Tape number 3. Interview with Mrs. Onoemi-Makower.
Broadcast by Joanna Wróblewska.
I would now like to return to how you met your second husband.
You have just told us what your mother thought about it,
that you still, being a married woman, had new relationships with a new man.
How did his parents look at it?
He did not have parents.
My father died at a very young age.
He was not 40 years old.
On the other hand, my mother was living with our neighbours, our friends from the Jaszuński state.
His mother had been very positive towards me from the beginning,
while other women, who visited him as a doctor or with whom he had some contact,
would call them "miserable ladies".
So, from the beginning I had a very positive attitude towards her.
I treated her like my own daughter, to the end.
So, until she was taken away.
You told us before how you and your mother moved to the ghetto.
Did you and your second husband move to the ghetto at the same time?
Did you live together?
We all had to move there until November 15, 1940.
It was the last moment.
We moved there at the last minute, and I found a flat close to my previous one,
the one I had been living in all my life.
It was on 28 Elektoralna Street.
It was close to my grandfather's house on Chłodna Street.
Maniek Makower, on the other hand, found a flat on Żelazna Street.
He moved in there with his mother and the Jaszuński state.
So, they were still very close.
The reason why they were so close was that Mr. Jaszuński had a very poor eyesight.
He could see Mańka and his son, who was in Lwów at that time.
They later returned to Warsaw, to the ghetto.
So, the answer to the question about his mother's relationship with me
would have to be answered in the future.
But it would be in a different place.
I would have a chance to add it later.
As far as I understand, you worked in the same hospital in the ghetto.
I mean, the hospital was clean, but the building was different.
My hospital was on Leszno 1,
in the building of the former alcohol monopoly on the first floor.
All the surgical departments were located in that hospital.
However, my future husband's hospital was on Leszno 40.
He was the head of the internal department, and later of the infectious department.
Because the internal department was transformed into the infectious department.
Who supervised the hospital in the ghetto?
The hospital was supervised by the hospital department of the Jewish community,
headed by Dr. Mileńkowski.
He was a well-known dermatologist from Warsaw.
Did you have any personal contacts with him?
I mean, my husband did, because I didn't have many contacts with the Jewish community.
My life was filled with work in the hospital,
and patients outside the hospital, as a supplement to my poor budget.
After all, the work in the community hospital didn't give me any opportunities to live.
We had to supplement it with the work of private visitors and patrons,
which I still had.
How much did you get paid when you worked?
I don't remember.
These are countless amounts of money, so it's hard for me to remember.
I know that my husband earned a lot of money,
because he had many private visits.
He was very successful as a dermatologist in Łódź.
His patients were now in high positions in the Jewish police.
That's why he got a police cap and was a doctor in the Jewish community,
the Jewish police, the SP, the orderly service.
In addition, he had private visits.
Thanks to this cap, he managed to save many people.
He saw many things from up close,
but he couldn't save his family.
He was exhausted by that moment.
He was exhausted.
He lost his mind because he didn't go with them to the wagons.
I'll tell you a little bit about that later.
Do you remember any names of the people he treated?
Czapliński was a man of high rank.
I don't remember exactly what rank he was in.
He had a contact, he was obliged to have a contact
between the commune and the Welfelschtel.
The Welfelschtel was a German facility on Żelazna Street 103,
which was relocating people.
And he helped us get released after an unsuccessful escape.
I'll tell you about that later.
I remember Czapliński's name.
If we're talking about other police officers,
I'll tell you about the one who was murdered later.
The one who took over Cienkaj,
the colonel who had been arrested in Warsaw,
because Czapliński wanted to sell some fur.
It was some foolishness of Czapliński.
He was released from that prison
and was told to supervise the Jewish militia.
That colonel Czapliński.
Do you want to say something more about him?
We'll come back to him later.
I'd like to ask you what were the contacts of the Jewish doctors
with the Germans in the ghetto?
Did you have any contacts with the Germans at all?
We didn't really have any contacts.
We only had official contacts,
which consisted in the fact that the Germans called Czerniakow
as the head of the Jewish community.
They called him to inform him of certain orders.
For example, the order of eviction.
Czerniakow found out about it from the Germans.
When the eviction began in 1940,
on October 15,
he found out about it and committed suicide on October 16.
Didn't I make a mistake?
The ghetto was being built in Czerniakow,
but the eviction took place in 1940.
