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I remember this day very well although 20 years have passed since then. It was the last day that I spent with my mother and my sisters.

I was led to a labor camp together with 100 girls. It was the only transport of girls from Wadowice. The members of the Judenrat always boasted that the Gestapo honors our city, and because of that they don't take girls. When they came to take us we realized that their promise was a lie, and it seemed to us that it was the end of us all.

We were fortunate. All the girls who were sent against their will survived and lived, while those who remained in Wadowice perished together with all of Poland's Jewry. But who knew then where death lurks?

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In the morning of that day I went out to see what was happening in the ghetto and found out that my name wasn't on the list. The members of the Judenrat thought that my name wasn't listed because our family has already paid the price: the Nazis deported my father and my 15 year old sister, and my brother was in a camp. So, I wandered around without fear and helped my cousin, who was on the list, to pack her belongings.

The members of Judenrat hid their children and the children of the parents who had connections with them. But to deceive the public opinion they also put them on the list as a proof that there is no favoritism in the Judenrat. There were also mothers who hid their children in the chimneys. As a result, defenseless girls were turned over to the Nazis.

The Jewish militia led by their commander Yitzchak Burger, whose appearance always frightened us, came as the Gestapo's emissaries to take the victims. Although I wasn't on the list, Yitzchak Burger came to our house about one o'clock at night accompanied by Obsztender, a Jewish policeman from the city of Kenti [Kęty], and asked me to join him. At first, they told me that I have to leave for a labor camp as a replacement for the Judenrat's children who were in hiding. When my mother cried and refused to give me, Obsztender stated: “I assure you Mrs. Strauss that your daughter will come back home and they will be forced to come out from their hiding place!”

I was sure that my end arrived. It is difficult to describe my and my mother's grief at this time.

On the way we approached Meirtzik, a Judenrat's controller who was loyal to Merin. My mother begged before him to let me go, and he said: “Mrs. Strauss, there will be time when I will ask them to send me to a labor camp. Maybe it is better that your daughter is leaving…”

I told him that I wanted to die together with my mother and sisters.

I approached a truck full of girls. The truck already started to move. My friend, who was sitting in the truck, told me that I should go because I wasn't needed, but at the last moment an S.S. man grabbed my hand and ordered me to enter the truck that already started to move.

My mother gave me a postcard and a pencil to write her from the road. So this is how the miracle that saved my life happened.

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My husband, our children and I hid in a truck under buckets of coals and traveled to Wadowice Ghetto a few days after its establishment, because it was impossible to stay in Jowzno? our current place of residence. Here, the entire Jewry was eliminated.

We thought that in Wadowice, together with my mother and my family, there will be a chance for survival.

My beloved Wadowice is the city where I grew up and lived for many years. Our house, which was in the ghetto's boundaries, was still standing. The remaining Jewish population was concentrated in several dismal streets, in small houses and old huts.

No one saw us in the darkness of the evening and we entered the new gate to hell. Human shadows,

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who looked like worms that the brutal German boot haven't crushed yet, wandered around. These thin shadows, who at one time were noble and honorable people, wandered around humiliated and depressed, looking for a corner in one of the crowded holes to sleep in. But it wasn't easy to find a place to rest because ten people have been assigned to one room.

Despite this terrible overcrowding there was peace and mutual respect between them. We need to honor the human values ?? that remained among the Jews, when at the same time, these values completely disappeared from the heart of the enemy who was engaged in humiliating and oppressing them.

And why not? Everyone still harbored the hope that it might get better...

They make order in the ghetto. We are trembling with fear from the regime that was organized from Jewish volunteers who serve the Gestapo. People stand in line to get a meager dirty soup and a small amount of food.

We don't hear laughter, we don't see a shadow of a smile on a face, and we don't hear a loud word. Terror and fear is visible on all the faces, and tragedy is peering from the eyelashes.

Where, the eternal people, is your wisdom and judgment that accompanied you through all the long years of exile? You've been warned countless of times.

Under the supervision of the militia, rows of sad old people and children (very few young people remained after the previous transports) march to the factory to sew uniforms for the soldiers of the “superior race” army.

And what they're talking about in whispers?

- Oh! You lose a lot of weight! You don't even have a drop of fat. In spite of that, the Nazis will sill use you for “RIF” soap.

- You better shut up. You aren't qualified for that. There is only water in your body. Well, we don't have to go too far…

- Where?

- To Auschwitz. Anyway, I don't have the strength to walk…

- Don't worry. They will transfer you.

But the question, of what will happen to my parents, was constantly on my mind and didn't give me peace. On the other hand, we work in a “shop” here in Wadowice. The work is intensive and of very high quality – otherwise, we will bear the responsibility. Even though death lurks here, maybe, with time, the situation will change. Here we gain time.

