Barbara Schechter Cohen - May 1, 2002
Introduction
Can you tell me your name please and where you were born?
Uh, Barbara Cohen and I was born in Bukaczowce, Bukaczowce.
Which is near where?
Um, I think it is near uh, Stanisławów. I'm not sure, 'cause I did try to find it on the map and I could not find it.
Yeah. Um so, it's--you think it's in the Ukraine or, is it near Krakow, you told me it was near Krakow.
Well, yeah. Then I um, went back to--we. Our story is in a book and I was reading what my mother wrote. And she, and she writes that, that it's near Krakow, thirty miles west of Krakow. So, um...
Okay, so it's in Poland.
It's, it's in Poland. I, I don't know why I had the impression that it was a part of the Ukraine. Because someone uh, that knows the area said, "Oh yes, Bukaczowce, that's part of the Ukraine." So I, I'm confused where it is.
Okay, maybe we'll put somebody on it and see if we can find--figure out where it is. Um, how old were you during the war?
Well, I was born in uh, '41. So I was uh, two years old when the war broke out.
Okay, but the war started in '39.
Yeah.
So you weren't born until two years after the war had started.
Uh, yeah, right, right.
Um, unless it was in Eastern Poland, then it didn't start 'til '41. So um, so where was your mother for those, for those two years? Do you know? Were your parents ...
Um, my mother was in uh, she was born in Stanisławów. And um, she worked as a, as a bookkeeper. Um, I think during those two years she uh, she heard rumors what was happening and she went to another town to uh, to work there. And then, and then uh, my father who was born in Krakow, they uh, it wasn't safe to be in Krakow. And then he tried to get work and he got work in Stanisławów and that's how they met.
© Board of Regents University of Michigan-Dearborn