Taśma 7, an interview with Mrs. Naomi Makawer.
Joanna Wróblewska is the presenter.
Before we talk about your experiences and your time in Miłosna near Warsaw,
I would like you to tell us how and when you left the ghetto and how you found yourself on the Aryan side.
When the Germans released us after the second successful escape,
when we returned to Zamenhof, it was clear to us that we cannot stay in the ghetto,
that we had to escape.
Despite the fact that my husband had a wrinkled face, he was changed, he looked like a prince, he was very pale,
we decided to escape again.
At that time, the ghetto was so small that people tried to escape to the part of the ghetto where there were shops.
But there were only shops.
Not all the ghettos that existed before, for example the so-called small ghetto, were evicted.
The church was evicted, only the priests were allowed to leave on the first day of eviction.
And the church was evicted.
And now I would like to talk about how we got through.
So we joined a group of lunatics who were chasing us, not going, but chasing us towards the small ghetto,
because it was no longer there, only a shop.
We were chasing them too.
A German took the vodka, I don't remember, he took something and let everyone go to the shops,
because he knew that one way or another everyone would die.
We got separated.
And why were these people chasing us?
Because there was a rumor that the wagons had been set up.
It meant that they would be evicted again.
So they chased us terribly.
And we separated from this group to Nowolipki, where my two cousins live with their husband,
one of them Habas, Engineer Habas.
We got there during the period that we experienced in Zamenhof at the beginning.
It was a nice, clean room, cleaned by us.
There was a bathroom, a good bath, for the first time in a long time.
My husband looked like a priest.
They welcomed us very warmly.
They said, "We were waiting for you since yesterday."
Because they knew what was going on.
One of our friends found out that we wanted to escape to the other side.
Maybe he was 18, but he said, "I'll take care of it."
It was that simple and that easy.
My husband said, "First of all, I'll take the money for this unsuccessful escape, maybe some things."
After all, we had to have some money from the Arab side.
And he went back to the ghetto to get the money.
With a frown on his face.
I heard from this young man that it could be arranged.
I was even surprised that such a young man could arrange such things.
My husband came back the next day.
We went together to arrange it.
But he said, "I'll go first, and then he'll come."
Because he couldn't go with such a face.
I said, "I won't break up with him right now.
Either we'll die together, or we'll live together."
And I took him in the car.
We paid for two people.
There were four of us in total.
The car had a group pass.
They didn't check anyone.
It was very cold.
A gendarme was standing there.
He got 50 zlotys, I think.
He was happy because he wanted so much.
In a moment we found ourselves close to the hospital of our friend's family.
After four days of staying there...
Professor Paluch was here.
Yes.
The young Użykowski came to us.
He is now a just citizen of the world.
And he was a very passionate person.
He was very close to the Jewish nation.
He was in Israel.
He was an American who had a family in Israel.
He gave some money.
A dozen or so people went there to visit the most important places in Israel.
What was the name of Użykowski's son?
What was his name?
The 17-year-old boy.
Janusz.
That's his name now.
But his father, Feliks Użykowski, played the most important role.
Feliks Użykowski was...
Excuse me, did you know them before the war?
No.
You didn't know them at all.
Yes.
Feliks Użykowski was a disabled person.
He was a sergeant in the war of 1920.
He received a military duty for the defense of a bridgehead.
It was of the highest importance.
He had some courses on the field.
He was very interested in medicine.
Every evening he had a medical lecture.
At 9 p.m. we were already free.
We could go to the dining room.
My husband and I talked there.
Excuse me for interrupting, but I would like to know
if you were hiding in Miłosna?
Were you there as official guests?
We were hiding.
We didn't have any documents there.
Was it a separate house?
It was a separate house.
No one lived there except for them.
But there were Orłowscy.
They were Janusz's grandfathers.
Mr. Orłowski was an anti-Semite.
So he didn't dare to say that we were Jews.
It was called that he was a wife's officer.
You had to hide.
Mr. Orłowski designed two lockers for us.
One was right behind the door, in the kitchen.
The Germans had a custom of running to the front door.
So the lockers were made deep under the floor.
There was a box in the kitchen, where a woman used to hide.