The superhuman efforts in the “shop” give wonderful results. The situation is paradoxical, we produce for the murderers. We work 12 hours a day. It seems to us that the time drags for infinity. The day is long, the week is terribly long, the month is tenfold, and the year - a hundredfold.

Meanwhile, rumors started to spread that the ghetto will be liquidated like all the ghettos in Upper Silesia. We are the last to be destroyed. And there were people who continued to live under the illusion: maybe I'll stay, maybe I'm needed.

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We work diligently all day, we work almost without breathing.

I disagreed with those who were devoted to this illusion. Many things didn't go unnoticed. An intuition dominated me during those terrible days and whispered to me that the end is approaching. My maternal instinct pushed me into action, and I go out to the Arian side where almost everyone knows me and many can hand me the police.

I'm going to the priest to ask him to take one of my children, the daughter. “I can't,” answered the priest, “I'm responsible for all the believers.” I went to him again and finally he promised me, but he has some reservations. “Save your own life” he says, “because a girl without a mother will always be unhappy,” but he has no idea how to escape.

I didn't give up. I took my daughter out of the ghetto to hide her in the church, but nothing came of it. Eventually I found a place for her somewhere else. I returned to the ghetto where they started to dig a bunker or two for the whole ghetto. My heart disagreed with this action because it was known that they blow up bunkers.

I came back from work at midnight. At 2 o'clock at night I see through the window a fence made of the murderers' daggers. They came! They surrounded the ghetto, crowded inside it and screamed! Raus (out!). We dress for the last road. It doesn't make sense to take something

“Go to the bunker” I whispered to my friends to fate. Everyone is desperate, they don't want to, they don't want to run away, and they walk one after the other like innocent lambs.

My family and I climbed to the attic and from there we heard how nearly everyone got ready for the road and walked out in unsteady steps. The operation didn't last more than two hours. Later, I heard a German voice shouting: “A number people are missing, but it's not a problem, they come out by themselves!”

Absolute silence prevailed. We heard the footsteps of the guard which was placed in the ghetto.

More than 20 people gathered in the hiding place, among them a number of children. The mouth was silent from fear and excitement. The children know not to cry so the Germans would not hear them.

Soon we begin to feel the lack of air. On the next day someone came out to look for water. But there is no water. All the water taps were shut off! The Germans spotted us and some of them approached us with their dogs. We hear their breathing and we stop breathing. Eventually they didn't come closer, perhaps because of the fear that a large number of people was there. If they found us we would have walked after them without resistance. Maybe one, or at most two of us, would have tried to escape.

Every day, the intolerable situation without a shadow of hope and despair, pushed another person to come out from the hiding place. I felt that very soon it would be my turn to come out. When I came out with my son I didn't know where to go and what to start. And so began the story of my wanderings. I escaped from Wadowice to Krakow and from there to Hungary. In Budapest was incarcerated in prison. I spent time in Auschwitz, Freudenthal, and in other concentration camps.

It was a real hell. These experiences were etched deep in my heart so I would never forget them.

I will always remember what Amalek did to us!

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I was born in Tarnów and lived in Wadowice since 1936. I worked in the shop of Mrs. Hamerschlag sewing corsets.

In this city I went through all the troubles in the ghetto, including the deportation of my husband Shlomo and my brother-in-law Yosef Wurzel to labor camps in Germany. My sister was also sent from Tarnów to a forced labor camp. I stayed in Wadowice with my father-in-law Simcha Wurzel, my husband's uncle Lipa Gruszow and his wife Sida.

I helped the deportees as much as I could and sent them food parcels. I also helped my widower father-in-law, and Sida.Gruszow after her husband's death.

Mail service was provided in the ghetto by the community's office, and it was possible to send packages to the prisoners in Germany. I collected undergarments and clothes from the ghetto's residents, and sold them in the Aryan side. Occasionally, I joined the night shift that went to work in the “shop”, and snuck into the Aryan side. Here, I sold these items to the Poles and with the money that I earned I bought bread, toasted it, packed it, and sent it to my family.

My sister, who was in Grunberg labor camp [a Gross-Rosen sub-camp], wrote me a number of times that the Germans only show her the package and the shipping certificate, and asked me to send her white beets instead of bread in the hope that that Nazis will give it to her. It is easy for us to imagine the hunger that prevailed among the Jewish prisoners in the camps, when they asked us to send them beets.

I risked my life when I snuck out. I was lucky that I had a good friend that I knew before the war. Here name was Henya Pombraska and she lived in Melinska Street. I lived in the same building before the establishment of the ghetto. She gave me a place to hide in her apartment and helped me to sell my “merchandise”.

This friend tried constantly to convince me to stay with her, to use her Aryan papers before her marriage, and travel to her brother in the village where I could survive the war. I couldn't accept her advice because of the thought that the trip to the village will cease the shipment of packages to my family's three deportees, and I won't be able to take care of the rest of the family who remained in the ghetto. I thought that the main reason that the Creator sent me to Wadowice was to rescue my relatives.

