Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

David Burdowski - May 13, 1982

Meeting Future Wife

Uh, what, what uh, can you tell me about your wife? You, you met her at the DP camp?

Yeah, I uh, somebody told us that there's uh, one particular barrack that they uh, there are women there and uh, going into the barrack I met uh, I met her. Somebody was with us that they knew from their hometown and uh, we kind of met and uh, they didn't have anything. The only thing they had is the clothes on their back. And I didn't have anymore either but uh, not having anybody and uh, we had a--heck, a few dollars with us that particular time and uh, we asked them if they would make lunch for us, and they did and that's how it started.

Is she from Poland?

Oh yeah, she's from uh, Międzyrzec Podlaski near the Russian border. And uh, a year later we were married.

What was her experience during the war?

She was a, uh, taken a little bit later into camp. First of all, she's four years younger than I am. So she was also very, very young when she come into camp. And uh, her parents got killed and uh, I think in Majdanek and her, and her sister survived also in--they went in Majdanek and Treblinka and other camps. Uh, and then finally she went to uh, Landsberg, the DP camp in Landsberg.

The sister--she and her sister...

Her sister, yeah.

...were in Majdanek, the German camp.

Majdanek, yeah, yeah. And uh, her mother was killed right on her, on her uh, in the same uh, train, like in a cattle train. And she, she suffers for that quite a bit. She never forgot that.

And her sister is still alive?

Yeah, her sister's also here.

In America?

Yeah. They came over here around uh, three months later in 1949. They're very, very close, her sister and her.


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