. The inhabitants of each quarter were responsible on certain days for dispensing the lunches, which young women would collect and bring to the hospital. The raw produce we would cook ourselves.

In the hospital we later created a division for women in labor. We would give them produce. The clinic was absorbed into the hospital and hundreds of Jews received medical help there and medications. There was also an optometrist office in the hospital, led by the pharmacist Maria Dichter.

In July of 1940 the German S.A. division from Radom arrived in the city. They went wild, beating up Jews and arranging a formal pogrom. This happened on a Thursday, and the day was commemorated in Ostrowiec as “The Bloody Thursday.” After that bloody day, many people were confined to bed for long periods.

The Gestapo had a “special division” headed by the German Weiler. He used to attack Jewish inhabitants, conduct searches, allegedly seeking weapons but stealing the Jews' possessions. He would conduct those searches along with gendarmes, the S.D. [S.D. refers to the Sicherheitsdienst, the Nazi intelligence service- a part of the SS], the criminal police, and others.

The Polish police consisted of the same police who were in Ostrowiec before the war. Some of them were tolerable, but some were worse than the Gestapo. Particularly bad for the Jews were Isdekevet, Kostimarek, and Bombel from Poznan. Their names terrified the Jews of the city. They later joined the S.D. and became close with the well-known S.D. executioner Hans Holtzer, a Folkdeutsch who, after the liberation, was sentenced to death by a Polish court. Hans Holtzer singlehandedly killed scores of Jews.

At the end of March, 1941, orders came to create a Jewish ghetto, and on April 12 there was a decree about death penalties. So in August one Lederman was shot because although he had a certificate, he had forgotten to bring it with him. It did not matter that when they brought him back to the Jewish district other people had brought his certificate. He was shot.

Over all, that period was rife with death penalties. They shot for every little thing. If they found someone with a little bit of meat–they shot him (for as we know, the Germans had forbidden Jews to eat meat); if one was found without an armband–he was shot. At that time there was a case when someone left his home to go to the other side of Polna Street, which did not belong to the Jewish district, and so he was shot.

The crowding in the Jewish district was awful. There were cases when ten people lived in a single room. This especially affected the poor. Poles sought out the nicer Jewish houses. On Iłżecka Street there were two houses, numbers 40 and 42, where Jews had lived. But since, according to the new arrangement, these houses lay outside the Jewish district, the Poles took an interest in them until the Jews would be expelled. It was the same on Kościelna Street, where we lived, where there was still a mixed population. The Poles, especially the newcomers from Poznan, ejected the Jews and took

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the dwellings for themselves. Scarcity grew worse every day and the situation became worse and worse. One felt as if one lived in a closed casket.

April 28, 1942 was a day of trouble and destruction in Ostrowiec. At around 5 in the morning, we heard shooting, accompanied by terrible screams and crying.

People dared not go out into the street. Later, when we did go outside, we learned that during the night the Gestapo had gone wild. Using the excuse that they were “uprooting communists,” they took thirty-six Jews from their beds and shot them in the street. All the streets were colored with blood. Among those shot were two young women who, hearing the shooting, ran out of their house in their shirts and were shot. So also was my brother's mother-in-law shot, Beila Zukerfein, a woman of 60.

According to an order from the government, the Jewish police took the slain to the cemetery. They were buried in a common grave. All of the Jews participated in the terrible funeral and accompanied their murdered fellow citizens to the cemetery.

On that night of murder, among those killed were: Dr. [Ludwik] Wacholder, lawyer Zeisel, Yossel [Izek-Josek] Maliniak, Weinberger, two Minzberg brothers (very observant Jews), Pancer (a member of the Judenrat), his brother [David and Pinkas?] with his three sons, Kacelenboim [Szlama Naftula] with his two sons, Majerczyk with his son and brother-in-law, [Icek Alter] Grynberg , Dr. [Izrael] Grynewajg with his son [Mordka] , [Jojna] Zylberman, [Izrael Chaim] Sztam, [Ela] Bajnerman, Wigdorowicz, and others.

The members of the Judenrat were shaken up. On that same bloody morning of April 28, 42 men were arrested and confined in the prison. The Judenrat sought ways to free them. During the day, the Gestapo told the intercessor that the fate of those arrested had already been decided and it was far worse than that of the 36 who had been shot… About a day later, we learned that these people had been taken via Kielce to Oswiecem [Auschwitz].