I stayed in the ghetto until the end without utilizing the proposed rescue options.

Once, before the establishment of the ghetto, my brother-in-law Yosef Wurzel wrote me that he was near death because of the torture and the terrible life in the camp, and asked me to help him with the camp's doctor. Immediately, I removed the ribbon in the shape of a Star of David from my coat, traveled to the same doctor in Silesia, and begged him to help my poor brother-in-law. Indeed, a short time later, I received a letter from Yosef that his living conditions improved and he is regaining his strength.

On the faithful day, 2 July 1942, my father-in-law was taken to the transport to Bełżec. I went, together with Lipa and Sida Gruszow, to a German friend who held an important job in the “shop”, and begged him to save

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my father-in-law. He responded to our request, went in the middle of the night to the location where the victims were concentrated, called my father-in-laws' name, and brought him back to the “shop”.

I was next to Lipa Gruszow when he passed away. He was one of the first pioneers who immigrated to Israel, but because of his diabetes he was forced to return to Wadowice.

His health deteriorated during the war. He worked as a guard in the “shop” and also lived and died there.

His family members were not allowed to participate in his funeral because the cemetery was outside the ghetto's boundaries. Only a certain amount of people from “Chevrah Kadisha” accompanied the coffin to the cemetery.

After his death I lived with his widow, and did everything I could to help her. I divided the food that I purchased when I smuggled merchandise to the Arian side to three portions, I gave two to my father-in-law and one to Sida.

But all my efforts to save my family came to nothing. Sida Gruszow was deported to Auschwitz together with me when the ghetto was liquidated. My brother-in-law died from torture in the camp, and my husband was shot by the Nazis before the arrival of the Soviet Army. Also the end of my sister was bitter and tragic when the labor camp was liquidated.

In Auschwitz I was locked in Block 20. There, I fell ill with Typhus Fever from the contaminated water that they gave us to drink, but I survived. At the end, I was sent to labor camp No. 2, and from there I walked every day to the city to work in the “Union” munitions factory. We had frequent selections and people were taken to their death, but the Divine Providence wanted me to live. When my turn came the officer's small stick tended to the right, and so I survived.

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I would like to dedicate a few words in this book in order to describe the atmosphere in Wadowice during the Nazi occupation.

It was in 1941. We still lived in our apartment. The “Judenrat” sent invitations to various jobs such as cleaning the police station and peeling potatoes in the barracks. Every day we went to another job. The work was divided by the member of the “Judenrat” Yisrael Miller. One day, I received a written order to appear at the police station at 4 o'clock in the morning for a cleaning job. The police station was in the “Starost” building, and the distance from my apartment was small. In spite of that, great fear gripped me and my father. He was so anxious about me that every morning he accompanied me to my place of work. I remember to this day the sad lines on his face when we walked. His heart was aching as he walked with his last strength whispering a prayer that nothing bad will happen to me.

Two other girls worked there with me. I couldn't accept the fact that I had to arrange the beddings in beds that were still warm. The work aroused disgust and depression in me. We also cleaned the furniture, windows, ovens and tiles. Everything had to shine. While working, words of mockery were directed towards us by the police officers. I tried not to

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look at them and hear their foul language. Not once I asked the “Judenrat” to send me to another job. They comforted me and said that they only send selected girls to work in the “Starost”. I saw irony in these consolations.

After a long time we were taken to regulate the Skawa River. We traveled to our work by train. We worked between 8am to 4pm. We transferred wheelbarrows full of sand or stones on narrows wooden planks to the other side of the river. This work was better than the cleaning work, because we worked outside and only under the supervision of the Poles (Polskie Deutsche).

Once, when we pulled a full wheelbarrow, one of the planks moved from its place and we fell together with it into the river. I was quick because I took gymnastics classes in my youth. I jumped, grabbed one of the planks, and the people who got closer to me dragged me to the riverbank. My friend, Wilma Korngut, tried to get closer to the riverbank, but the water swept her away. At the end she was saved by a miracle. We were wet to the last thread of our clothes, and the manager sent us to a cubicle next to the office to dry our clothes.

This work continued until the establishment of the ghetto. From that day on all the work was concentrated in the “shop”. My group sewed nylon raincoats and uniform for the army. Very often we received dirty coats stained with blood and full of lice, but we didn't complain and worked quietly. We only had one concern: to exist and stay together with our family in Wadowice.

Indeed, the fate that was waiting for us was cruel: first came the terrible news about my brother from a man who returned from a labor camp. According to this news my brother, who was deported in the first transport and was sent to a labor camp in Ruda, died of starvation. He was a passionate smoker and traded all of his tiny bread rations for cigarettes. As a result he starved to death.

