Kestenberg Archive

IK was born in Warsaw on January 27, 1932. She was an only child in a rich Polish family. She was educated in a school of nuns. At the beginning of the War the father was mobilized to the Polish Army and then sent to a POW camp in Gross Born which he survived. The mother was a part owner of Lawina candy factory. IK remembered that they lived not far away from the ghetto and her grandmother used to give a young Jewish boy food for him and his family. During the time of the Polish Rebellion they hid in their apartment some fighters and much food for them. After the failure of the rebellion, she with her mother were sent to Auschwitz. She described the terrible sanitary conditions, cases of rape, separation between the mothers and the children and diseases. At the end of the war they were sent to Berlin to clean the ruins caused by the bombarding of the Allies. ; After the War IK and her mother returned to Warsaw to discover that their home didn't exist anymore. Her father came back and all of them began slowly to rebuild their lives. IK was ill and suffered from rheumatism and other post camp diseases. She tried to study, had many difficulties but finished an Economic Technical school. She also suffered from nightmares. She had married in 1952 and had a son in 1954. IK participates in meetings of veterans of the Second World War and of ZBOWID.