1
00:00:01,000 --> 00:00:06,000
 Tape number two, an interview with Ms. Noemi Makower.

2
00:00:06,000 --> 00:00:09,000
 My name is Joanna Wróblewska.

3
00:00:09,000 --> 00:00:13,000
 I would like to go back to the period of studies.

4
00:00:13,000 --> 00:00:23,000
 Could you tell us how many Jews there were in medicine compared to other students?

5
00:00:23,000 --> 00:00:27,000
 There were about twenty-odd people.

6
00:00:27,000 --> 00:00:30,000
 I was…

7
00:00:30,000 --> 00:00:33,000
 Excuse me, how many people were there in a year?

8
00:00:33,000 --> 00:00:40,000
 In total, there were over a hundred soldiers.

9
00:00:40,000 --> 00:00:45,000
 And there were about three hundred people together.

10
00:00:45,000 --> 00:00:48,000
 Two hundred and fifty-three hundred, more or less.

11
00:00:48,000 --> 00:00:53,000
 There was a number of classes, that's why there weren't many of us.

12
00:00:53,000 --> 00:01:03,000
 However, I had a very good high school diploma,

13
00:01:03,000 --> 00:01:08,000
 and a very good competitive exam,

14
00:01:08,000 --> 00:01:11,000
 which I had with me.

15
00:01:11,000 --> 00:01:17,000
 I wasn't accepted right away, at the age of seventeen.

16
00:01:17,000 --> 00:01:22,000
 My father was a military colleague of the then dean.

17
00:01:22,000 --> 00:01:28,000
 If I remember correctly, it was Professor Paszkiewicz.

18
00:01:28,000 --> 00:01:33,000
 My father went to him and asked him why he wasn't accepted.

19
00:01:33,000 --> 00:01:36,000
 To which the professor said,

20
00:01:36,000 --> 00:01:41,000
 "Your daughter is still young, let her play for another year."

21
00:01:41,000 --> 00:01:45,000
 I was studying novelistics that year,

22
00:01:45,000 --> 00:01:48,000
 and I had an adventure there.

23
00:01:48,000 --> 00:01:54,000
 Namely, there was a lecture on ancient French grammar.

24
00:01:54,000 --> 00:01:56,000
 It was terribly boring.

25
00:01:56,000 --> 00:02:03,000
 There were a few dozen of us, maybe twenty-odd people.

26
00:02:03,000 --> 00:02:07,000
 And a teacher, a lecturer, let's say,

27
00:02:07,000 --> 00:02:12,000
 because it's hard to say, a teacher from a higher university,

28
00:02:12,000 --> 00:02:19,000
 asked who would like to give a lecture on ancient French grammar,

29
00:02:19,000 --> 00:02:22,000
 which she was going to give.

30
00:02:22,000 --> 00:02:24,000
 No one answered.

31
00:02:24,000 --> 00:02:28,000
 I want to say that I was, as always, in a red dress,

32
00:02:28,000 --> 00:02:33,000
 because that's how my mother always dressed me, in red.

33
00:02:33,000 --> 00:02:37,000
 She looked around the room and said,

34
00:02:37,000 --> 00:02:42,000
 "Well, then you will take care of me."

35
00:02:42,000 --> 00:02:47,000
 Of course, I didn't come to the next classes.

36
00:02:47,000 --> 00:02:50,000
 I enrolled in biology.

37
00:02:50,000 --> 00:02:53,000
 I was accepted, I did my first year,

38
00:02:53,000 --> 00:03:00,000
 and then I passed some medical exams.

39
00:03:00,000 --> 00:03:06,000
 I would like to ask what was the attitude of Polish students

40
00:03:06,000 --> 00:03:09,000
 during the anti-Semitic upheavals?

41
00:03:09,000 --> 00:03:16,000
 Did you have any Polish friends who tried to protect you among the students?

42
00:03:16,000 --> 00:03:25,000
 I would like to point out that the soldiers behaved very positively,

43
00:03:25,000 --> 00:03:30,000
 while Polish students, I would say,

44
00:03:30,000 --> 00:03:34,000
 outside, I don't know what was in their hearts,

45
00:03:34,000 --> 00:03:39,000
 but outside they behaved indifferently.

46
00:03:39,000 --> 00:03:44,000
 And I think that some of them were simply cowards.

47
00:03:44,000 --> 00:03:50,000
 The best proof is that those who wore Polish uniforms,

48
00:03:50,000 --> 00:03:54,000
 they behaved very positively.

49
00:03:54,000 --> 00:03:59,000
 How did your family, small family, mother, father and mother,

50
00:03:59,000 --> 00:04:02,000
 how did you normally spend your holidays?