On May 10 1943, 100 young women were taken from Wadowice to a labor camp in Silesia. The “Judenrat” also turned to my family with a demand to give one daughter for work. We strongly objected this decree because we wanted to stay, at all costs, in Wadowice with our father. But the “Judenrat” didn't move from its demand. At the end, I joined the transport in place of my sister who was sick. I left my home in a very grim state. From all the excitement my sister went into shock and lost consciousness. They pushed me into the truck without giving me the opportunity to separate from my family. In the labor camp I received a letter from home and soon after also a package. In the center of the package I found a coil of wool wrapped around a piece of paper on which my sister wrote me her last letter. Today I keep it as a memento, and this is its content:

“My beloved,

Don't despair, things will get better, and very soon will see each other. Don't go against fate and don't sink into sadness. Maybe it is better that way. We reached this conclusion after we suffered severe shocks during the first days after you were taken to the transport. We were in a terrible emotional state. We thought that we will go wild, although I remembered that this isn't the end, and the one who can hold on will save his life.

We will not forget you and we hope to see you again very soon. You can imagine our suffering when we pack the packages for you, when we read your postcards and write letters to you, they are wet with our rears.

We were all broken after Herman's death but we recovered, and there are glimmers of hope in our hearts that fate wouldn't be as cruel to us as it was to our brother. Fate will face us and smile to us.

We also talk this way to other people who are in the same situation.

Send home your unnecessary belongings.

I emphasize that we will try to send you everything that you want, don't despair, we want you to be happy and to write us good postcards, they will also affect our mood.

It is relatively calm here and father feels pretty good. People come to see him. Life is going on, and we still don't known when salvation will come.

Again, I ask you: relax and believe in the good end. Maybe we will find a way to rescue you, and hopefully it won't be too late.

A thousand kisses from me, father is already sleeping.

Arna”

On the very first day of the war, panic broke out among the residents of Wadowice, and the next day, Saturday, the city was almost completely emptied of its inhabitants. My mother and I left, almost the last to flee, at one o'clock after midnight, after vigorous persuasion by our neighbor Hirsch Gleitzman. He managed to get us a wagon, but on the way we suffered severe traffic disruptions caused by the crowds of pedestrians. We were forced to change horses and wagon, and thus we parted ways with the Hirsch Gleitzman.

I was left alone with my mother. We barely reached Tarnow. There we met the rest of our family from Krakow and Częncz. With a broken heart we greeted the Germans when they entered this city. The men continued on their way, and my mother and I returned home after a few days, in a German car, to protect our belongings. It was on the eve of Rosh Hashanah. With our last strength, we got out of the car in the main square of Wadowice and were warmly welcomed by German soldiers. We were satisfied that after all the wanderings we would be able to rest in our beds again and spend the holidays at home. “It's a shame the rest of the family hasn't arrived yet”, said my mother.

The city was quiet. With no Jews, most of the shops were closed. Every moment someone else returned and was happy to be home. Here and there they determined that thieves had broken into the house and stole things, but no one paid any attention to it. After the holidays we reopened our shop. The sale was larger than usual, because everyone was trying to stock up on skins. Slowly we began to realize that it was not worth getting rid of all the goods. In the meantime, a new municipality had also been established, which forced the citizens to make efforts in order to return the city to its previous economic state.

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Before the escape, we managed to hide some of the goods in the basement of our house and put a cupboard at the entrance. During the first inspection conducted by the Gestapo, nothing was found with us. But after a few days, five Germans and two Poles who were trying to obtain the title of “Volksdeutsche” appeared and immediately found the hidden goods. Their joy was great because, in addition to the leather, there were also a huge number of bottles of schnaps belonging to Hirsch Gleitzman. For this sin, my mother and I were imprisoned in the same cell. In neighboring cells sat other Jews who were also accused of similar offenses. I looked through the barred window of my cell and saw the school where I studied. I was attacked by terrible ideas and thoughts. Two days later, we were called to the first floor, the headquarters of the Nazi police. We were ordered to turn around and face the wall. When I saw that several more Jews were standing in this manner, I thought that the Germans wanted to eliminate us. I raised my hands up and the pitiful sight caused laughter among the Germans. Although I was prepared for the worst, they gave us back the keys along with a few other small objects that they had previously taken from our pockets. I think they acted this way because they didn't yet have other instructions.

I remember those days I spent in that prison well, because they stirred up deep waves of emotion in my heart. My mother lay with me on a mattress and wanted to warm me with her body. Until that moment she had only few opportunities to express such feelings to me, because I was her tenth child. But adversity and distress bind even strangers to each other, let alone a mother with her daughter. New energy flowed into my body then. I wanted to live, to fight and see the end.