He found out about it in 1940,
at the very beginning,
because there was a huge German rumor
that the unproductive population of the ghetto
would move to other areas where they could work.
They wanted Czerniakow to sign it.
Czerniakow didn't agree to it
and the next day he was found dead in his office in Gmina.
It didn't end well,
although he was a very decent man.
Did you know him?
No.
Maybe I saw him once, but I don't know him.
His husband knew him well
and he committed suicide
because he didn't predict the size of the eviction
and he didn't want to take part in it.
How did you find out about the eviction?
Who brought you the news?
We were living in one of our apartments
because we were moved from one apartment to another
because the ghetto was being reduced.
I found out about the eviction
just like everyone else,
because there were posters all over the ghetto
signed by a Jewish police officer.
Czerniakow didn't want to sign it
and that's why he got lost.
So after his suicide,
Gmina Żydowska became unmanaged.
Because all the people who came after him
couldn't be compared to him in any way.
The councillors of Gmina Żydowska
were all masons, very rich Jews
and that's why they had little understanding for the Jewish poverty.
There were very poor food supplies
that Gmina Żydowska had to give out to the Jews.
Black bread, around 150 grams per day,
a little sugar, from time to time, very rarely.
Vegetables, potatoes, also rarely,
but there were supplies from time to time.
Life in the ghetto started to get organized.
There were rickshaw drivers,
that is, people who were working overtime
and were transporting people for money.
My husband, for example, said,
I've already mentioned his name,
he said that he didn't want to use their words
because he couldn't look at what was going on.
However, when he had typhus,
he had to use the word "typhus" from time to time.
I'm talking about the subdivisions.
Then a representative of the German authorities came to the ghetto.
His name was Auschwitz, I think.
He led to Gmina Żydowska giving out
120,000 soups to the poor.
These soups were very low in calories.
They had a lot of water and poorly cooked porridge.
But there was always something.
Later, intelligentsia soups were also organized,
which were better and more expensive.
But in order to get intelligentsia soups,
you had to stand in line in Gmina Żydowska
and have protection.
Because there were 24 counsellors,
people thought that protection from one counsellor
would give them a positive effect.
Meanwhile, the counsellors didn't get along well with each other.
They disagreed.
So the protection for rabbi X could be a positive protection for rabbi Y, for example.
But intelligentsia soups were more expensive, but they were better.
Later, in every house that was in the ghetto,
food for the poor was organized.
At the beginning.
Later, every house, maybe not every house,
but most of them, tried to feed their poor people.
Because it was a burden.
- So... - How was it done?
Living in a different house.
At least I had one such family.
At the same time...
Almost at the same time...
Not completely...
It turned out...
I have to add that the Warsaw Ghetto
was the second largest city in the General Government after Warsaw.
This is also very important.
- Did any of your family live in the ghetto? - Excuse me?
- Did any of your family live in the ghetto? - The whole family.
Only not in the municipal ghetto.
But mostly in the ghetto where the shops were.
In the shop ghetto.
Some lived in the shop ghetto, and some in the municipal ghetto.
At that time, 48 or 50 people,
almost 52 people of my family died.
All of them died during different deportations.
And no one survived...
No one survived my family.
All of them died.
Yes, my closest cousin, Cytrynikowa, survived.
This is so important
because it concerns an institution called "Polish Hotel".
The Germans carried out a very sophisticated operation,
i.e. they spread the rumour
that the Jews who paid well
would get to the Polish Hotel
and from there to the West.
So my cousin, who decided very quickly,
indeed went to the West
together with the first group of Jews
who sent fantastic cards from the West
with the message that they were at liberty.
In some camp, but at liberty.
It was a sophisticated German operation.
It was about the high costs that had to be paid.
But only one or two groups of refugees survived.
I'm not sure about that.
Where was she deported?
To France, mostly.
She was released by her husband after the war.
So she survived the war.
As for her family, which I'll tell you about later
because I'll be living there for one day, but always.
Yes.
So now, the resettlement.
The lady asked where I found out about it.
Everybody knew that it was a hospital during the resettlement.
I worked there and went through the whole Leszno to the hospital.
Leszno was the first, where my hospital was.
As the resettlement progressed,
I saw more and more empty houses,
finally completely empty.
Leszno was empty.
I walked through those empty streets.
My shoes were dripping with mud.
I couldn't believe it was even possible.
Leszno 1 and my hospital were outside the ghetto.
I had to have a special permit.
It didn't last long.