51
00:04:02,000 --> 00:04:07,000
 We generally spent our holidays on the Otwock line,

52
00:04:07,000 --> 00:04:11,000
 Warsaw-Otwock, in Michalin, and later in Otwock,

53
00:04:11,000 --> 00:04:16,000
 at my grandfather's, who had his villa there.

54
00:04:16,000 --> 00:04:22,000
 The holidays were very pleasant.

55
00:04:22,000 --> 00:04:26,000
 We drove in a wooden cart,

56
00:04:26,000 --> 00:04:32,000
 we had all our necessities,

57
00:04:32,000 --> 00:04:34,000
 because my mother ran a household,

58
00:04:34,000 --> 00:04:38,000
 and the holidays lasted for over two months.

59
00:04:38,000 --> 00:04:43,000
 And I enjoyed my free time there, we played a lot,

60
00:04:43,000 --> 00:04:46,000
 children, it was fun.

61
00:04:46,000 --> 00:04:49,000
 There was also my first love.

62
00:04:49,000 --> 00:04:53,000
 That's how it started in Otwock.

63
00:04:53,000 --> 00:04:56,000
 Did you have a large family, did you have many cousins?

64
00:04:56,000 --> 00:04:58,000
 A very large family.

65
00:04:58,000 --> 00:05:02,000
 My mother had 11 siblings.

66
00:05:02,000 --> 00:05:07,000
 Six brothers and five sisters.

67
00:05:07,000 --> 00:05:11,000
 All of them died in the ghetto.

68
00:05:11,000 --> 00:05:13,000
 Later.

69
00:05:13,000 --> 00:05:18,000
 So during the holidays you met your cousins, aunts, uncles?

70
00:05:18,000 --> 00:05:23,000
 No, at my grandfather's, when the holidays were in Otwock,

71
00:05:23,000 --> 00:05:27,000
 I met my family in Otwock, partially.

72
00:05:27,000 --> 00:05:33,000
 And yes, we had friends, various children.

73
00:05:33,000 --> 00:05:37,000
 Was there kosher cuisine in your grandfather's house,

74
00:05:37,000 --> 00:05:40,000
 or did they speak Jewish at all?

75
00:05:40,000 --> 00:05:42,000
 I can say that I don't remember.

76
00:05:42,000 --> 00:05:46,000
 I only remember one thing for sure, that there were seders.

77
00:05:46,000 --> 00:05:49,000
 I had to ask questions,

78
00:05:49,000 --> 00:05:53,000
 because I was very much liked by my grandfather.

79
00:05:53,000 --> 00:05:55,000
 I still remember today.

80
00:05:55,000 --> 00:06:11,000
 I still remember what this seder looked like.

81
00:06:11,000 --> 00:06:14,000
 My grandfather was very handsome, tall,

82
00:06:14,000 --> 00:06:18,000
 he had a beautiful silver beard.

83
00:06:18,000 --> 00:06:20,000
 He died in Otwock.

84
00:06:20,000 --> 00:06:24,000
 Not in Otwock, I'm sorry, he fled from the ghetto in Otwock.

85
00:06:24,000 --> 00:06:28,000
 He died in Warsaw at the age of 84.

86
00:06:28,000 --> 00:06:35,000
 After your studies, before the war, you said that you got married.

87
00:06:35,000 --> 00:06:37,000
 Who was your first husband?

88
00:06:40,000 --> 00:06:45,000
 My first husband was a friend, a doctor,

89
00:06:45,000 --> 00:06:50,000
 who graduated from the medical school in Zurich at that time.

90
00:06:50,000 --> 00:06:55,000
 His name was Mieczysław Fromm.

91
00:06:55,000 --> 00:06:58,000
 Of course, he was Jewish.

92
00:06:58,000 --> 00:07:03,000
 He was a very nice, nice, intelligent boy.

93
00:07:03,000 --> 00:07:07,000
 We met at the hospital in Czysty,

94
00:07:07,000 --> 00:07:12,000
 and during the first period I was doing various tests,

95
00:07:12,000 --> 00:07:14,000
 including eye tests.

96
00:07:14,000 --> 00:07:17,000
 And I got a sample from my hand.

97
00:07:17,000 --> 00:07:21,000
 Mietek said, "Oh, a fight-lap".

98
00:07:21,000 --> 00:07:24,000
 And that's how our friendship began.

99
00:07:24,000 --> 00:07:27,000
 Then he came back to Zurich.

100
00:07:27,000 --> 00:07:30,000
 He finished his studies there.

101
00:07:30,000 --> 00:07:34,000
 He always sent me flowers for my birthday.

102
00:07:36,000 --> 00:07:41,000
 He was the son of a family,

103
00:07:41,000 --> 00:07:45,000
 a religious family,

104
00:07:45,000 --> 00:07:49,000
 but not too religious.

105
00:07:49,000 --> 00:07:53,000
 And these people, during the ghetto,

106
00:07:53,000 --> 00:07:57,000
 were my closest friends.

