Kestenberg Archive

HS was born in 1923 in Lodz, Poland. Her father was a Polish peasant. The beginning of the war made her very depressed; everything that was meaningful to her before the war, like music studies, suddenly seemed to lose its importance. In December 1939 HS became part of the Union of Armed Struggle (Związek Walki Zbrojnej), an underground army which afterwards was renamed Home Army (Armia Krajowa, AK). She studied German very quickly and soon began to carry out different secret missions on behalf of the AK. For example, on one occasion she helped a German Jew cross the border. Thanks to her help this person survived the war. In 1940-1941 she worked in the city of Kalish in Oddzial II, the intelligence unit of AK. There she learned of the difficult situation of Polish children and young people many of whom were sent to Germany to work as forced laborers. For her peers work in the underground was a natural thing which was a merit of patriotic school education. One of HS's missions was the distribution of illegal newspapers printed in Warsaw whose role was to tell the German people the truth about the war. In 1944 HS was arrested and put in the Gestapo prison in Lodz where she was beaten and tortured. She still has scars from beatings. She was sentenced to death but saved by a miracle and escaped. It was already towards the end of the war. After liberation she studied medicine. As a physician, she supervised the examinations of thousands of ex-prisoners. This provided a unique opportunity for survivors to narrate their experiences and get some help. HS's mother, who was arrested together with her, is a concentration camp survivor.