Nancy Fordonski - July 29, 1982
Zdunska Wola
[pause] After your family ran away, can you describe what happened? Where did you go?
We were marching, going, tired, scared, very frightened because with every step you made you were afraid that you know, that the Germans they are on, on uh, with, with tanks and with all kind, different uh, vehicles that they will get us sooner than, than we were thinking or sooner than we're, get to a certain place because our goal was to get, to go to Zdunska Wola. This was a place--my mother's birthplace and we had there, my two older sisters lived there. And my mother's uh, my mother had a sister there with a family and my mother had a brother there with a family. So we were thinking that you know, we'll just get away from our town where--to be safe that the Germans shouldn't get a hold of us because being a well known family in the community. So we came to that city, but uh, it was uh, lived through a lot of disappointment. My brother, what is thank God still alive, at that time, Jack, or I call him still, Srilek, he was in the Polish army and uh, we didn't know how long he will be away you know, or he will ever find us. And when we got to Zdunska Wola we couldn't be all of us couldn't be in one place. My sister's place wasn't big enough, my, and the other relative's place wasn't big enough and we were very anxious to stay together. And this was terrible heartbreaking. First of all, leaving your own brick house, which you were so good off and having everything and here all of a sudden you come in, you had hardly any place to be. It was nice before the war when I went to my sister on vacation, so I was just the only one there. I was greeted with open hands and I had the time of my life. But you know, later when we came in there was my father, my mother, and uh, my six, six sisters and a brother. So you know, it was pretty crowded. And the beginning there wasn't enough food either because everything was going so, so hectic and so fast. So I went with my brother what is still missing and with one of the, not the youngest sister, but the older, Martel. Because the youngest sister my mother kept to herself. She said, "She's my youngest, she's the baby, Naomi. As long we are, we can, we will hold on to her." And I went with my brother and sister to my grandmother--she should rest in peace, she was lovely lady--to Szadek. This was the city where my father was born, where my father lived.
[interruption in interview]
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