A short time later, a few of the families of those who had been taken away received from the German authorities in Oswiecem official notice that their dear one had died of a heart attack.

In the first days of May there was a bloody incident that again disturbed everyone. In a china shop on Maliska [Młynska ?] Street that had formerly belonged to one Goldshteyn and now to Kniawa, a Pole from Poznan, Goldshteyn's twenty-year-old son worked. There was an error on a bill for the S.D. It did not matter that the responsible owner of the business was a Pole. The executioner Holtzer shot Goldshteyn in the presence of his family. Holtzer ordered him to be buried in the courtyard by the garbage dump…

In June of 1942 came news of the deportation of the Jews of Radom. In July came news of deportations from Warsaw.

I had an older brother in Warsaw, Yeszhi Kleinman. I spoke to him several times a day by telephone, so I knew what was happening there and also about the deportations in the Warsaw Ghetto. At first my brother assured me that he was in no danger, but when his wife was seized, he was beside himself. My brother then ordered mw to use all my might to obtain Aryan papers and to leave Ostrowiec lest I meet the same fate.

An acquaintance at city hall, Plotwinsky, gave identity papers to me, my sister, my brother-in-law, and my sister-in-law. My parents would not consider this. They were in deep despair. At first we wanted to reassure our sister's child. A Polish woman whom we knew took her out of the city. The Jews in the city felt like the clouds were obscuring the heavens from Ostrowiec. At every alarm and at every indication that the Germans were coming, the Jews of Ostrowiec would run to hide in bunkers and holes.

My mother became ill and ran a temperature of 40. Despite her difficulties, she urged me and my sister, Dora Baumshteyn, to leave the house and get out of Ostrowiec. My sister left in the last days of July

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for Warsaw and hoped that the Polish woman would bring her child there.

In the evening I came home after working the whole day at the hospital for the relief organization for the ill. My mother had already prepared a travel bag for me, as well as a ticket to Warsaw. In front of the house was a droshky. My mother had me change clothes so that I would look less like her

My father was not young. He was 54. But he was so scared that he could not say goodbye. My mother bustled around with her temperature of 40 degrees and “painted” my face, dressed me, and hurried me up for the trip. She told me to stay silent and not to become flustered…

My father put 2,000 zlotys into my pocket. My brother came home totally blackened by coal from his job.

My brother-in-law, Ber Baumshteyn, with tears in his eyes, begged me to look after his wife, my sister, and his child. I truly did not give enough attention to what was happening in that moment. I looked in the mirror and laughed at my appearance, for I could not even recognize myself. I did not understand what people were saying to me.

I left the house, sat in the droshky, and took off. My train left at 8:30 in the evening. Early on the morning of July 29 I arrived in Warsaw. I went to a hotel at 9 Widak and said that I had come to see a doctor and would stay for a few days.

From Warsaw I immediately sent a telegram to some Poles whom I knew in Ostrowiec, our neighbors, who had taken my niece. Before I left I had told them that from Warsaw I would sent them a telegram supposedly congratulating them on their wedding anniversary. They told my parents that I had arrived safely in Warsaw, so they could calm down.

I went off to find my sister. I knew that she was working as a maidservant for a Polish woman.

A few days later, our neighbor from Ostrowiec brought my four-year-old niece.

This neighbor who brought the child was the wife of a bookkeeper from Poznan, Williach Karl. He came from Poznan in 1941 and wanted to take over our bookkeeping business. I spoke with him and persuaded him not to. Later he became friendly with us, and he and his wife, Kazimera, became our good neighbors who did many good things for us.

Later on he took over our bookkeeping business, with our consent. At that time he also had another business and was the owner of two others that he had united into one large business.

Later my sister and her child went to Skawinaa, near Krakow, and I lost touch with them.

I stayed in touch with my parents by telegraph through our neighbor Williach. After two weeks in my hotel I had to move to another hotel. I brought nothing with me when I left Ostrowiec, and my neighbor Williach would bring me things from home when he came to Warsaw..

When my sister worked as a maid in Warsaw, her daughter stayed in the hotel with me. On August 20, 1942, the neighborhood where I was living in the hotel was heavily bombed by the Soviets. The child was very frightened. She cried and went into a nervous shock.

