Tosia: Chapter 5

Portrait of a Jewish woman in her own words. Written by her daughter Felicia Graber.
Updated November 1, 2024.

Shlomo got busy right away. He told me that he was getting in touch with his underground connections to provide us—him, me and Felucja—with false Aryan documents. I had no idea where he got them, but he did. When we received the papers, an identification card for me and a birth certificate for Felucja, Shlomo informed me that I was to leave alone with our child. I was horrified. “I will not leave without you,” I cried. “I want us to stay together. I want to die with you.”

“But I do not want to die with you,” he replied angrily. “I want to live with you. If we stay together, we do not have much of a chance to survive, to pose as Aryans. My Polish is not as good as yours. My looks, especially my nose, will betray us. I have much more chance of surviving on my own. I am young and strong. I can jump out of a train if need be. Together we are doomed.”

Still, I refused. Finally, he got very angry, took out a suitcase and started throwing Felucja’s and my things into it. I was desperate. How could I manage alone with a two-year-old child? Where would I live? What shall I tell people who ask me questions?  I do not know how to behave as a Christian. Will I have to go to church? What do you do in church? How do you behave so as not to attract undue attention and make people wonder who you really are? But Shlomo would not listen to my fears. He had everything figured out.

“I have arranged for both of you to be driven out of the ghetto and out of town. The son of my boss has the use of a car because he has to drive German officers around. He will take you to Iwonicz-Zdrój, a small resort town nearby. Engineer Pazdrow, a friend, will accompany you, and he will help you find a room.”

“You will tell people your husband, Josef Ślusarczyk, is a Polish soldier. He is missing. The Germans have been harassing you for information about his whereabouts. You just had to move to get out from under their clutches. You will be fine. I talked with Marion Urban, a non-Jewish Polish farmer.” (Note from Felicia: I do not know how my parents knew/trusted Urban.)

“He has agreed to be our go-between. I do not want to know where you live. It could be too dangerous in case I get questioned or tortured. Marion will keep us in touch with each other, and he will also bring you money as well as jewelry to sell on the black market.

Sigmund Hollander (AKA Szpilman) will help you with this. He is a good friend and also lives as an Aryan. Here are all the addresses and information you need. You will leave tomorrow. Don’t forget to take off the star from your coat. Remember, from now on, you are a Polish woman, Anna Zofia Ślusarczyk. You are no longer Tosia Lederberger, the Jewess.” 

It was thus that in November 1942, after the second deportation, I went with the child on Aryan papers. I was accompanied by a client of ours. Engineer Pazdrow took me to Iwonicz Zdrój. There, he put me in contact with a friend of his, Szpilman. This man knew who I was, and he helped me rent a room from a Mrs. Richter.

One day, about two months later, I came home from an errand. I left the child at home because it was a harsh winter. Mrs. Richter demanded a higher rent from me. When I asked her why, she said to me, “I know everything from your daughter. She told me that her Daddy’s name was Shlomo, not Josef. That means that you are a Jew. Don’t play games with me, or I will go to the Gestapo.”

I knew that I could not give in to this blackmail because it would just confirm her suspicion. So, I laughed, telling her, “You must have heard wrong. My daughter must have heard that name somewhere. It has nothing to do with me. My husband, as I told you, is Josef Ślusarczyk.” I did not feel as sure of myself as I tried to sound.

I went right away to my friend, Szpilman, and told him what happened. He told me, “You have to leave Iwonicz.”  I did not know what to do. I sent a message to Shlomo in Tarnów.

I wanted to return to the ghetto. But Shlomo sent back the address of another friend, Zigmund Hollander in Milanówek, a suburb of Warsaw, and ordered me to go there. The messenger who brought me this communication arranged for a man to drive me in a horse-drawn wagon to the train station. The driver realized who I was, a Jew on the run with a small child. He took pity on us and volunteered to take me all the way to Milanówek. We rode all night. 

When I arrived in Milanówek, I asked my driver to wait a few minutes, and went upstairs to Zigmund’s place. There I got a scary welcome. “You have come at the wrong time,” Zigmund told me. “Yesterday, I had a visit from the Polish “Blue” police. They did not find anything, but I must leave the apartment.” (Note from Felicia: “Polish police wore blue uniforms and were as dreaded as the Gestapo.” In recent years, historians have unearthed a growing body of evidence pointing to war crimes by the so-called Polish “Blue Police” during the occupation, in particular in relation to the Holocaust. NFP www.notesfromPoland.com.)

I was desperate; I travelled alone all night with the child. I told Zigmund, “I have no alternative but to go to the Gestapo and give myself up. Why should I suffer needlessly? I was to perish in Tarnów, so I might as well perish in Milanówek.”

“Not so fast. Don’t decide so quickly. There is always time for that,” Zigmund replied. “First, dismiss the driver. We will figure something out.” I did as I was told. Then, Zigmund said the Szpalski family also lived in Milanówek. Karol Szpalski was contacted; he came and told me, “Calm down, and stay here. I am going to my parents, and I will tell them about you.” Half an hour later, he returned. He talked to his landlady, telling her that a cousin of his was on the way to Warsaw with her little child. Would she allow her to spend the night in his parents’ apartment? The landlady agreed. That is what I did.

In the meantime, Karol found a room for me with a railroad worker—a very decent man. He worked for the Armja Podziemna, the Polish Underground Army. I felt safe there. From time to time, I went to the Szpilman’s to find out what was going on in Tarnów. Karol had connections, and he moved around very easily. He even managed to arrange an identification card for me, and I myself went to the Magistrate to pick it up. The elder Szpilman made a birth certificate for Felucja.

However, this situation did not last long. Downstairs from us lived a lady who also had a child, a girl, Felucja’s age. Once, when I had gone out and came back home, she told me, “Felucja told me that she is a Pole but really a Jew.”  In those days, I was naturally much younger and had strong nerves. I took it lightly even with a smile, “Maybe you, yourself, are a Jew, or maybe you are Chinese or Greek. Who knows?”  

That evening, however, the landlord came to see me and told me that he knew about the incident with the child and asked me to move out. I told him that it was all a mistake. I showed him my papers. He told me, “I believe you. I believe everything you are telling me. But because I feel sorry for you and sorry for the child, I am asking you to move out. Find another place to live.”

I went back to Szpilman’s. Karol found me another place to live again, but again that did not work out. Karol was also looking for a back-up place to live since he had the visit from the police. So, we were both looking for a place. When I went to look at the new room, the landlady told me during our conversation that Karol must be a Jew because he was too sure of himself and has a lot of gall. When I heard that and told Karol, he said that obviously, I could not rent that place. 

My current landlord, a very decent person warned me that I had to move out. “But I want to help you. I have an acquaintance, a lawyer in Warsaw. You could be his helper—open doors, clean. You can place your child in a children’s home where she can sleep. I can try to get a bed for her.”

I could not go along with that because I did not want to separate from my child. I said, “Whatever will be with me, will be with the child. I want to be with my child.” Karol had gone to Warsaw for some business, and when he came back, he told me that in Warsaw there were two women from Tarnów who had a room on Szucha 11. They could take me in. So, I packed up and went to Warsaw with the child. I found out later from Helenka, Karol’s wife, that I had gotten away in the nick of time. Apparently, that nice landlord denounced me. Police had come looking for “the lady with the child with black hair and long braids.”

To be continued.

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Read more by Felicia Graber.