The bottom of the box was taken out.
And the Germans made a very big locker deep under the floor.
We had the worst time there.
They didn't look for us.
They looked for everyone who was alive.
They were looking for meat, for Soviet paratroopers.
They were looking for Jews.
We found out about it from Janusz.
Janusz was in the anti-German legion.
They were called partisans.
He knew that the next day, or in two days, there would be a revision.
We went to the cellar together.
He wanted to see what it was like.
He was 17 years old.
There were military maps and pistols.
We had everything we could find in the cellar.
And there were our memorabilia.
At some point, when the Germans were getting closer to the door,
we could hear their footsteps, Janusz jumped out.
"I want to see what the revision looks like."
That's what he said.
And when his mother jumped out, the Germans searched him.
He didn't have anything with him.
He didn't have a winter coat, because he was told to go outside.
And there was a pistol in his coat.
He didn't want to die, and we didn't want to die either.
But I want to tell you about the first day after we arrived.
So our relations with the Użygowski state were perfect.
We liked each other very much.
On the first day after we arrived,
we saw huge fields and buildings from the window of the Użygowski's room.
And we saw Germans bringing the Jewish family out of the neighboring house.
I was looking at Mańka, and he was looking at me.
And I said to him, "We'll probably go back to Warsaw."
Mr. Użykowski said, "Dr. Paluch has given you to me,
and I don't want to give up.
You'll be with me for as long as it takes."
And we left the guest house after almost a year and a half.
Because at night, there were fighting for Miłosna Street
between Germans and Russians.
The Russians had a tank joint in Miłosna Street,
and the Germans were destroying the tanks that were standing near our house.
And at night, the roof over our heads collapsed.
Together with the glass, we woke up in a sea of glass.
My husband had a heart attack, and I treated him because there was no other way.
He had swollen legs, but there was nowhere to be.
- It was the summer of 1944? - Yes.
Only those tall flowers, what were they called?
- Yellow, golden. - Sunflowers.
They knew about this great secret of our room.
They were looking out the window, and no one else knew about it.
After saying goodbye to our hosts,
we went out to the front line.
There was a telephone line,
and every now and then, shrapnel and bombs were exploding over our heads.
We had to fall, and my husband had swollen legs. It was very difficult.
We reached the Lubelska road.
On the way, we met a group of Poles, who were moving somewhere.
We introduced ourselves.
As we had in the documents, my husband told me the Polish name,
Goszczyński or Gwiazdowski, I don't remember.
He said, "But which Gwiazdowski?"
My husband answered,
"We will get to the Lubelska road,
and a Soviet truck stopped in front of us.
It was heading towards Lublin, and it took us there."
Were you more afraid of Poles or Russians?
We weren't afraid at all. We were happy that we escaped to Germany.
We didn't even think about it.
It was a special situation.
We got to Lublin at the police hour.
A guard took us to a room in the cellar,
where there were several such people.
She gave us something to cover ourselves with.
There were a lot of mattresses, but we paid for them.
At night, we heard terrible wheezing.
My husband was so tired, but he couldn't stand it.
He was sick on the back of his stomach.
He said, "Emma, I have to take him to the hospital."
I said, "What? It's the police hour. I can't leave him here."
He took him to the hospital. I said, "How are you going to save yourself?"
"I'll tell them I'm a doctor."
They weren't Germans anymore.
After a while, my husband was active in the Polish Radio in Nasuch.
He knew a few languages very well.
Later, we got in touch with Warman,
who was in charge of the Lublin sanitary service.
- Was it Kamil Warman? - Yes.
He gave us an assignment to the evacuation hospital No. 62.
- In Lublin? - Yes, in Lublin.
Later, we moved on with the hospital.
It's not part of today's meeting.
- It is. - Really?
The evacuation hospital No. 62 was a tragic but also joyful experience for me.
It was a hospital directly behind the front line.
They brought me a sergeant who was wounded in the neck.
I was a day doctor then. It was at night.
I woke up a nurse. I was shotless.
I had an atlas on Saturday. I've never had such surgery.
But what could I do? I was spitting blood.
I sewed up the vein, looking at the atlas.
I cut it open.
