Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

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Zofia Szostak - 1985

And uh, so somebody, probably the woman who, you know, who own this, this house where, where she used to live or something, maybe she wanted some money from her, and she didn't have any more. She was very old woman, I think 75 or 76, you know, and really looking even much, much older all along. And after all those years of occupation when Germans didn't touch her, uh, they gave her up and she died. I don't know, how- how did she die...anyways, she died on the, on the hands of, of the, you know, this political police, after the war, you know.

And little Eva? That young girl that...

She survived, and Mrs. Brown survived. I got a little card, postcard from them from Sweden, and uh, uh, she says that she survived, you know...was just few words. And uh, that she found out that her husband was, you know, some place with, with Polish Army, and she is going to try to find, find out where he is, you know, because uh, some, some of the, you know, people, Polish people who were shipped to Siberia by Russians from the eastern territories. Later, they organized two armies. And one army was Second Corp., you know, of under, under, General uh, Anders, was fighting uh, with him. I would say this was like a unit, Polish unit, within uh...

British?

British, British, you know. But they fought down at Tobruk, you know, and later, you know--wherever there was some, some bad fighting, they send them. And uh, so he was, since he was mobilized in 1939, somehow, he found himself over there 'cause some, some of the Polish officers and Po...Polish Army men were also, you know, taken by Russians. Few survived, but uh, he was the lucky one, you know, who did. And then another army was organized under General Berling, and then they went with Russians together, you know, and uh, you know, fought uh, fought, you know, with...together, together against Germans. But they were under, under Russian directives.

Do you think you and your family helped save them in any, in any way?

No, I can't, I can't say. No. I, I wish I could say. You know, I, we haven't done much for them except that maybe they felt, during that time, you know, that they had some friends. But we were not able to really, really save anybody. We did not live in our own home, you know? Uh, and uh, you know, probably if somebody would come up, you know, my parents probably would never, never turn anybody... they were helping, helping other people, but somehow...except that we, we were just in touch, touch with this particular group and, you know, they were, they were living quite officially, to the last moment. So this way I cannot say that I was hiding, hiding anybody, 'cause we were really not doing this. But they, you know, as long as they stay, they had, they had friendly people around them, you know, yeah.