After my sister left with her child, I decided to find a private dwelling, at any price. I gave my identity card to a Jewish apostate whom I had known before the war so that she could register for me. And just at that time, Gestapo men came to the hotel for an inspection. I had no documents then, and they wanted to take me to their office, but then through some miracle they forgot about me as they dealt with other inhabitants of the hotel, so they left me behind.

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Early the next morning I left the hotel. At the same time, I arranged to be with an acquaintance of the apostate for only a month, at 73 Mokotowska. I paid for those days, because I knew that I would have to leave after a month.

In the last days, my landlady say that she knew that I was a Jew and she wanted me to leave immediately. I stayed there until the end of the month. On October 1, 1942, my acquaintance found me a permanent apartment at 37 Koszikova. I lived with my landlady Szulkowska in a passageway-room and paid her 150 zlotys per month. She knew that I was Jewish. She was a very fine woman, but she lived in constant fear.

After the first night she was very scared and announced that she could not let me stay because a Pole who was reputed to have worked for the S.D. lived in the neighborhood.

But I had nowhere to go. Finally my landlady agreed that I could stay with her because I had good documents in the name of Helena Kawecka, born in Suwalk.

My landlady Szilowska was quite poor. I decided to bake rolls for her that she could sell. It was good that she knew I was Jewish so that I did not have to pretend. I also did not have to be on guard for the S.D. man. He saw that I baked and worked at home. I baked at night.

My neighbor Williach from Ostrowiec from time to time would bring me packages from my parents with food, underwear, clothing, bed things, and money. Through them I always knew what was happening in Ostrowiec. I knew that in September my father had lost his job in the brick factory because they had let everyone over 35 go. I also knew through them that my brother Yeszi Kleiman had been sent from Warsaw. My parents lived in total despair, which consumed them. They tried to get my brother-in-law Ber Baumshteyn to get Aryan papers and leave Ostrowiec.

I seldom went out into the street. Until the war I had studied at the Warsaw University, so there were students whom I knew. I was afraid of meeting someone in the street. I only went out to shop or to get a book to read.

On the night of November 28, 1942, I went to the train station to meet Williach, who was bringing me a warm coat from Ostrowiec.

A Polish woman from Ostrowiec, Raszokowa, recognized me, and soon on the Yerozalimska Avenue two Polish policemen stopped me for a check, took my identity card, and led me to the police station opposite the train station.

The official in charge of the station looked me over. He apologized for the inconvenience that he had caused, and he explained that it was an unpleasant duty that he had to carry out in case of a denunciation. He told me that he was certain that I was not a Jew. He returned my identity card, just as one of the policemen who had arrested me came in, so a new chapter began…The official no longer spoke to me. He called in a policeman named Menderowski. I was taken into another room, where I was examined thoroughly about “religion.” Although I knew little about Christian prayers and I did not know the order in which things were said in church. He advised me that I should confess, because otherwise he would send me to Ostrowiec. I did not give in. Finally Menderowski asked if I had anything valuable with me. When he asked this, I calmed down a little. I told him that I would leave the cost of a trip home, because it was after the time when people were allowed on the streets. If I did not, my landlady would suspect that something bad had happened and I would not be home that night. I told him that when I got home, I would give him money. At first he asked for 1,000 zlotys, but finally he settled for 500 gulden. He returned my identity card and gave me a police escort home, on condition

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that at home I should give him 500 zlotys. On the way, the policeman who was accompanying me asked for 200 gulden for accompanying me. I asked him if now that they knew my address, would they continue to harass me. He told me not to worry and if anyone bothered me I should call them and they would help me gratis.

I arrived at home. The policeman waited on the step. I gave him 700 gulden and I was very happy, but at the same time I was uneasy about my future fate.

In November of 1942, I accidentally heard about my brother-in-law. It appeared that on the terrible night of October 9-10, 1942, he fled from Ostrowiec to Radom with Aryan papers. This was a difficult and dangerous deed, and it required great audacity and dexterity to extricate himself from the hands of the Germans. My brother-in-law worked in Radom, but people there blackmailed him and he was forced to flee to Warsaw.

