Kestenberg Archive

SW was born in Warsaw, Poland in 1936. She is the younger of two sisters. Her entire family survived the war. Her father served in the Polish Army during the war, was taken as a prisoner of war and was later released. In 1940-41 the family was forced to move into the Warsaw ghetto. Her earliest memory is of her father standing over her crib with a musket. She also remembers the ghetto streets littered with corpses, people singing songs and begging for food and of being frightened of the Germans. She went to kindergarten where she learnt Hebrew songs and she remembers playing with toys in the ghetto. During one of the selections SW, her mother and other other children were standing in the death line. Her mother managed to persuade the head of the factory where she worked, to transfer her to the other line. After release from the death line, her sister was hit by a German with a rifle. ; When conditions worsened, her parents sent her with an aunt and two small cousins to hide with a Polish family. Later she lived with a different family for the rest of the War and she was re-united with her sister in 1943-5. Before that, her sister worked on another farm but she was starving. Her rescuers were a childless, middle-aged Polish couple. They were devout Catholics and had her baptized. They arranged false papers for her and she started school. The neighbors attempted to blackmail the couple, but they were not intimidated. They also arranged a hiding place for her parents and acted as liaison between parents and children. At school SW denied her Jewishness, went to Holy Communion and became antisemitic. She became the nun's favorite pupil because she knew her catechism best. Her rescuers were very proud of her. She spent her summers on the farm, where she ate fresh fruits and vegetables and felt loved. She did not want to leave the couple after the War and even now helps them financially. The couple adopted a distant relative after she left and she was jealous. ; After the war, she missed her Catholic observance. Her mother told her father to take her to church but she refused to go with a dirty Jew. After leaving Poland, she lived in a DP camp in Germany. Since she was attracted to religious ritual, she tried to observe Jewish rituals. She cried when alone, and would go sit in a church. In about 1974, she took the Eucharist. At the time of the interview she was living in the USA, she never married and has no children. She won't forgive the Germans and does not buy German products. She does not receive restitution. She has been in psychotherapy to relive her childhood. After her mother died in 1982, she wanted to return to Poland. She subconsciously felt that she needed to return to her other mother. She applied to Yad Vashem to have her rescuers recognized as righteous gentiles but has not heard from them.