107
00:07:57,000 --> 00:08:00,000
 I want to go back to the period before the war.

108
00:08:00,000 --> 00:08:04,000
 Which year did you get married?

109
00:08:04,000 --> 00:08:07,000
 In which year?

110
00:08:07,000 --> 00:08:12,000
 Two years before the war, in 1935, in the synagogue.

111
00:08:12,000 --> 00:08:14,000
 In 1937, I'm sorry.

112
00:08:14,000 --> 00:08:16,000
 In 1937, of course.

113
00:08:16,000 --> 00:08:18,000
 Was it a religious wedding?

114
00:08:18,000 --> 00:08:21,000
 It was a religious wedding, yes.

115
00:08:21,000 --> 00:08:26,000
 And my friends, who knew that I was a religious person,

116
00:08:26,000 --> 00:08:32,000
 laughed at me a lot during the wedding.

117
00:08:32,000 --> 00:08:34,000
 Was your husband religious?

118
00:08:34,000 --> 00:08:36,000
 Or did he come from a religious family?

119
00:08:36,000 --> 00:08:38,000
 He wasn't religious at all.

120
00:08:38,000 --> 00:08:41,000
 He wasn't religious at all.

121
00:08:41,000 --> 00:08:44,000
 Where did you live after the wedding?

122
00:08:44,000 --> 00:08:47,000
 We lived in a room,

123
00:08:47,000 --> 00:08:50,000
 assigned to us by our parents.

124
00:08:50,000 --> 00:08:53,000
 We were very comfortable.

125
00:08:53,000 --> 00:08:55,000
 My husband was already a doctor,

126
00:08:55,000 --> 00:08:57,000
 and I finished medical school.

127
00:08:57,000 --> 00:08:59,000
 Was it your parents or your husband's parents?

128
00:08:59,000 --> 00:09:02,000
 Both of my parents.

129
00:09:02,000 --> 00:09:08,000
 I lived there until we were exiled to the ghetto.

130
00:09:08,000 --> 00:09:14,000
 How do you remember the day when the war broke out,

131
00:09:14,000 --> 00:09:18,000
 when you found out?

132
00:09:18,000 --> 00:09:22,000
 I remember that day tragically.

133
00:09:22,000 --> 00:09:25,000
 Bombs were exploding in front of my eyes.

134
00:09:25,000 --> 00:09:30,000
 The bomb hit a house in the neighborhood.

135
00:09:30,000 --> 00:09:33,000
 We were standing by the window.

136
00:09:33,000 --> 00:09:38,000
 And that was the beginning, I remember.

137
00:09:38,000 --> 00:09:42,000
 I don't remember anything else.

138
00:09:42,000 --> 00:09:44,000
 Only later.

139
00:09:44,000 --> 00:09:48,000
 Did your family plan any escape, moving?

140
00:09:48,000 --> 00:09:50,000
 No, no.

141
00:09:50,000 --> 00:09:52,000
 My father had a sixth day of mobilization.

142
00:09:52,000 --> 00:09:55,000
 He was getting ready for it.

143
00:09:55,000 --> 00:10:01,000
 He was in a hurry to go to war with the Germans.

144
00:10:01,000 --> 00:10:07,000
 But he fell into Soviet hands, as it turned out later.

145
00:10:07,000 --> 00:10:12,000
 When did you move?

146
00:10:12,000 --> 00:10:15,000
 What happened after the war?

147
00:10:15,000 --> 00:10:18,000
 To the ghetto.

148
00:10:18,000 --> 00:10:24,000
 The ghetto was announced by the Germans

149
00:10:24,000 --> 00:10:32,000
 in October 1994.

150
00:10:32,000 --> 00:10:35,000
 No, in November 1994.

151
00:10:35,000 --> 00:10:41,000
 October 1994, I said it right.

152
00:10:41,000 --> 00:10:45,000
 But we moved in November 1994.

153
00:10:45,000 --> 00:10:48,000
 In 1940.

154
00:10:48,000 --> 00:10:51,000
 Yes, in 1940.

155
00:10:51,000 --> 00:11:00,000
 But the bandages were brought in in October.

156
00:11:00,000 --> 00:11:07,000
 In October 1920 the forced bandages were brought in to the Jews.

157
00:11:07,000 --> 00:11:14,000
 That was less than a month after the German army entered.

158
00:11:14,000 --> 00:11:19,000
 What did you do then?

159
00:11:19,000 --> 00:11:22,000
 Did you work in the hospital?

160
00:11:22,000 --> 00:11:24,000
 Yes.

161
00:11:24,000 --> 00:11:27,000
 From the beginning.

162
00:11:27,000 --> 00:11:37,000
 I worked as a nurse in the old-fashioned hospital.

163
00:11:37,000 --> 00:11:45,000
 Later, I moved to the surgical ward in Leszno 1 together with the hospital.