My brother-in-law lived at 5 Leszczynska Street and was in touch with a dentist whom we knew and whom I ran into at the post office. She told me about my brother-in-law. I was overjoyed. I learned from my brother-in-law that my sister and her child were in Skawina, near Krakow, but that she could no longer stay there: Suspicion had fallen upon her because she had taken a “summer house” so late, and she had to be gotten out of there at any price.

At the end of November, 1942, my brother-in-law opened a dental laboratory at 9 Niemcewicza. He had two rooms there. Thanks to the dentist he knew, Valeria Meyer, he brought his wife and child from Skawina to Warsaw. My sister lived briefly at the laboratory, but it was terribly cold there and her child became sick. My brother-in-law prevailed with his landlady so that she would give her room to his wife and child. He claimed that she was an acquaintance and he had taken her nephew into the laboratory.

I was in contact with my brother, who had remained in Ostrowiec and worked in the foundry. I would get letters from him through his co-workers Piasecki, Shifinski, and Grelecki, and sometimes a little money, food, a summer jacket, boots. I learned that he was in great need and that the firms to whom my parents had given goods on the conditions that they would pay my brother had actually given him nothing. When he went to them about this matter, they tried to make him believe that the Germans had taken everything.

At the beginning of February, 1943, I received a letter from my brother telling me that in March of 1943, all the Jews who worked at the foundry would be taken into special barracks and totally isolated from the outside world. He also wrote that he could get Aryan papers and would come to Warsaw.

At the end of March he came to Warsaw, but his situation was very bad because he had such a Jewish appearance.

It was impossible to find him an apartment. He was harried; he roamed around; he stayed in a pantry, and so on. So it went until the second half of April, 1943, when a school friend of mine got an apartment for him in Milanówek, outside of Warsaw.

We soon knew about the rebellion in the Warsaw Ghetto because people spoke about it so much in the city. Several Jews whom we knew who lived outside the ghetto with Aryan papers and had friends in the ghetto would occasionally enter the ghetto. They told us that in the ghetto it was still and quiet. Several friends even went into the ghetto at Purim in 1943 to their relatives. Of course, entering and leaving the ghetto was not easy, but it was certainly not impossible.

Consequently, we had the impression

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that it was quiet in the ghetto, so we were surprised when we heard about the rebellion. We knew that Jews had weapons, that they conducted themselves heroically, and that in the first days of the rebellion many Germans had been killed. We saw flames from the burning ghetto. We saw whole squadrons of airplanes flying over the ghetto. Plumes of smoke from the ghetto were carried by the wind over the whole city.

Later on, we learned that Jews–men, women, and children–escaped from the ghetto through the sewer system, and then, unhappily, the greater portion of these unfortunate Jews, when they left the sewers, fell into the hands of the Germans, the Polish police, or blackmailers.

I myself saw how a Jewish boy was caught by the police on a streetcar. I also saw how two Jewish young people with packs in their hands were surrounded on Swietokrzyska Street by police, who led them away.

The housemaid in our dwelling told us how evil neighbors had informed the police about the dwellers at 28 Saska with a son and grandson who had escaped from the ghetto through the sewers. They were seized in their home.

The Poles' attitudes toward the rebellion varied. Here and there one heard recognition of the Jews' heroism, but mostly the Poles laughed at the thought that “Mashek and Yisraelek”, who never served in the army, had taken up weapons. One also heard accusations against Poles who were helping the Jews.

A woman named Pytowa from 17 Sochnecka Street told me that during a lesson in a Folks school, a student in a higher grade asked the teacher–a priest–whether the Germans were dong good by killing the Jews.

The priest thought a little, then said , “Yes,” showing thereby that if it had not been good, God would not have allowed it…

We Jews who were on the Aryan side were shocked and devastated.

The Germans ordered blockades in different districts, as they looked for Jews. Poles who had helped Jews now forced them out from their apartments. My landlady also told me to leave the apartment. But I had nowhere to go, and I beseeched her that if anyone captured me I would say that I had arrived by myself and she did not know I was Jewish. But my landlady did not let me rest. She would always yell at me, “There go the Germans, searching.” The door was always open at night–to urge me to leave. I had to pretend that I was seeking an apartment. Consequently I had to wander around for whole days. Once she said to me, ironically, that I felt good with her and would never leave.

