In the late spring 1943 the family named Laska in the Bełchów village (poviat Łowicz, voivodship Łódź) took in a ten-year-old girl, who introduced herself as Irena Lewandowska, an orphan from Przemyśl.
Miriam – Irena
Miriam Chasson, nee Finkielsztajn, the only daughter of Roza and Gustaw Finkielsztajn who owned a shop with women’s accessories in Dąb nad Nerem, came to Bełchów after escaping from the Warsaw ghetto.
In November 1939 the Finkielsztajns, having been warned by a Volksdeutscher neighbour about the oncoming transportation, decided to escape to their family in Łowicz. In the fall of 1941 the Jewish population of the town was resettled by Germans to the Warsaw ghetto.
In 1942 Gustaw was caught in a street round-up and taken to Umschlagplatz; he was killed in Treblinka. Roza managed to arrange for a fake baptismal certificate for her daughter with the help of Carmelite nuns from the convent bordering on the ghetto at Bonifraterska street. In spite of the famine they managed to survive until the April ghetto uprising. The sought shelter in one of the bunkers with 30 other people. On May 4, 1943, the Germans brought them all outside.
Ten-year-old Miriam showed her baptismal certificate to one of the German policemen and told him that her name was Irena Lewandowska, and that she was a Christian girl who found herself in the ghetto by accident.
She was taken to a Gestapo station while all the others – including her mother – went to Umschlagplatz. In the general confusion the girl managed to leave the station and cross to the “Aryan side”.
Nieborów
She does not remember any more how she got Mr. Bobotek’s address in Nieborów. Her aunt, who had escaped from the ghetto during the uprising and was hiding at the “Aryan side”, could not take her in, but gave her some money. Miriam bought a small cross and a train ticket. When she reached Mr. Bobotek’s house and asked for help he placed her as a nanny with a family with four children.
Miriam did not complain, but she was not comfortable there. “(...) I took care of their children, but one beautiful day I went for a walk in that village. There was a farm of Stanisław Laska. Here was Nieborów, then a highway, the grass-covered fields. (...)
Bełchów was two, maybe three kilometres further. And they were somewhere in the middle, just that house. They had orchards. I thought: ‘what’s there to lose? I’ll try.’ I went in and asked if maybe they need some help with the cows or pigs. Because they had a big farm.” – relates Miriam Chasson in her interview for MHPJ.
The Laskas
Józef and Marianna Laska, and their four children, worked their own farm in Bełchów near Nieborów. They had four children.
“(...) there was Stanisław, he was still a young man, 26 years old.” – remembers Miriam Chasson. – “Then there was his mother, Marianna, and his grandmother. There was his sister Helka and another one, Julka, born after Helka. The oldest one was Stacha, married to a railman, but she didn’t live with them, she had a small house, close to them, but not together. There was no father, beacause he had also been a railman and died in a railway accident.”
Stanisław Laska finished his education before the war: “I attended elementary school in Bełchów, but there were only five levels and [...] I went to school in Łowicz. I finished 6th and 7th grade.” – he recalls in his interview for the Museum of the History of Polish Jews. After leaving school he worked as a farmer.
“There are no such people in this world...”
“First they asked me if I was hungry. I said yes and at once they gave me something to eat, potatoes and sour milk, and they told me: ‘You can stay, if you like’. (...) So I went back to that Mr. Bobotek and told him: ‘You know, I was really unhappy with tose people [family with 4 children]. I was just walking around and I dropped in to Mr. Laska, and they need someone to help with the cows and housework. Could I move in with them? And he said ‘yes’, and I went to them.”
They accepted her as Irena Lewandowska, orphan from the Zamojskie district.
“At that time they took those children in the Zamojskie district, and she came from there. She had the certificate.” recalls Stanisław Laska. His memory of her arrival differs from Miriam’s story: “She was brought by a lady who lived in Łowicz, they had a house there, she came here and brought that little Jewish girl.” – he says.
Miriam gets emotional when she remembers her stay with the Laskas: “they took me in, put me in a tub, because I had lice from that bunker and everything... and then I went to bed, the same as Helka. They didn’t treat me as if I dropped down from Mars or another planet. They were the people... (...) there are no such people in the whole world... (...) I found a home. (...) I worked because everyone worked there. I slept together with Helka.”
On the farm there was a bigger house with two rooms and a kitchen, and a smaller one consisting of one room and a cubbyhole.
“After a while I started going to school in the village. I attended religious instruction lessons. I was a good student and the priest even praised me from the pulpit. And they [the Laskas] were very proud of me.” Irena took her First Communion: “She was keen to do it because she had a friend and they took Communion together.” – says Stanisław.
The girl told about her origin only to the priest during confession. The Laskas were guessing she was Jewish but it did not matter to them.
“I had quite forgotten I was Jewish” – remembers Miriam – “(...) when we were sitting together in winter weaving linen, there was talk about Jews. (...) they talked about my grandpa. They had known him, bought ploughs from him and other staff... those relatives of mine, Finkielsztajn-Adler, were very well known in Łowicz... of course, I didn’t say anything (...)
They never asked me about that certificate. I told them that Germans had killed my parents... They never asked.”
Miriam-Irena stayed with the Laskas for two years.
After the war
“When the Russians came, they [the Laskas] asked me: listen, maybe you are a Jew after all?
Staszek asked me, and his wife, she was a wonderful woman, whole family were wonderful people. And they asked me if I was Jewish.
I said: ‘No. Of course I am not! ‘Cause I was afraid, what if the Germans came back. (...) I didn’t want to go back [to jewishness]. It was them that pushed me to go back, told me there was a Jewish Committee in Łódź. (...) When they asked me again, I said: I am a Jew, I am Finkielsztajn’s granddaughter. We all went to Łowicz. The house was still standing.”
During another trip to Łowicz Miriam accidentally came across Mina, her mother’s sister. She decided to reunite with her family.
“...went to [...] Łódź. She told us she was going to Łódź, then came back and said she had found an aunt of hers, and then she left again, and after that... she just disappeared. After some time, a year or maybe more, I don’t know, she sent a letter. And then we lost touch again” – recalls Stanisław.
Through Łódź, Germany and Switzerland Miriam reached Israel where she settled for good. She finished adequate courses and a school for nurses and began working in a hospital where she met her future husband. She has a daughter and a son.
Stanisław Laska got married in 1946. He has two daughters and a son.
In the 1970s Miriam managed to contact the Laskas through mail. Unfortunately, due to the breach of diplomatic relations between Poland and Israel, the letters went only one way – to Poland, as maintains Mr. Laska.
In 2008 Miriam phoned Stanisław. In the same year she and her family visited him in Bełchów. She started procedures aimed at awarding the family with the title of the Righteous Among the Nations.
After the war Miriam returned to the faith of her forefathers.