Families of German officials then began to flock to Wadowice. Here they found nice apartments, luxurious furniture, and recruited cleaners and people to clear snow. In the meantime, a community was established with Scharfer and Kurtz at the head, and the Germans demanded that it begin to operate. There were people among us who were capable of forcing those who, out of good will, would not hand over to the Germans the thing they needed “at that very moment”. Everything was done out of the innocent belief that after paying this bribe, peace would reign. More than once, I had a quarrel with Isaac Burger about the furniture of my brother and sister. They were not in town and my mother very much wanted the furniture to be returned to them at least when they returned. But we had no choice, because first of all, the belongings of missing persons were taken.

The community council made assessments and imposed taxes that became heavier from time to time, as the demands of the Germans increased. The orders came from the upper echelon.

One day, when all the Jews were in their homes, like a bolt out of the blue, we heard the shout “The synagogue is burning!”. At that moment, everyone had the desire to jump into the fire, to get out and save something from the holy place. But no one dared to do it. Warm tears were seen in every eye and the sound of crying could be clearly heard. People could only look out from the balconies of the apartments and the roof of the house at this gloomy spectacle. I remember that at those hours, while the synagogue was burning, people became very close to each other. We sat together and one helped the other. We often told imaginary stories that appeared in the newspapers, we ran to read “news” every now and then to comfort each other and tell them that our bad situation would not last long. In the meantime, the Germans were making progress with their occupation plan and we immediately felt every achievement they gained, even the smallest ones, by changes that were to our detriment. And so, the time has come for

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the first shipment to a forced labor camp, confiscation of radios and furs. Even small necklaces had to be untied from the coat. We were afraid to wear wedding rings back then.

During that time, a special office was established that forced people to pay high taxes for apartments. They were also collected from homeowners. I remember how painful everything was and how the previous prohibitions were small compared to the new ones, which were many times more cruel.

I didn't know what the Poles were going through under the occupation regime, but one day was etched in my memory. We were forbidden to leave the house. We waited to what was to come. We later learned that there had been an operation against the Polish intelligentsia in the city. They were taken out of the house and lined up in rows in Targowica Square. Each one had a backpack in his hand and they were sent somewhere. I remember that I saw from the window Dr. Wodzinski's widow with her daughter and I cried at the sight of it. She was one of the important mothers in our city. A strange silence fell again. We didn't know how to express our sympathy for the Poles' grief and pain, so that they wouldn't think we had paid a gold ransom to the Germans to take their people in our place.

We got used to the hard life. The city was annexed to the German Reich. The “Skawa” river was marked as the border line and rumors spread that the Jews would go over to the government. Everyone who still had valuables sent them across the border. In the end, we stayed in the city and more than once, in the dark times, we regretted for sending across the border the last valuables we had. For we were forbidden to travel even towards Kalwaria.

Our life was somehow organized. We received food stamps for the grocery store and to buy clothes. The men were sent to various forced labor jobs, but they were never kidnapped from the street again. The community provided a quota of workers according to order and age. Girls would work from time to time in the police, in private apartments, and in army bases. We tried to be disciplined, hoping that the situation wouldn't last long and we would get through everything successfully. I remember being told jokingly that one of the girls, who had to come to work at 6 in the morning, put a clock by her bed that rang early. It was winter and dark. When she came to the police station, the officer on duty told her that it was now 3 o'clock. She went outside and waited until 6. She was ready to do anything so as not to be late...

Despite our efforts, the militiamen's treatment towards us was quite brutal. I remember some of their names to this day, such as, for example, policeman Foreman, who often beat Jews for minor offenses. I once worked in the Fischer army base, which was packed with soldiers. By order, I was forced to clean toilets. I already knew from experience that anyone who did not do their job meticulously was subject to insults and even slaps on the face. So, I cleaned one toilet after another meticulously, even though the work was so tiring that I could vomit and my hands were shaking. The German who was supervising me finally asked me what kind of education I had and what schools I had graduated from.

One bright day, young people and even families were taken to work in forced labor camps. The scene was tragic: shouting, crying, and despair gripped everyone. Nothing helped, the quota of people had to be filled. Then came the first letters from those taken, announcing that it was possible to survive in the camp. The work was hard, but it could be endured, and that the work would be finished in a short time. Their wives and mothers sent bread to the camp because they had heard that there was a shortage of bread there.

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The head of the central “Judenarat” in Sosnowiec, Marin, proposed in negotiations with the Germans that they take money instead of people. Again, a contribution. They did take gold, but a short time later they again demanded Jewish workers. After all, Jewish manpower did not cost them money.

In Sosnowiec, there were wealthy Jews who would be released from forced labor in exchange for a bribe, through Marin's efforts. In our city, various reasons caused the Jews to run out of money, and so they were all taken to forced labor.

The scope of the functions of the “Judenrat” center in Sosnowiec was growing. He sent Commissar Meirczyk to Wadowice to control the community. He lived with us for the first year of his arrival. The apartment was quite spacious and we willingly rented him a furnished room with breakfast and dinner. In this way I was close to the community and it also benefited me, since the furniture in his room was guaranteed, so to speak, since as long as he lived with us it would not be confiscated. I also had the opportunity to see how the community mechanism worked...