My sister, too, with her child left their apartment. My sister had to take a job as a servant, and her child was taken from Warsaw. The Poles purposely spread rumors about Jews, trying to force them to flee. Many Poles, among them “friends” and acquaintances with whom Jews had trusted their valuables, turned Jews over to the Germans in order to get their possessions.

The Jews fled from Warsaw, but on the road they fell into the hands of Polish murderers. Great numbers of Poles themselves

Drawing by ghetto children

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killed Jews, or turned them over to the Germans or to the police.

On May 12^th and 13^th Warsaw was heavily bombed. Neighboring houses were destroyed, and the house where I was living, 27 Koszykowa, was badly damaged. My brother heard about this and appealed to his landlady, my friend Irena Mirkowska, that she should take me in at Malinowsk. She came for me on May 15^th at the railway station. I was in the coffee house of Fuchs on Filtrowa Street buying sweets for my friend's children. Just then there was a police raid and I was arrested and taken to the Warsaw prison, along with 117 other people.

At the prison I presented myself as a Polish woman. I was held for 24 hours. I had to give them my watch, a locket, a ring, a few zlotys–everything I had with me.

I was taken to the women's section. There I was stripped naked and searched. In my cell were 24 women.

After I was locked in Folkdeutsch woman came in. She asked in Polish if there were any Jewish women among us. No one responded. All night we heard shooting. The window was open, and the smoke that came in choked us. That night the ghetto was burning. During the day, I heard through the window how Jewish children who spoke Yiddish were playing in the courtyard. These were the children of Jewish parents who had been arrested and were in the prison. We did not know what awaited us.

The guard who gave us bread said that we would probably be put on a transport to Maidanek. She said that in about three days we would be allowed to write to our relatives and ask them to send a coat and food. We sat there in the cell totally naked, because they had taken our clothes on the pretext that they were being taken for disinfection.

After that terrible night, we were taken, naked, for a medical inspection and a bath. From the bath, we were taken to a dressing room and told to dress, go into the corridor, and quickly form lines. The same Gestapo men who had seized us in the coffee house were waiting for us. They led us in closed ranks to the prison courtyard, where we found those men who had been arrested with us.

At the exit from the office stood a long table, around which sat about 10 Gestapo men, among them an elegant translator. They were all comfortable and happy. We stood there from 9:30 in the morning until 4 in the afternoon, not knowing what awaited us. It was a very cold day. Around us we heard shooting. From the watchtower the guards shot in every direction. We waited for them to shoot us. To our left were pits full of lime. A man in a white robe looked out from the window of a prison building. At first I thought this was a doctor. Later I learned that he was an artist who painted various things there. The translator, who had been with the Gestapo at the coffee house, turned around and was very polite. He even

Drawing by ghetto children

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allowed an older man and a woman with bad feet to sit on a bench. He told us that we would be returned to our homes, because the Gestapo knew that we were ordinary people, and only 12 bandits would be detained.

An hour later, they began to call our names–first the men and then the women. As we went up to the table, we were photographed from all sides.

Some people were detained longer at the table, as they were questioned about different things. Finally our identity cards were returned and we were told to go home. I was asked nothing. I was only photographed and given my identity card. The translator asked me if I had a brother and a father named Kawecki in the prison. Then a man came out of the prison, he who had come in to take our valuables.

They asked if we would tell people in the city that we had been treated badly. They said that they had given us baths, because the water system in Warsaw was not functioning.

Finally, a Gestapo man made a speech, saying that they do no harm to ordinary people. They sought only lawbreakers and bandits, and we could freely say this in the city.

Soon, open trucks arrived and took us from the prison, going through the Nalewka and Kraszinski quarters. We could not believe that we were free.

When on May 15^th I wanted to go to Milanówek with my friend, I took my niece (my sister's daughter) who had been staying with my sister at a Polish woman's home. This woman was afraid to let them stay longer, so the child had to be taken from there. When I was held at Fuchs coffee house by the Gestapo, my friend took the five-year-old Bina (who was at that time called Zasha) to her place on Milanówek . There she gave the child to her neighbor, a teacher, who took her home without her husband's knowledge, for which we paid her well.

When I came from the prison to Milanówek , I was with the child. She was good, and she felt secure there.