Then I woke up a man with zero blood, as I said before during Szelin's suicide.
He gave me a liter of blood.
And the sergeant left. He left wholeheartedly.
He wrote to the warden, Rydz-Żymierski,
that a young nurse had saved his life.
And Rydz-Żymierski came. Two doctors came.
No one had a degree.
Every officer reported without a degree.
What the hell are you talking about?
Everyone had no degree.
The warden was a captain and the assistant was a lieutenant.
That's how I became a lieutenant.
Then I received the Silver Cross of Merit.
And my husband received the Golden Cross.
He was a captain during the transfusion.
That's how we fought for a long time.
What year was it when Rydz-Żymierski came?
It was 1944.
We were evacuated from the hospital to Otwock.
I don't remember any special experience there.
It was a normal work with the wounded from the battlefield.
Where did you live in Otwock?
It was a family place.
It was a temporary place.
But then we were evacuated to Gdańsk.
There was a real hospital there.
Our hospital was built there.
The war ended on the way.
There were posters.
We were very happy.
We arrived in Gdańsk.
The head of the hospital was a psychiatrist.
I don't remember his name now.
I think he was Polish.
He was forced to do it.
The head of the hospital was one of the Poles.
His name was Malinowski.
Not Malinowski, but Malinowski.
Malinowski.
He asked me to do it. He was a psychiatrist.
He said, "You will be a dentist in my hospital."
He was Russian?
Yes, all of them were Russian.
I went to the dentist's office.
There was only a tripod, a machine and a chair.
I asked him, "What's going on with you?"
He said, "Nothing is going on with you."
I said, "My doctor was working, so you will be working too."
So we were assigned to a house in Sopot.
We went to the Black Market Square.
I bought everything I needed.
A can, a drill and so on.
I worked there for a long time.
After that, there were many other things.
I don't think it makes sense.
How did you find yourself after the war as Jews?
Were there any discussions between Polish and Jewish doctors?
No, there were no discussions.
When my husband was in the army, in Sopot,
we were organizing a hospital there.
Gdańsk was close to Sopot and we lived there.
He got a letter from Prof. Hirschfeld from Wrocław.
Prof. Hirschfeld was organizing a medical academy there.
He asked the military commander to release my husband,
who was very much in need.
My husband was on his military training before the war.
So they released my husband half a year before me.
I was still very much in need.
When did you move to Wrocław?
My husband moved there in 1945.
He had a heart attack there.
How did you try to find a family?
We didn't have a family.
Fifty people from my family died.
His beloved sixth daughter died.
Fifth, I'm sorry.
So who lived in your family apart from your sister?
My only sister-in-law was my aunt.
She is in Warsaw.
She lived on the side of the army.
She moved to our apartment.
She had two children at that time.
Her husband's name was Kotowicz.
He looked like a Pole.
But one day she couldn't stand it.
She told her neighbors that she had to hide.
They were probably her neighbors.
So she called the police.
Kotowicz was supposed to come later.
He said that he would report to the police station.
And he did.
He had his own documents.
Mieczysław Kotowicz.
They looked at him closely and said,
"You are so stupid that you came here."
"Get out of here as soon as possible."
It was the Polish Grenadier's police.
They had to change the apartment.
That's how they managed to survive.
My firstborn was born in Warsaw.
Her daughter, who is now forty years old,
is a Holocaust survivor.
When did you find out that your father was dead?
I found out, I'm sure,
I found out only in Sweden.
I found out that he was murdered in Katyn.
But I had a continuous love story with him.
He told me that he was alive.
And that my mother was alive.
She whispered in my ear.
I could feel her lips by my ear.
She said, "Ema, it's so hard for you to come to us."
And I said in my sleep, "I would like to live a little longer."
I was still very young then.
And my husband encouraged me, he woke me up.
I was very grateful to him for that.
That's how it is, that's how it looks like.
More or less everything.
How was your life after the war?
And when did you decide to start a family?
It was very good,
because in 1946 I got my first nomination
for the senior assistant at the Medical Academy for Stomatology.
In Wrocław?
In Wrocław.
And my husband was an adjunct professor at the University of Czechoslovakia.
He had two heart attacks in the meantime.
