Kestenberg Archive

LW was very ill at the time of the interview and cried alot. She had suffered a stroke four years previously which had left her paralysed on the left side of her body. LW thought that the stroke was responsible for her poor memory of the war years. She was born in May 1927 to a poor family in Warsaw. She was the youngest of five children. Her father died when she was nine years old. When the war began, she was in the fifth grade and never learned more. The children of the family used to sell matches and when once they saw a German car full of food they stole some geese and other goods. They were caught and sent to Pawiak prison in Warsaw and after some weeks were sent to the children's camp in Lodz, where all the children were badly beaten by a woman manager. The girls and the boys were separated. She was sent to a village outside Lodz where they planted vegetables and she also had to clean the camp.The situation there was better than in Lodz. She used also to clean the houses of the German guards. She was moved to another village and with two other girls, Lucyna and Jadwiga they decided to escape. She came to Warsaw when the Warsaw Polish rebellion began and was sent with her mother to Cracow. Her brother and sister were sent to forced labor in Germany. LW and her mother moved to Zyrardow. After the war she used to suffer from nightmares. She worked in an institution as a simple worker.