Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

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Miriam Monczyk-Laczkowska Ferber - December 7, 1999

So they were in Sosnowiec, which is-which was eventually not a very good place for Jews to be.

Well, it was a good place. It was a very Jewish city.

No, I mean when the Nazis came.

Well, the Nazis came, yes. And uh, it was like any other city. Uh, I have no idea why they fled to Sosnowiec, but it was close to Chorzów probably. And uh, Chorzów was closer to the German border and they just went a little bit uh, further away.

Then what happened?

Then uh, well, they were sent--well, I guess my, this, this neighbor, a very lovely couple by the name of Stanisława and Joseph Łączkowska, uh befriended my mother and my father and my brother. They were, they were friends. More so my--Mr. Łączkowska was the one who uh, befriended my father, is uh, Shlomo Monczyk. And at one point he was asked--no, since there were um, there were rumors that Jewish people will be, will have to move out of, of their homes and they have to go to a ghetto, you know, in Srodula, which was on the suburbs of uh, of Sosnowiec. My mother approached the family, Łączkowskas and asked them if they could um, at least take one child for a few months. Maybe she will come back and, uh. She was sure, actually, that she will come back and she will um, fetch me back. And the family, not realizing what was in stake for them and you know, in 1942 people did not understand yet t...they didn't know too much about concentration camps. They only knew they had to go into the ghettos and that they had to be gathered there. And uh, they didn't know what the future would bring. So uh, one afternoon. Now the couple, the Polish couple had two children. They had a son who was, in 1942, he was sixteen years old and they had a daughter who was seventeen years old. And uh, at one point the family, the couple, Mr. and Mrs. Łączkowska and their son, went to the Srodula and my--they put on their Jewish, the Jewish star, you know, on their arms and they walked in as Jews into the ghetto, without a child. And they came out with a buggy and a seven-months-old Miriam, which was...