164
00:11:45,000 --> 00:11:51,000
 It was a four-storey building with an alcohol monopoly.

165
00:11:51,000 --> 00:11:55,000
 All of our surgical wards were there.

166
00:11:55,000 --> 00:11:57,000
 There were three floors.

167
00:11:57,000 --> 00:12:01,000
 Our first ward occupied the first floor.

168
00:12:01,000 --> 00:12:07,000
 On the fourth floor were the rooms of the local doctors.

169
00:12:07,000 --> 00:12:18,000
 I worked in the hospital until the Germans announced the resettlement.

170
00:12:18,000 --> 00:12:32,000
 We couldn't get to Leszno anymore, so the Jewish hospital was moved to Umschlag.

171
00:12:32,000 --> 00:12:37,000
 My husband didn't let me go there anymore.

172
00:12:37,000 --> 00:12:48,000
 I'd like to tell you a bit more about this hospital. It was a wonderful hospital at that time.

173
00:12:48,000 --> 00:12:51,000
 I think it was one of the most beautiful hospitals in Warsaw.

174
00:12:51,000 --> 00:13:08,000
 It had a fantastic, beautiful operating room. It was all white, with a shiny white washbasin and a beautiful operating table.

175
00:13:08,000 --> 00:13:13,000
 There was a hanging lamp, of course.

176
00:13:13,000 --> 00:13:21,000
 There, among other things, I performed my first surgeries.

177
00:13:21,000 --> 00:13:25,000
 I started with the hemorrhoids surgery.

178
00:13:25,000 --> 00:13:29,000
 I was given anesthesia there.

179
00:13:29,000 --> 00:13:36,000
 There I received patients on duty, on the days of my duties.

180
00:13:36,000 --> 00:13:39,000
 I had a lot of them.

181
00:13:39,000 --> 00:13:53,000
 I had a lot of friends there, among our common friends, I mean the doctors.

182
00:13:53,000 --> 00:14:05,000
 During the first period, in 1939, the duty hours were relatively calm.

183
00:14:05,000 --> 00:14:08,000
 There weren't many wounded.

184
00:14:08,000 --> 00:14:21,000
 However, in the following years, and especially during the eviction period, we literally bathed in blood.

185
00:14:21,000 --> 00:14:27,000
 During the first period, what kind of wounds did the wounded patients have?

186
00:14:27,000 --> 00:14:31,000
 They were all gunshot wounds.

187
00:14:31,000 --> 00:14:38,000
 Most of the wounds were in their limbs and bellies.

188
00:14:38,000 --> 00:14:42,000
 Of course, we always discovered the wounds near the holes.

189
00:14:42,000 --> 00:14:47,000
 I remember one lady who had a wound in her belly.

190
00:14:47,000 --> 00:14:52,000
 All the internal organs were outside.

191
00:14:52,000 --> 00:14:58,000
 Despite all these big wounds, we continued to operate.

192
00:14:58,000 --> 00:15:08,000
 The duty of a doctor is to save a life, even the most dangerous one.

193
00:15:08,000 --> 00:15:12,000
 After that, there were no more surgeries.

194
00:15:12,000 --> 00:15:27,000
 The people who left the hospital after the surgery were sent to concentration camps.

195
00:15:27,000 --> 00:15:33,000
 There, they did a terrible job in the mud, in the water, in the forest.

196
00:15:33,000 --> 00:15:43,000
 They cut down trees with very bad food.

197
00:15:43,000 --> 00:15:45,000
 Very bad.

198
00:15:45,000 --> 00:15:50,000
 So the camp was a threat to everyone.

199
00:15:50,000 --> 00:15:56,000
 I will never forget the patient I was receiving.

200
00:15:56,000 --> 00:16:03,000
 He was showing all the symptoms of intestinal inflammation.

201
00:16:03,000 --> 00:16:15,000
 The head of that duty, a forty-something-year-old man, phoned me.

202
00:16:15,000 --> 00:16:21,000
 He told me to come upstairs, because he recognized the intestinal inflammation.

203
00:16:21,000 --> 00:16:26,000
 He told me to examine the patient one more time.

204
00:16:26,000 --> 00:16:30,000
 I came upstairs and examined him one more time.

205
00:16:30,000 --> 00:16:32,000
 All the symptoms were fine.

206
00:16:32,000 --> 00:16:36,000
 He had a high fever, around 40 degrees.

207
00:16:36,000 --> 00:16:40,000
 What surprised me was that he didn't look me in the eye.

208
00:16:40,000 --> 00:16:45,000
 Every patient wanted to read the doctor's verdict.

209
00:16:45,000 --> 00:16:47,000
 Good or bad.

210
00:16:47,000 --> 00:16:50,000
 He didn't look me in the eye.