Many times, various steps were taken on behalf of the community, although the results were not always good. Among other things, vocational courses were established for youth. I was drawn to such a course to work as a teacher together with Dorka Brunner. It was a course in cutting and sewing.

And so, winter and summer passed, and another winter and summer. The situation was getting worse and illusions evaporated with time. I remember well one day on the eve of Passover 1942. The Jews of Oświęcim were being transferred to Sosnowiec and the people of our town volunteered and traveled to Oświęcim to help the unfortunate people as they were moving their belongings. Everything was allowed to be taken, except for furniture. Time was short. I helped my cousin and others pack their belongings. I cooked soup to serve to the people who were standing in the street waiting for the carts. But all these efforts were meaningless in comparison to the fact that we expressed and demonstrated them that in times of disaster we were there for them and shared in their suffering as brothers in distress.

Meanwhile, bad news came from Ksanów. An “Aktsia” was carried out there and some of the town's inhabitants were killed, after being sent to Oświęcim (Auschwitz). The same thing happened in the towns of the D¹browa region. The Nazis carried out “Aktsia” after “Aktsia”.

Every day refugees from the nearby towns came to us, seeking refuge. First, they came on their own, and then by order of the Nazis. The people came in carts in terrible condition with the rest of their belongings. It was already clear then that Wadowice was also destined for a similar fate to the other towns. Suddenly, orders came from Sosnowiec that we should collect sewing machines and organize a “shop”. Tailors and seamstresses were sent to a three-day course for the “Shop” in Ksanów and Trzebinia. The Jews of our town felt better now, because they were spared the trouble of migrating to other places. They praised Meirczyk for being such an excellent organizer, and I was pleased that Meirczyk was leaving our apartment.

I was among those sent to this course. Upon my return, I worked tirelessly for three days and nights recruiting people for work. Everyone came, from 12-year-old children to elderly people. All were looking for work in order to escape the expected deportation. Many were disappointed in their hope of being spared deportation, as the Nazis soon carried out an “Aktsia” and many of those who worked in the “Shop” were selected for extermination. This day, July 2, 1942, left me with dark and unforgettable memories. To this day, I remember the cries and sighs from the three barracks in the army base next to Zatorska Street, where the unfortunates who were marked for extermination were crammed.

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My mother was not in Wadowice during the “Aktsia”. In exchange for money, Meirczyk gave her a travel permit to Iwazno, where my sister lived. By the time we went through the first “Aktsia”, that city had already gone through a second “Aktsia”, and only by a miracle did my mother and sister and her family manage to escape to Sosnowiec.

The living conditions there were terrible and my mother decided to return to Wadowice with my sister. They came when the ghetto had already been established and four families moved into our apartment: Miriam Barber and her children, the sisters Lotka, Dorka and Rozka Brunner, Dr. Bronislaw Huppert with his wife and daughter, and Shimon Yosef Zelinger with his wife. It is possible to describe the overcrowding that was created in our apartment, but we did not complain. We had only one wish, that everything would be calm.

I always went to work with my mother. In the hall where I was the foreman, there were eighty sewing machines and an even larger number of workers. Today, when I work in a garment factory and only have only three seamstresses at my disposal, I wonder how I had the energy to run such a large factory back then. I had to make sure that the work was done properly. Defective products were considered sabotage. A young German, a war disabled, would watch over us. He was cruel to us and took revenge on us at every opportunity, perhaps because of the suffering that fate had caused him. Each of us tried to do our work meticulously, but there were moments of despair and exhaustion, and then I had to be careful not to demand too much. A work quota was set and the people would try to fulfill it.

Once, when I came to work with my mother, people jumped up from their seats, approached me and surrounded me. I didn't know what happened. They congratulated me with applause on my thirtieth birthday. I myself had already forgotten that date. Mrs. Mark and Mrs. Metzner gave me a silver watch as a gift on behalf of all the employees. I was so moved that it was difficult for me to say even a few words and finally I cried with excitement. I knew what people earn in those times. I knew that the payment they receive from the Germans is not even enough to buy saccharin...

There were also days off from work, and then Piaskova Street would be filled with people who would stroll the street for their own pleasure or arrange their affairs. They spent their free time in entertainment. This was especially the case with the members of the “Judenrat” and the Jewish militia. It was obvious that they wanted to enjoy as much as possible the time they still had left to live. They took advantage of several options that were open to them: under various excuses they would obtain permits to enter the city and smuggle a lot of money with an illegal trade. However, the Poles were the ones who engaged in this trade the most, who for this purpose sneaked into the ghetto and risked their lives. They did this not out of pity or out of human emotion, but simply to make a lot of money. Through the back windows of Zycki's store they smuggled gold and various valuables and in exchange brought groceries into the ghetto.

