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It was 1942, August, the liquidation of the ghetto and the full extermination of Jews were under way, people were being shot. [Staszek] offered to take me out of the ghetto. He forced his mother [to help him] by telling her that if she didn’t help hide me, he’d go to the ghetto himself to be with me, he was her only child so she agreed to everything. He secured some documents from a friend of his.
Whether he told her it was for a Jewish girl, I don’t know. He may have told her it was for a Polish girl in hiding, because Poles faced repressions too, they were being sent for forced labor to Germany, for instance. He gave me a genuine birth certificate for one Matylda Bednarska, a smallpox vaccination certificate, a school ID, and a form for reporting one’s relocation out of Lwow.
My father saw me off to the ghetto perimeter, the wall. We dropped in on Aunt Mia to say goodbye. Aunt talked to me like [I was her husband]. His photograph lay next to her, she lay on the bed and talked nonsense, gone mad. She never had any children. My future husband, Staszek, told me later Aunt was shot in the ghetto for assaulting the Germans. She’d mouth off when on the street, and must have obviously molested some German.
I didn’t know then I’d never see my father again. He gave me very little money [on saying goodbye] because the [stepmother] had taken everything from him and he didn’t work. When giving me the few zlotys, he apologized to me for all he did, for remarrying so soon and that I had such a miserable life. I lost touch with him but I was in touch with Staszek who found out how they were doing and related the news to me. Some time later he told me my stepmother had jumped out of the window and killed herself in the ghetto.
I suppose her daughter must have been killed because she would have never left her daughter alone by killing herself. My father died in the Janowski camp in 1942 or 1943. My mother’s brother, the one from Sambor, with his wife and small boy, was also killed in the ghetto. Samek, and his family too.
Whether he told her it was for a Jewish girl, I don’t know. He may have told her it was for a Polish girl in hiding, because Poles faced repressions too, they were being sent for forced labor to Germany, for instance. He gave me a genuine birth certificate for one Matylda Bednarska, a smallpox vaccination certificate, a school ID, and a form for reporting one’s relocation out of Lwow.
My father saw me off to the ghetto perimeter, the wall. We dropped in on Aunt Mia to say goodbye. Aunt talked to me like [I was her husband]. His photograph lay next to her, she lay on the bed and talked nonsense, gone mad. She never had any children. My future husband, Staszek, told me later Aunt was shot in the ghetto for assaulting the Germans. She’d mouth off when on the street, and must have obviously molested some German.
I didn’t know then I’d never see my father again. He gave me very little money [on saying goodbye] because the [stepmother] had taken everything from him and he didn’t work. When giving me the few zlotys, he apologized to me for all he did, for remarrying so soon and that I had such a miserable life. I lost touch with him but I was in touch with Staszek who found out how they were doing and related the news to me. Some time later he told me my stepmother had jumped out of the window and killed herself in the ghetto.
I suppose her daughter must have been killed because she would have never left her daughter alone by killing herself. My father died in the Janowski camp in 1942 or 1943. My mother’s brother, the one from Sambor, with his wife and small boy, was also killed in the ghetto. Samek, and his family too.
Period
Interview
Matylda Wyszynska