„Maybe she holds a grudge against us – she says – that we gave her to her great uncle after the war. Because she didn’t want to. She begged for mercy, all so we wouldn’t give her up. But we were poor. In the country there is no room for luxury.”
“Our aunt brought her, my mother’s sister. Rózia was tiny, 4 years old, she wore a short-sleeved dress and sandals. Our aunt walked 24 km with her from Lublin. And she lied to us. She told my mother: ‘Kitty, I’m leaving her here with you for a week or two, a neighbor lost her husband during a bombing. She’ll bury him, then she’ll come for her.’
That’s why we – she explains – didn’t hide her. She was our own. She called my mother „auntie” and held my hand everywhere we went, like sisters.”
“After a month our aunt told us the truth, that Rose’s parents, wealthy Jews for whom she and her husband had worked for before the war, had been killed by the Germans.”
“My parents lived in the village of Kajetanówka, they had some fields, the Germans were stationed nearby and frequently conducted air raids. Mommy would yell: ‘Get up!’, give us some milk in a bottle, an egg, some pancakes, and we would go hide in the wheat fields. And we waited until mother called us back. Once, I laid a blanket out in the wheat field – she recalls – and Rózia was so smart, smarter than me, she said ‘Come, Wladzia, let’s move onto the dirt because if the farmer notices, he’ll hit us.
She was so nice, so smart. When May came, ‘Wladzie, are we going?’ – she asked, running to the figure of the Mother of God to pray. And she survived.”
After the war they found Rózia’s great uncle. He was also wealthy, he had a mill in Parczew. They didn’t want to give her up, they cried. But he wanted her. He promised that she would be educated. That was it. Mother thought: she’s so talented, and I won’t be able to educate her. They took her to her great uncle’s, and returned as if coming back from a funeral.
“But he didn’t educate her. Rose became a seamstress in a kibbutz”.