After some time, they moved the hospital from Leszno 1,
all the medical units, to Umschlagplatz,
but to the hospital, which was organized there.
I didn't go there anymore. My husband didn't let me go there.
He had his internal unit there,
but there was no treatment, no injections, no medicine.
The patients were lying there.
One thing was certain.
People didn't get out of there.
At first.
So people were hiding there.
Medical families.
Who had relatives, who had close friends.
They were hiding there.
Nurses were doing miracles, not only to bury them,
but also to bring them back to life.
It was the last resort.
Why didn't the Germans evacuate people from there?
It was already at Umschlagplatz.
It was a suburb of Umschlagplatz.
Apparently, that's what they decided.
The team that evacuated people
was called Befelsztel.
It was the place of Befelsztel's orders.
In Leszno 103.
The SS people worked there.
All the orders to evacuate people came from there.
The team of gendarmes who evacuated people
consisted of a dozen or so gendarmes.
They were the ones who evacuated people in Lublin.
In Lwów.
Not in Lublin. In Lwów.
L.L. was a bit confusing.
They learned there how to do it step by step.
First of all, for example,
talking about the evacuation,
first of all, the workers,
either in the commune or in the so-called shops,
that is, in the workshops,
mainly for the use of the army,
to make uniforms,
tailor's workshops,
or mattresses,
or other elements necessary for the army.
First, it was the Jews,
and then, gradually, it was the Germans.
A very famous boss was Tebens.
It's spelled O-E.
Tebens.
There were also other Germans.
There were a lot of those shops.
And those shops, in the first row,
the workers of those shops,
they received cards that authorized their release from Mszlachów.
So a lot of people reported to those shops
and it came to the point that Maniek, for example,
could not find a good shop for his family.
And he had such a family,
he had, as he said, his "five",
a mother,
a brother with his wife,
and a sister with her husband.
Five people.
And until the end,
until the moment when there was the final stage,
the so-called boiler,
until that moment he could not
fit his family into a good shop.
He was looking for one, he was trying, he had friends,
and yet it didn't really fit him.
But only temporarily, as it turned out.
So the Germans, at the beginning,
were resettling in such a way that
there were already walls in the ghetto.
The walls were surrounded from the moment
when the resettlement began.
The walls were surrounded by the Latvians,
who went to serve the Germans.
Germans and Ukrainians.
And it was a condensed crowd around the ghetto.
It was very difficult to escape at that time.
Through these walls,
only small children managed to pass.
Those who were making these digs,
about which I said before,
that they were eating the ghetto and eating their parents.
Of course, a lot went wrong.
However, these resettlements,
by houses, as it was at the beginning,
that the Jewish police,
which had a bad reputation,
and there were no Germans.
Ukrainians and Latvians surrounded such a house
and told people to come down to the yard
and check what they had in their pockets.
Possibly, they had a permit,
a stamp, or whatever.
But then it was getting more and more difficult for people.
Because more and more people were resettled.
They wanted to have 10,000 every day.
At the beginning, it was simple.
There were so-called refugee points.
People from the province started to come here,
because the Germans forced them to come to Warsaw.
And these people took care of empty cinemas,
empty rooms,
and other facilities, for example.
They put some wooden dolls there.
And these people lived there.
The epidemic of pneumonia began to spread.
More and more.
There was abdominal typhus, rarely,
because, as I will say in a moment, there were protective vaccines.
But there was typhus pneumonia.
People were dying like flies.
And besides that, children.
They didn't want to leave.
Because the adults didn't even want to resign.
They didn't even want to leave those barracks.
But the children wanted to live.
And there was a song, the most popular at that time.
It was a bit like "Żydłaczenie".
"Bones, I don't want to give up the bones."
Because those were the bones.
The children were so disappointed.
It was their song.
Later, those bones were not paid much.
But these people didn't care about that.
They sold a part of the bones,
for which they bought the rest of the food.
So there was a man
who was called...
I'll tell you later.
Maybe I'll tell you about it later.
We can tell you about it later.
That's true.
Because he was later killed.
We didn't know.
There was such an organization.
Because it was created in the Szupoń ghetto.
But it wasn't Szeryński.
No, Szeryński was a different case.
But it was a man
who was on the side of the militia,
the head of the ghetto.
I'll tell you later what his name was.
You know how it is.
Something is always missing.
That's where we end the tape.
Lejkin.
We'll stop here.
He was very careful.
I'm sorry, but we'll stop here,
because the tape is running out.
The End
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