211
00:16:50,000 --> 00:16:54,000
 And he was giving me anesthesia.

212
00:16:54,000 --> 00:16:57,000
 It was a different kind of anesthesia.

213
00:16:57,000 --> 00:17:01,000
 There were no smart devices like they are now.

214
00:17:01,000 --> 00:17:05,000
 I was put on a mask.

215
00:17:05,000 --> 00:17:11,000
 At some point, the patient took off the mask and said,

216
00:17:11,000 --> 00:17:14,000
 "I won't let you operate on me."

217
00:17:14,000 --> 00:17:21,000
 Dr. Rothau, who was a blood donor, was very nervous.

218
00:17:21,000 --> 00:17:23,000
 He started spitting.

219
00:17:23,000 --> 00:17:28,000
 He said, "Doctor, spit if you don't want to."

220
00:17:28,000 --> 00:17:34,000
 He said, "Doctor, if you don't let me operate on you, you'll die."

221
00:17:34,000 --> 00:17:36,000
 I said, "I won't let you operate on me."

222
00:17:36,000 --> 00:17:38,000
 And I couldn't do it.

223
00:17:38,000 --> 00:17:44,000
 Dr. Rothau recommended that I bring an operating book,

224
00:17:44,000 --> 00:17:47,000
 in which the patient signed that he refused to operate on me.

225
00:17:47,000 --> 00:17:53,000
 It turned out that his fiancée was a nurse, a hospital nurse,

226
00:17:53,000 --> 00:17:57,000
 who had given him propidone before.

227
00:17:57,000 --> 00:18:01,000
 That's why he had a high fever.

228
00:18:01,000 --> 00:18:08,000
 She taught him various symptoms of liver disease.

229
00:18:08,000 --> 00:18:15,000
 But at the last moment, he took his knife and ran away.

230
00:18:15,000 --> 00:18:18,000
 He simply ran to his bed.

231
00:18:18,000 --> 00:18:22,000
 Unfortunately, the patient died tragically.

232
00:18:22,000 --> 00:18:29,000
 At home, due to the fact that he had an old fireplace,

233
00:18:29,000 --> 00:18:32,000
 it was affected by propidone.

234
00:18:32,000 --> 00:18:40,000
 He got pneumonia and died because of it.

235
00:18:40,000 --> 00:18:44,000
 When it comes to hospital experiences,

236
00:18:44,000 --> 00:18:48,000
 as more and more wounds were brought,

237
00:18:48,000 --> 00:18:52,000
 and the abdominal wounds were getting bigger and bigger,

238
00:18:52,000 --> 00:18:57,000
 the operating order was limited.

239
00:18:57,000 --> 00:19:00,000
 But it was not to the point of not being operated at all.

240
00:19:00,000 --> 00:19:03,000
 Only those cases, for example,

241
00:19:03,000 --> 00:19:08,000
 when the lady with the ulcers on top of her head,

242
00:19:08,000 --> 00:19:11,000
 they were not operated on anymore.

243
00:19:11,000 --> 00:19:17,000
 In any case, the surgeries were carried out all day long.

244
00:19:17,000 --> 00:19:20,000
 Were those patients not operated on anymore?

245
00:19:20,000 --> 00:19:22,000
 How were they treated?

246
00:19:22,000 --> 00:19:24,000
 No, they were patients.

247
00:19:24,000 --> 00:19:27,000
 They were very rare cases.

248
00:19:27,000 --> 00:19:29,000
 They were not wounds,

249
00:19:29,000 --> 00:19:33,000
 because if they were, the wounds were stitched up.

250
00:19:33,000 --> 00:19:38,000
 Only very large wounds, as I said.

251
00:19:38,000 --> 00:19:42,000
 A doctor's duty is to save a life.

252
00:19:42,000 --> 00:19:46,000
 And that was the only way to save a life.

253
00:19:46,000 --> 00:19:52,000
 Let me tell you about two more very interesting cases.

254
00:19:52,000 --> 00:19:55,000
 At the same time, they were very tragic.

255
00:19:55,000 --> 00:20:03,000
 Two children were brought to my duty.

256
00:20:03,000 --> 00:20:10,000
 The boy was 10 years old, the girl was maybe 12.

257
00:20:10,000 --> 00:20:15,000
 From the beginning, the girl was the head nurse.

258
00:20:15,000 --> 00:20:18,000
 She said that she couldn't undress,

259
00:20:18,000 --> 00:20:21,000
 and it was obvious that she was bleeding.

260
00:20:21,000 --> 00:20:26,000
 So I said that it was necessary.

261
00:20:26,000 --> 00:20:28,000
 We had to examine her.

262
00:20:28,000 --> 00:20:33,000
 They were in a hurry, because they had a family in Otwock,

263
00:20:33,000 --> 00:20:38,000
 and they had some supplies for that family.

