I was born in Warsaw, Poland, on 19 July 1938. In September 1939, most of Poland was invaded by the Germans so my mother decided to move us to the Russian occupied, eastern part, of Poland to a town called Kowel. It was much safer there and where my mother’s family lived.
In 1942, my mother and I returned to Warsaw as Kowel had now also become occupied by Germans, and as it was no longer safe, we wanted to return home. We travelled by train, which was not allowed for Jews at the time. I remember my mother wearing an enormous green hat to try to conceal her face – my mother looked Jewish. I do not remember much from the ghetto. All I remember is we were all living in a very small room and the food was boring – only semolina (which I hate to this day). We lived with my grandmother, my father’s mother. My father had to live somewhere else as the conditions were too cramped and there was no room for him.
Around early 1942 my father was transported to the first of eight concentration camps. Sometime later my mother and I were smuggled out of the ghetto but unfortunately, my grandmother was never able to make it out of the ghetto, so she had to remain in there whilst we escaped and later was murdered in a concentration camp.
My mother succeeded in finding a hiding place in the basement of a tenement building outside the Ghetto. I was taken into the same building, where I lived for several months in an upstairs apartment with a Polish Family. The family had a daughter of my age, but I was not allowed to play with her as we could have made too much noise and the neighbours could have then found out that another child was living in the flat, obviously Jewish, for which the family was being paid. If the SS discovered the child, both the child and the host family would have been killed. Therefore, I had to stand behind the wardrobe all day every day (except mealtimes), my only recreation was to lick my finger and draw patters on the polished surface of the side of the wardrobe. After a few months the polish had completely come off the surface of the wardrobe and when my host family discovered this, I got a severe beating. I do not know the name or address of the family who looked after me. I do know, however, that they received some payment from my mother.
In November 1943, after a few months (or perhaps a year) of living behind the wardrobe I was told to go outside to the courtyard with everybody else, pretending to be a relative of my host family. The Gestapo were checking every flat to make sure that nobody was left behind. There was a lot of noise and commotion. Everybody from this large building was coming down into the courtyard. We all stood in groups and then I heard screaming and shooting but did not see who was shot as the grown-ups were blocking my view. I heard people saying later that someone had told the Germans that a group of Jews (incl. my mother) was hiding in the basement of the building, so Germans got them out and shot them in front of everybody. That was their usual practice. I was then left alone in the mercy of my host family.
The family looking after me decided that it was now too dangerous to have me in their flat. They felt that they no longer want to take the risk of hiding me, especially, that the money from my mother was not arriving anymore, as she was dead, so they decided to get rid of me. Consequently, one evening early in December 1943, I was taken by tram to a field in Bemowo on the outskirts of Warsaw by the man looking after me, where he removed my coat and left me there. For two nights I remained there, waiting for someone to collect me. I was very weak, very cold, and very hungry but I did not dare move, thinking that the man who took me there must have lost me, and he would surely return. On the second morning, some boys came to play in the field and they found me. They put all their coats on me. I remember I couldn’t stop shaking from the cold. The children thought that I was a Gipsy.
They took me to a Polish police station, where I remained for a few days. I was gradually brought back to life by being cared for and fed by every policeman at the station. The police were unable to establish my identity since I had been warned never to give my surname to anyone. I was also examined by the Gestapo, but I was able to recite Catholic prayers (which I had been carefully taught previously) and did not divulge my surname or parents’ name. I told them my name was Maria. Having no way of proving that I was Jewish, the Germans handed me back to the police, as I was now a Polish problem. The police station was situated in ul.Wolska.
I was then taken to the home of one of the policemen, where I stayed for a few days. Unknown to me, another policeman, Antoni Nowacki, who had been very kind to me at the police station, was making arrangements with his wife to take me into their home, where with kindness, care and attention I was nursed back to full health and strength. My presence in their home was explained by their saying I was an orphaned member of their family from the country, who had nowhere else to go. Poland was full of orphaned children at that time, and the story raised no particular suspicions.
The Nowackis had no children of their own, and they treated me as their own daughter. After a few weeks, when my strength and confidence had begun to return, I told them about my background. I told them everything I knew, including the names of my parents and the fact (which they had already guessed) that I was Jewish. In spite of that, she and her husband kept me with them throughout the war, although their lives were at risk, particularly so as Mr Nowacki continued his work with the Polish police until the Warsaw uprising in 1944. We then all went to Starkuwiec Piatkowski, a village near Poznan, where we remained until 1946.
My father survived the war, and upon his liberation from a camp in Germany, he returned to Warsaw, and began a painstaking search, to try and find me. He had no evidence to suggest that I was alive, but a burning determination to discover the truth. He retraced as far as possible those locations where he knew I had been hidden, and he learned eventually that I had been abandoned in a field. He went to the nearest police station in that area, whereby good fortune, someone remembered the fact that a small girl had been found in 1943. He was given Mr Nowacki’s name and address in Warsaw, where a neighbour and friend of the Nowackis, gave him their address in the country.
In April 1946, he found me, and this moment was a very emotional one for all of us. Once the Nowackis realised that he was indeed my father, they had no option but to let me go. Nevertheless, I kept in close contact with them, and visited them on a regular basis.
My father had remarried since the war, and he and my stepmother and I moved to Gdynia where we lived until 1949. We returned to Warsaw in 1949, I went to a very nice school and made lots of friends. I visited the Nowackis every Sunday and during school holidays. This continued until 1958 when, with my family, we emigrated, via Italy, to New York.
In 1961, I married Leslie Goldstone from London, and I moved to England. In 1963 my husband and I went to visit the Nowackis in Poland. I kept in close contact with my adoptive parents until they both passed away.