There were also cases of demoralization, something that could not have happened before the war in our quiet city.

Meanwhile, one hundred girls have been taken for forced labor. Almost every family was mourning and crying. But the girls did not despair. They sent letters of condolence home.

From the nearby towns came sad news of new contributions. The settlement of

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Chorzow was destroyed. There was chaos in Sosnowiec. Marin was under arrest. Fear creeped into the heart. They won't leave us alive when all the towns have been destroyed. Nevertheless, we still believed that the hour of liberation was approaching, since the Germans admitted their defeats on the Eastern Front.

Someone got Aryan papers and disappeared. Another escaped from a labor camp to the Wadowice ghetto as he thought that here it would be possible to save his life. There were rumors about the possibility of escaping from the government to Hungary. Yes, it was possible to escape, but one has a father, the other a mother, and it turned out that everyone was just talking and planning to escape, but in the end, they stayed in the ghetto...

The last “Aktsia” was carried out suddenly in the middle of the night. My mother told me and the neighbors to go up to the attic, where there was a place to hide. We jumped up and from the hiding place we could hear everything that was happening below. We heard the German's voices: “Damn Jews, get out!” After two hours the area was completely cleared of Jews, there was complete silence. The Germans, accompanied by dogs, reached our attic in their search, in case anyone had managed to hide. We held our breath. But either the dogs had lost their sense of smell or the Germans were afraid to go inside - they went back and left the place ...

This day was Tisha B'Av according to the date and the situation. There was no eating, no drinking, and no talking. Even the two tiny children were silent and did not speak. The next day I went out of the hiding place with two people in search of food in the ghetto apartments. It was quiet everywhere. The objects in the houses were scattered. The Nazis had stopped the water from flowing to the taps. There was only water in the containers. Everywhere we found food scattered, which the deported Jews did not have time to take. We quietly took with us everything we could carry in our hands and calculated how long it would last.

It was impossible to stay in hiding. We had to establish connections with the city and leave. I and the two men mentioned above did this, even though from time to time we could hear the footsteps of the Nazi guard patrols marching in the ghetto area. We promised those who remained that we would not abandon them to the mercy of fate and would do everything to ensure that they too would successfully leave the ghetto, and so I said goodbye to my dear mother and my loved ones.

We left at 4 a.m. We passed the ghetto and through the synagogue courtyard we entered Mickiewicz Street and from there through the main square to “Third of May” Street. With quick steps and on the excuse that we were rushing to the train station, we went to a Polish woman I knew who let us into the basement of her apartment. There we talked about the departure of the people from the bunker. The matter was not easy, because new leaflets had been posted in the city, according to which anyone who helped the Jews escape would be punished with death. Therefore, I decided to speak to the Polish woman's heart on the basis of love for the homeland. I told her that I was going to the partisans and that the people who accompanied me had come to pick me up, and I had only one request of her, which was that she take care of my mother and the rest of my family who were in hiding. These emotional words that came out of my mouth won her heart and she promised to help me, despite the risk involved. The Pole woman immediately called the farmer Vasyl, whom I knew thanks to the good deeds he did in the ghetto without any reward, and they consulted together on how to get the people out.

I said goodbye to them with warm kisses and the words “See you in liberated Poland”. I hoped

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that in doing so I opened a path of salvation for my mother and the rest of the people. Later I learned of their bitter fate. Only my sister and her children managed to save their lives.

I sneaked across the border to Hungary. There, too, I went through all the horrors of Nazi hell. Finally, I escaped to Romania.

I used the surname Barila for about twenty years after the war. At the time of the escape, it was my husband's Aryan name. I had this name as a souvenir from the dark years.

In January 1945, the city was liberated by the Soviet Army. The city of Katowice, the center of Upper Silesia, was liberated on January 27.

Civilian transportation was almost completely suspended. The surviving remnants of our city walked to Wadowice, in order to search for their families.

Everyone hoped that at least one of their family members had survived the war safely and returned home. Here remained the apartments, shops, businesses, and all of their parents' property. It was hard to give up all of that and completely erase the past from memory.

The returnees returned in a terrible state, wrapped in rags and wearing only sandals on their feet, even though it was winter, thin, weak and exhausted in body and soul both from life in the camps or underground and from the last walk of hundreds of kilometers on foot. Some of them were bloated from hunger and some were terribly thin. The people looked like skeletons. There were cases when the liberated prisoner achieved the goal he had aspired to and entered his hometown, but immediately collapsed from exhaustion.

This was the case with Avraham Binnenstock, who returned from the Dyhernfurth concentration camp. He felt that he was on the verge of death and went to the general hospital in Wadowice, where he passed away. Hunger and a shortage of medicine prevailed in the city. It is no wonder that it was impossible to save him in the hospital. The unfortunate man was liberated, but he did not even get to see his sister, Hanka, who arrived to the city from Auschwitz camp a few days after his death.