264
00:20:38,000 --> 00:20:46,000
 It turned out that the German soldiers had detained them at your place.

265
00:20:46,000 --> 00:20:49,000
 Two children were killed.

266
00:20:49,000 --> 00:20:51,000
 Two children ran away,

267
00:20:51,000 --> 00:20:54,000
 and the other two were sent to a regular service

268
00:20:54,000 --> 00:20:58,000
 and were taken to the hospital.

269
00:20:58,000 --> 00:21:05,000
 Finally, I asked one nurse to leave.

270
00:21:05,000 --> 00:21:09,000
 Only the duty nurse and I were left.

271
00:21:09,000 --> 00:21:13,000
 And I slowly undressed the girl.

272
00:21:13,000 --> 00:21:20,000
 She was covered with a bandage.

273
00:21:20,000 --> 00:21:27,000
 I'm sorry, not with a bandage but with a bow tie.

274
00:21:27,000 --> 00:21:31,000
 The bow tie was in one place.

275
00:21:31,000 --> 00:21:36,000
 It was so tight that it made her very nervous.

276
00:21:36,000 --> 00:21:40,000
 It was a commodity for sale.

277
00:21:40,000 --> 00:21:47,000
 Finally, after many persuasions, I undressed her completely,

278
00:21:47,000 --> 00:21:51,000
 but I hid the bandage under the pillow.

279
00:21:51,000 --> 00:21:53,000
 - The bow tie? - Yes.

280
00:21:53,000 --> 00:21:56,000
 So that no one could steal it.

281
00:21:56,000 --> 00:22:01,000
 It turned out that she wasn't seriously wounded.

282
00:22:01,000 --> 00:22:07,000
 We sewed up the wounds, which were just skin wounds.

283
00:22:07,000 --> 00:22:12,000
 It was hard for her to undress the boy.

284
00:22:12,000 --> 00:22:17,000
 The boy was also covered with a bandage.

285
00:22:17,000 --> 00:22:21,000
 His bandage didn't heal at all.

286
00:22:21,000 --> 00:22:23,000
 But hers did.

287
00:22:23,000 --> 00:22:27,000
 So she was very worried that the goods would be damaged.

288
00:22:27,000 --> 00:22:30,000
 He stayed with us for a few days.

289
00:22:30,000 --> 00:22:32,000
 Three days, I think.

290
00:22:32,000 --> 00:22:38,000
 After all the aggressive acts, they were released.

291
00:22:38,000 --> 00:22:42,000
 They were taken to Otwock, where their family was waiting.

292
00:22:42,000 --> 00:22:47,000
 The second situation was different.

293
00:22:47,000 --> 00:22:52,000
 They brought a couple of married women, two suicide bombers.

294
00:22:52,000 --> 00:23:04,000
 They took a very well-known sedative and fell asleep.

295
00:23:04,000 --> 00:23:10,000
 Unfortunately, we had to wake them up.

296
00:23:10,000 --> 00:23:15,000
 All the injections were done, and they both woke up.

297
00:23:15,000 --> 00:23:19,000
 They were very unhappy, because at first they thought

298
00:23:19,000 --> 00:23:23,000
 that they were waking up to a new life.

299
00:23:23,000 --> 00:23:29,000
 But in the meantime, they were back to the old life.

300
00:23:29,000 --> 00:23:32,000
 What year was it?

301
00:23:32,000 --> 00:23:37,000
 It was a year before the Great Action,

302
00:23:37,000 --> 00:23:42,000
 which took place in 1941.

303
00:23:42,000 --> 00:23:48,000
 So it was the beginning of 1941, the first half of 1941.

304
00:23:48,000 --> 00:23:55,000
 When it comes to hospital equipment and access to medicines and equipment...

305
00:23:55,000 --> 00:24:00,000
 There was a wonderful surgery nurse, who was usually a hamster.

306
00:24:00,000 --> 00:24:05,000
 So there was a lot of bandages, a lot of dressing materials.

307
00:24:05,000 --> 00:24:08,000
 And the tools were beautiful.

308
00:24:08,000 --> 00:24:12,000
 So I thought then, and I think at that time,

309
00:24:12,000 --> 00:24:17,000
 that it was one of the best-equipped hospitals, you know, at the beginning.

310
00:24:17,000 --> 00:24:23,000
 Right? Because then, slowly, these materials were exhausted.

311
00:24:23,000 --> 00:24:27,000
 When it comes to medicines, did you have access to them?

312
00:24:27,000 --> 00:24:32,000
 Patients had to buy a lot of medicines themselves,

313
00:24:32,000 --> 00:24:35,000
 because they were too expensive for the hospital.

314
00:24:35,000 --> 00:24:40,000
 But there were some medicines, but there were fewer and fewer of them.

315
00:24:40,000 --> 00:24:45,000
 More and more wounded, fewer and fewer medicines.