After my brother disappeared (see below), I saw my niece twice. A couple of week later I learned that the teacher took the child to her summer home. We did not know where. Half a year later, we did not know where the child was.

Only in October of 1943 did the teacher appear and ask for money from my brother-in-law. He asked her to return his daughter. In November, 1943, the teacher brought him the girl. She did not look well and was in a terrible condition. It appears that she had been placed in a village near Salkin with the teacher's elderly grandmother. She went without supervision and was hungry. Long months passed before the child recovered, because she had been forlorn, dirty, and covered with lice. My brother-in-law and made an arrangement with the earlier Polish woman, Emma Befter.

Early in the morning I went to my brother on Milianuwek. He was beside himself with worry, because he had waited for me until the night. I told him what had happened. I stayed there the whole day. In the afternoon my friend arrived and, out of breath, she told us that in the neighboring villa the gendarmes had found

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Jews. They shot them on the spot, and the watchman buried them there. She was very upset, because the son of the watchman knew that my brother was here. We sought a hiding place for my brother. Finally, my brother hid in the attic of a water reservoir. He stayed in a dressing room. After an hour he left there. In the evening I returned to Warsaw. The next afternoon my friend came to Warsaw and said that she had brought my brother and taken him to my brother-in-law at the dentist's office. She said that the gendarmes were searching all the villas in the neighborhood and she wanted my brother to stay for a time in Warsaw.

When my brother came to my brother-in-law, the landlady immediately saw that he was a Jew. She told my brother-in-law that she would not have Jews around. My brother-in-law responded that this was one of his patients. But my brother had to get away. He wandered around the Mokotov fields. We simply could not find a place for him. We had no funds. He spent the night in the fields in an open latrine.

The ghetto burns

My sister. Begged to be allowed to stay. But my brother had to go. As he left my sister, my brother said, “We will all be killed. At least may the child survive…”

In the morning, my friend again came with a report that my brother had come to her late in the evening and she had not allowed him into her home. In the corridor she gave him some potatoes, a piece of bread, and some cigarettes and she advised him to steal by night to the Otrembus woods. She told him that she would come in the morning to me in Warsaw and I would come to take him from there. I went immediately to the woods and I searched all day, but I never found a trace of my brother.

I returned to Warsaw, a broken person, and I could not control myself. I walked through the streets and cried. My sister, knowing what happened to our brother, went completely deaf, and for several days after that we could only communicate with her in writing or with gestures.

Over the course of months, I wandered from apartment to apartment until the outbreak of the spring rebellion in Warsaw, when I was forced, together with tens of thousands of Poles, to leave the city. I got to know an intelligent Polish family by the name of Radzenska in Michalowca. I remember a conversation we had in Michalowca:

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Mrs. Radzenska told how in the spring of 1943 she had found by a well a piece of half-burned parchment with sacred Jewish writing (probably from a sefer Torah). Mrs. Radzenska said that the wind had probably carried it from the ghetto. And she expressed her sorrow that it had been burned. “It is a shame,” she said, “because it has archival value.” Then Mrs. Irena Gulawka called out, “That's not a shame about the parchment; it's good that it was destroyed along with the vile Jews”…Everyone there agreed with her.

In Komarov I became acquainted with the Zablacka family, who lived there. They were Jewish. I quickly realized that she was a Jew. They were very generous to me.

At the beginning of November, 1944, whole groups of Poles from around Warsaw travelled to Warsaw and brought back things for the refugees from Warsaw. My landlord, Szwiskowski, went with them and was there for ten days. When he returned, he told me that as they searched for things, they found Jews hiding in cellars at Makatowa and Piusa Streets. They turned over these unfortunate Jews to the gendarmes.

I did not live badly there, although I was never free of fear because of the frequent search parties. Suddenly I received news about my sister and brother-in-law. I was sure that they had been killed. When I received the first news that my sister was still alive, I was almost out of my mind from joy. She was together with her child. At the time of the rebellion she left Warsaw for a village and worked there in a field.

My brother-in-law, too, was in a village near Grodzisk, and I was in touch with him. But I was afraid that my brother-in-law would come to me, so I would meet him in Pruskov. I stayed in Kamerov the whole time until liberation by the Red Army on the night of January 17-18, 1945.

(taken down verbatim on July 14, 1948–M. Rayak)

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