Exhausted, she went to the doctor, Dr. Shimon Shengot, who had meanwhile returned from a Nazi camp, and asked for help. To his credit, it should be emphasized that he gave her medications that were impossible to obtain anywhere, as well as a loaf of bread, which one had to literally fight and stand in line to get. The doctor told her that bread would be the most beneficial medicine for her.

The survivors who returned were greatly disappointed. They did not find their families. Their apartments were occupied by Christians. Some of the Jewish shops were turned into workshops and grocery stores. They were run by new people who came from eastern Poland.

The Poles looted all the movables that had not fallen into the hands of the Nazis. Some of the returnees recognized their furniture which were placed in another place... The Poles did not want to return the apartments they had occupied out of their own free will, and in order to regain the stolen property, legal steps had to be taken. But who among the survivors needed the previous apartments? The house of his family, which had been destroyed and ruined?

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Everyone quickly realized that they were not belong here and that they would not rebuild their existence on the ashes of their family's sacrifices. They all agreed to stay in the city for only a short time to improve their health and then travel to the distant world...

The city had a deserted and neglected appearance. Wadowice became a provincial city. It lacked Jewish energy and talent. The Jewish wholesale stores and the luxurious shop windows completely disappeared. In their place were established kiosks selling soda and fruit or tiny workshops.

The first returnees were sent by the mayor to live in the Hess Hotel. After a short time, Meir Yacobowitz, whose rescue is described in the first sections of the book, returned, and he handed over the large apartment of his father, Matityahu Yacobowitz, to the remnants. Marcus Brunner, Yehezkel Goldberg, and Kalman Rivner took care of keeping it clean and tidy. Adolf Abel, who also returned, took care of the food supply. The food rations were sent from the Jewish Regional Committee in Krakow.

Adolf Abel was the only Jew who started over with his former livelihood and opened a restaurant on Zatorska Street. In 1949, he liquidated the restaurant and emigrated to Morocco, but he returned to Wadowice a few years later, after the death of his wife, because of longing for his hometown. Here he died.

Dr. Shimon Shengot also left the city after a short stay and immigrated to Israel. Here he settled in Rishon LeZion.

A lone Jew named Schnetzer, a member of a Jewish family that lived on the border of Tomica, remained in Wadowice.

During the war, and later by the Polish government, some of the district offices were moved to other locations. As mentioned, wholesale trade was completely eliminated with the Holocaust, and retail trade served local consumption only.

The population dropped dramatically, according to the 1956 census, to 8,700 people^[a]. Thus, Wadowice once again became a quiet, deserted provincial town, as it had been before the Polish uprising of 1863, when Jews were not yet living in it.

Figures such as Hermann Reich, Dr. Isidor Daniel, Israel Huppert and those who came after them: Matityahu Yacobowitz, Dr. Ryszard, Malgozata Daniel and others, disappeared and passed away. The hand of the Nazis harmed them. Homes, businesses, furniture and magnificent libraries were looted by the damned Nazis and the mob from the city and the surrounding villages, as well as by the Poles who streamed from the Eastern frontier area.

History's nemesis is often cruel. The anti-Semitic circles that dreamed so much of eliminating Jewish commerce achieved the elimination of the Jews themselves, but at the same time the elimination of the entire large and extensive trade of the city, on which it had prided itself.

Due to the lack of Jews, the loss in the economic balance of the entire Polish state is very noticeable. Millions of Jews of Polish origin, who lived all over the world, had close ties with Polish Jews. Thanks to this fact, Polish Jews have always been pioneers in exporting goods from Poland to all parts of the world, in discovering new markets, in establishing and financing Polish industry with foreign capital. But this is not the place, within the framework of this book, to deal with this.

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There are now no Jews in Wadowice, no trace of Jewish life. Only one remnant remains on the city's border. That is, the Jewish cemetery with its towering tombstones, which in the silence of the cemetery will tell the legend of Wadowice Judaism, the one that had an active and vibrant life, albeit a short life that amounted to a few generations, but a fruitful and noble life.

May its memory be blessed.

Original footnote:

1. The small general encyclopedia “Phon”, Warsaw. Return

Notes:

Most of the chapters on the Holocaust were compiled from the following sources:

1. Documents received from the Institute for the History of Polish Jewry in Warsaw.
2. Questionnaires completed for the Central Committee of the Jewish Survivors in the American Region in West Germany.
3. Testimonies given by former ghetto prisoners to the Wadowice and Surrounding Area Immigrants Organization.
4. Information received from the “Yad Vashem” authority and other sources. This method was chosen instead of publishing all the documents in their original form, because in the testimonies of various witnesses, which were recorded at different times, the same events are described several times without maintaining chronological order. Some of them are only partial and refer only to certain periods, since the witnesses, for the most part, were not in the ghetto until the end.

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