316
00:24:45,000 --> 00:24:49,000
 I was talking about children and suicides.

317
00:24:49,000 --> 00:24:53,000
 Now I would like to talk about one patient.

318
00:24:53,000 --> 00:24:56,000
 When I was busy with suicides,

319
00:24:56,000 --> 00:25:03,000
 a man came from Źwierna, who had been receiving patients for years,

320
00:25:03,000 --> 00:25:05,000
 so he was very professional.

321
00:25:05,000 --> 00:25:08,000
 And he said, "Doctor, quickly!"

322
00:25:08,000 --> 00:25:12,000
 I said, "What quickly? A new man is being born!"

323
00:25:12,000 --> 00:25:19,000
 And a woman was brought in, and he had already received the port.

324
00:25:19,000 --> 00:25:22,000
 A child was born.

325
00:25:22,000 --> 00:25:26,000
 At first, I said, "What? At such a moment?"

326
00:25:26,000 --> 00:25:31,000
 And then, a tired woman, barely breathing.

327
00:25:31,000 --> 00:25:35,000
 I thought she deserved some comfort.

328
00:25:35,000 --> 00:25:41,000
 I told her, "Maybe he'll grow up, because he was a boy,

329
00:25:41,000 --> 00:25:48,000
 not a man who will make up for our suffering."

330
00:25:48,000 --> 00:25:53,000
 There were very varied, very different shifts.

331
00:25:53,000 --> 00:26:00,000
 But as the action progressed, there were more and more bloody shifts.

332
00:26:00,000 --> 00:26:05,000
 More and more limbs had to be amputated.

333
00:26:05,000 --> 00:26:08,000
 Did your husband also work in the hospital?

334
00:26:08,000 --> 00:26:12,000
 Yes, but he was a doctor on the internal ward.

335
00:26:12,000 --> 00:26:17,000
 The internal ward was transferred from the clean ward to the bed ward.

336
00:26:17,000 --> 00:26:19,000
 I'm talking about your first husband now.

337
00:26:19,000 --> 00:26:27,000
 No, my first husband left Warsaw two days after my father.

338
00:26:27,000 --> 00:26:31,000
 That was in September, at the beginning.

339
00:26:31,000 --> 00:26:38,000
 Because there was a speech by Użykowski on the radio.

340
00:26:38,000 --> 00:26:40,000
 Was it Użykowski?

341
00:26:40,000 --> 00:26:43,000
 I'll remember the name in a moment.

342
00:26:43,000 --> 00:26:47,000
 It turned out it wasn't Użykowski, it was someone else.

343
00:26:47,000 --> 00:26:52,000
 There was a speech on the radio about the diversity.

344
00:26:52,000 --> 00:26:59,000
 Namely, all young men were told to cross the Poniatowski Bridge and go east.

345
00:26:59,000 --> 00:27:02,000
 And rockets were falling on that bridge.

346
00:27:02,000 --> 00:27:08,000
 So it was a typical speech on the diversity.

347
00:27:08,000 --> 00:27:14,000
 My husband got to Lviv and wanted to see my father there.

348
00:27:14,000 --> 00:27:20,000
 But my father was already in Brześć, I'm sorry, not in Lviv.

349
00:27:20,000 --> 00:27:26,000
 But my father was already in Tarnopol with his hospital

350
00:27:26,000 --> 00:27:31,000
 and he ended up in Soviet captivity.

351
00:27:31,000 --> 00:27:34,000
 I found out about it later, of course.

352
00:27:34,000 --> 00:27:37,000
 Did you have contact with your husband at that time?

353
00:27:37,000 --> 00:27:40,000
 Did he write letters? Could you write letters to him?

354
00:27:40,000 --> 00:27:48,000
 My first husband sent me letters from Lviv.

355
00:27:48,000 --> 00:27:54,000
 From his work in the Soviet Union.

356
00:27:54,000 --> 00:27:57,000
 Full of love and longing.

357
00:27:57,000 --> 00:28:01,000
 He really wanted to come back to Warsaw.

358
00:28:01,000 --> 00:28:07,000
 When he tried to come back, the Russians caught him and sent him to Karelia.

359
00:28:07,000 --> 00:28:10,000
 It was on the Finnish border.

360
00:28:10,000 --> 00:28:16,000
 He had a well-treated but still fresh tuberculosis.

361
00:28:16,000 --> 00:28:22,000
 So I was very afraid of him because he was drowning in the mud in Karelia.

362
00:28:22,000 --> 00:28:26,000
 And then he was sent to a very good place.

363
00:28:26,000 --> 00:28:33,000
 He was a doctor in a prison in Siberia.

364
00:28:33,000 --> 00:28:36,000
 The air there was great for the lungs.

