„The House of Three Generations” at the Museum in Tychy

Maria Zawadzka, 16 November 2016
On January 22nd, 2011 at the Town Museum in Tychy was held a meeting with the historian Grzegorz Sztoler. He is the author of numerous publications devoted to Silesia.

In his last book, entitled “The House of Three Generations”, Sztoler presents the story of the Godziek family, who had been living in the same house in Brzeźce near Pszczyna for over a hundred years.

The background of this story is the difficult history of Silesia and Europe in the last two centuries. We read about events taking place during both World Wars. One of the subjects described in Sztoler’s book is the rescuing of Jews.

In 1945 the house – central element of the book – became a shelter for three women, all of them Jewish inmates of Auschwitz. Zofia and Augustyn Godziek were honored with the title “Righteous Among the Nations” for rescuing Jews during the Second World War.

In January 1945 Olga Lengyel together with two other women of Jewish origin coming from Hungary – Magda and Lojzika – managed to escape during the so-called “death march” of the inmates of the Auschwitz camp. They arrived at the house of Zofia and Augustyn Godziek, who hid them in their barn.

They were spending the nights in one of the rooms of the house, where they slept on palliasses together with the whole family. They stayed with the Godzieks until the area was taken over by the Soviet army.

Olga Lengyel is the author of the famous book “Five chimneys”, published in the US in 1947. It was one of the first books describing the mechanics of Nazi camps and the experiments of Josef Mengele. The author started to write it when she was hiding at the house of Zofia and Augustyn Godziek.

During the meeting at the Town Museum in Tychy was held a screening of the film “Olga from the Death March” (the DVD with the film is sold together with the book). It is an account devoted to rescuing Jews, given by Jadwiga Lazar – daughter of Augustyn Godziek.