After those experiences.
And later, a few years after the war,
he had a severe stomach ache.
We were in Rabka at that time.
And he told me that he was going to die.
And that I had to take him to the hospital.
And that's what I did.
To Kraków.
And it turned out that he had a bag of blood from a kidney.
After those German attacks.
And he had his kidney removed.
He had that Jewish mark.
He was treated very meticulously.
To the point that when he had a high fever after the surgery,
I invited the doctor on duty,
because I was sleeping there,
to give him penicillin.
The doctor on duty said that he couldn't,
because the professor was under the supervision of the boss.
And I said, "How is that possible?"
"But he has such a high fever."
And my husband himself said that he was vomiting, and so on.
I had penicillin with me.
I didn't give up on penicillin.
I gave him a shot.
And in the morning the doctor came and said that I did a very good job.
And he had pneumonia and drenage.
And then he was brought to Wrocław with that drenage.
A car came from Wrocław,
followed by a nurse.
And there in Wrocław,
he found an invitation in the post office to America,
to Rockefeller.
And he was treated there quickly.
It started to go fast.
It was true.
A year later, it was the second time.
Because they asked for Rockefeller twice.
And then we were in Switzerland.
My daughter was five years old then.
When was the first child born?
Exactly.
My son was born in 1949.
Józef.
And Jarenka, a year later.
But I wanted to tell you,
maybe you can experience this in a more intimate way.
I was, as I said, an assistant,
and later an adjunct,
in the dentist department.
And my duty was
to remove teeth and gums
at the internal department,
at the cardiology.
There was a professor,
what was his name?
I will recall it in a moment.
It doesn't matter.
And he, his adjunct,
asked for an end,
because the wall was moving,
and the patient's head was here.
There was no chair, just like that.
I did it.
"Oh, please remove one more."
Someone was there.
And he had to move to the bed,
because he couldn't move anymore.
He couldn't even move.
He had a root or two roots.
I did it, he died unconscious.
After the anesthesia,
a good anesthesia,
without adrenaline.
So I was pregnant.
I went to my husband,
to the microbiology department.
I didn't know about it yet,
but I was shocked by this death.
My husband didn't ask me anything,
he just gave me coffee.
When I drank coffee, I told him what was going on.
The next day, I went to Prof. Szczeklik.
He was a professor,
a very famous professor of cardiology,
who lived in the same house as me,
one floor above.
I said, "Professor,
why did your assistants
tell me to perform the last injection,
when a person is so seriously ill,
and you are taking care of him?"
He could have died of defecation,
I will never forget what he said.
"But why did I have to perform
the last injection?"
So I did it,
and later I had a miscarriage.
Yes, the first child was born
in 1949.
Juziek.
And my daughter was born in 1950.
I think that's all.
I think so.
I would like to know
what kind of children you had,
when you were little,
what holidays did you celebrate at home?
You asked me once.
I said that only my mother
went to bed on Sunday
and went to the synagogue.
My father was a socialist.
But now I mean you and your husband.
How did you raise your children?
I don't have any.
Maybe only Christmas.
Did your children know that they were Jews?
They knew,
but they were baptized.
Both of my children were baptized.
They were baptized,
and it was after the ghetto,
because the Germans took out
the unbaptized children
and the Poles gave them away.
Some, no, not all,
but some did.
And the unbaptized children
were left alive.
That's why I thought
that it would be better
to baptize these children.
We were in a cart by the sea.
The children were tiny.
And I told my husband
that I wanted to baptize them.
My husband said, "What do you need it for?"
I said, "You know what the situation is."
I told him about it.
He said, "Listen, darling,
I will live short anyway,
and you will have children
under your care.
Do as you see fit."
And that's how it happened.
So the children were already
4 and 5 years old.
Yes.
How old were the children
when they found out
that they were Jews?
They knew, of course.
They knew.
Yes.
But their parents were
great Jews.
There were no prayers.
There was nothing like that
on Christmas.
The highest holiday
was Christmas Eve.
There were gifts for Christmas.
And that's all.
You are disappointed.
We are interrupting now.
Yes, yes, but you are disappointed.
You are disappointed.
The end
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