365
00:28:36,000 --> 00:28:44,000
 He worked there until I managed to advertise him

366
00:28:44,000 --> 00:28:50,000
 and he came back to Poland, to the army, to the 2nd Polish Army.

367
00:28:50,000 --> 00:28:54,000
 How did you meet your second husband?

368
00:28:54,000 --> 00:29:02,000
 It all started at the beginning of the war.

369
00:29:02,000 --> 00:29:08,000
 My husband and his mother left Łódź.

370
00:29:08,000 --> 00:29:14,000
 Then they got to Warsaw in various means.

371
00:29:14,000 --> 00:29:17,000
 My husband was a doctor.

372
00:29:17,000 --> 00:29:21,000
 His name was Henryk Makower.

373
00:29:21,000 --> 00:29:28,000
 He lived with our neighbours in Chłodna 2.

374
00:29:28,000 --> 00:29:34,000
 They were very close friends.

375
00:29:34,000 --> 00:29:37,000
 It turned out that his mother was...

376
00:29:37,000 --> 00:29:41,000
 Sorry, what were their names?

377
00:29:41,000 --> 00:29:43,000
 Makower, Henryk Makower.

378
00:29:43,000 --> 00:29:44,000
 What were their names?

379
00:29:44,000 --> 00:29:48,000
 Jaszuńscy.

380
00:29:48,000 --> 00:29:58,000
 My second husband's mother's name was Dorota Debora Makower.

381
00:29:58,000 --> 00:30:06,000
 He came to me with an official visit

382
00:30:06,000 --> 00:30:10,000
 because he wanted to do his internship in Chłodna 2.

383
00:30:10,000 --> 00:30:16,000
 It was customary to ask a doctor who already did his internship there.

384
00:30:16,000 --> 00:30:19,000
 I did my internship as an internist.

385
00:30:19,000 --> 00:30:21,000
 After your father's death.

386
00:30:21,000 --> 00:30:23,000
 After my father's death, yes.

387
00:30:23,000 --> 00:30:28,000
 When he came in, he made a very good impression on me.

388
00:30:28,000 --> 00:30:32,000
 He was tall and handsome.

389
00:30:32,000 --> 00:30:38,000
 I told him that it would be better if he did his internship in another house

390
00:30:38,000 --> 00:30:41,000
 and not in the one that already had a doctor.

391
00:30:41,000 --> 00:30:43,000
 What did he say?

392
00:30:43,000 --> 00:30:51,000
 "You see, my mother is so tired and ill

393
00:30:51,000 --> 00:30:56,000
 and she has a cousin who lives opposite your house

394
00:30:56,000 --> 00:30:59,000
 and I would like to hug her.

395
00:30:59,000 --> 00:31:05,000
 So I would like to ask you to agree to it."

396
00:31:05,000 --> 00:31:07,000
 Of course, I couldn't do it.

397
00:31:07,000 --> 00:31:09,000
 I had to agree to it.

398
00:31:09,000 --> 00:31:12,000
 He told me not to worry

399
00:31:12,000 --> 00:31:15,000
 because he was about 10 years older than me.

400
00:31:15,000 --> 00:31:19,000
 "I will help you with your internship

401
00:31:19,000 --> 00:31:21,000
 and you will get a pension,

402
00:31:21,000 --> 00:31:26,000
 which was a source of income at that time."

403
00:31:26,000 --> 00:31:28,000
 And that's how they moved in.

404
00:31:28,000 --> 00:31:37,000
 From the ceremonial visits of my younger friend, we got to know each other.

405
00:31:37,000 --> 00:31:44,000
 Very soon, we developed a strong bond of feelings,

406
00:31:44,000 --> 00:31:47,000
 especially from my side.

407
00:31:47,000 --> 00:31:55,000
 My husband kept emphasizing that he experienced a great blow in Łódź.

408
00:31:55,000 --> 00:32:00,000
 He had a woman there whom he loved very much

409
00:32:00,000 --> 00:32:03,000
 and to whom he was very disappointed.

410
00:32:03,000 --> 00:32:10,000
 To the point that, as they say, he had an ice axe instead of a heart.

411
00:32:10,000 --> 00:32:16,000
 And my task was to melt this ice axe.

412
00:32:16,000 --> 00:32:28,000
 Very early on, I fell in love with him despite my great love for my first husband.

413
00:32:28,000 --> 00:32:31,000
 So my mother always said to him,

414
00:32:31,000 --> 00:32:34,000
 "What about you? How do you behave?

415
00:32:34,000 --> 00:32:37,000
 What would your father say about it?"

416
00:32:37,000 --> 00:32:39,000
 We will stop here.

417
00:32:39,000 --> 00:32:40,000
 Yes.

418
00:32:40,000 --> 00:32:41,000
 Thank you.

419
00:32:46,000 --> 00:32:48,000
 The End

420
00:33:16,000 --> 00:33:21,000
 © PTA / TVP