Tosia: Chapter 6

Portrait of a Jewish woman in her own words written by her daughter Felicia Graber. Updated November 12, 2024.

In Warsaw, I lived with two other Jewish women from Tarnów. I had it pretty good, even though in the house there also lived Poles who had children. I had to let my child go out to the garden to play because it would have been suspicious if I didn’t. Whenever she went down, I took a tranquilizer to calm me. Twenty times a day I taught her the Lord’s prayer. She wore a pendant of the Holy Mother on a cross, which had come from our store.

Because of Felucja’s very dark hair, she drew suspicious glances. My friend Karol, to whom I turned for advice whenever I could, first thought we should color her hair blond. After some discussion, however, we decided this would probably look too fake and draw even more unwanted attention. He advised me not to take Felucja with me when I went to the marketplace. “It is safer if you leave her home. She draws too much attention to herself.” So, from then on, I left my little three-year-old alone in our room when I had to run some errands.

One day, I was almost caught in a raid. I was in the marketplace; the square was suddenly surrounded by German army trucks. Soldiers jumped out and started to round up anyone within their grasp. Those unfortunate ones who were caught would probably be sent to Germany for slave labor. Quickly, I darted into an entrance of a house and crouched, making myself as invisible as possible. I succeeded in evading the Germans but did not dare to budge from my hiding place for several hours.

Finally, when the coast seemed clear, I dashed home as quickly as I could. I found Felucja curled up on our bed, sleeping. She woke up right away, grabbed me around my neck sobbing. “I thought you were not coming back,” the poor child cried. “I was so scared. I did not know what to do.” That had been a close call, and I was even more careful from then on and tried to go out as little as possible.

Once every two weeks, Marian Urban, the farmer from Tarnów, came to see me in Warsaw. He always brought me some money and news from Shlomo. He would also bring food like a precious eggs, bread, even butter from his farm. I always tried to feed him after his long journey. But he refused. “Keep it for your child; she needs it more than I do.” He was such a decent man.

In April 1943, the young men still alive in the Warsaw Ghetto made a valiant effort to defend themselves. The German troops had come to make Warsaw Judenrein (clean of Jews). It took the mighty German Army almost one month to subdue those brave young men, longer than it had taken them to invade the whole of Poland. We, on Szucha Street, did not really hear the shooting, but in the middle of May we saw the ghetto burning. Thousands of Warsaw citizens stood on rooftops to watch the spectacle. There were no voices of concern, sadness or pity. The people just said, “The Jews are burning.” 

Then, in late 1943, Marian stopped coming. I saw this as a sign that he had nothing to bring me or tell me. Some Jews from Tarnów who lived as Aryans in Warsaw came to our place. From them, I found out that there had been a third deportation and that nobody remained alive. I was sure then that Shlomo was dead. I even went to a psychic and showed her a picture of him. She told me, “This person perished by Hitler’s hand recently.” Naturally, I was very desperate because I was all alone in the world with the child. I had no means to live, just the little jewelry I had left.

Then, one day Marion showed up together with Shlomo. I cannot even describe how happy I felt. He wore a Polish railroad conductor uniform. Officially, he could not live with me. He had a different name, Andrzej Bialecki. In addition, I had told everyone that my husband was a Polish soldier missing in action.

Shlomo also had Semitic features. Although he was fair skinned and had blue eyes, he still did not look Aryan. His nose gave him away. Even the mustache he grew did not help much. He could not register with the police to sublet a room. Officially, he came to us as a friend, making sure all neighbors saw him come in, and leave. He explained his presence as a friend of my missing husband. The neighbors always saw him arrive. Being a jokester, he always had a smile and a joke, a slap of every man’s back. He was the “good old boy,” the happy-go-lucky bachelor, who came by to lend a hand. Shlomo would make a big deal when he was leaving. He made enough noise to make sure the neighbors heard him say “Good-bye.” With a wave from the street, he would yell his farewell and disappear.

After dark, he would sneak back in, making sure nobody saw or heard him. When he was not supposed to be present, he sat behind the big closet. I had put the heavy closet catty-corner. Shlomo sat behind it whenever the door of our room would have to be opened, whether Felucja or I went in or out. He ducked behind the closet whenever a neighbor stopped by for a friendly chat. Felucja was so smart and trained; any time she needed to go out, she used sign language to indicate that Shlomo should go behind the wardrobe.

Times were very difficult because our lives lay in the hands of our three-year-old child. Whenever she went to play with the other children, there was a danger that she would say there was a man living with us. I told her 20 times over and over again, “We live alone, just you and me.” She was trained so well that when I woke her at night and asked her, “Felucju, (Polish way to address someone, i.e. I am talking to you.) who do you live with?”

She replied, “Mother, I already know everything. I live only with my mother, please let me sleep.”

Every night, I made sure she said the Lord’s prayer, kneeling and crossing herself. I went to church with her almost every Sunday. When Easter came, I went to church to have the eggs blessed. She was always the first to run up and kneel by the altar and pray. She was a real Catholic. It was very difficult.

Once the landlord came to me and told me that one of the neighbors remarked to him that the black-haired girl must be a Jewess. But the landlord was a very decent man. He told the neighbor, “If one hair falls off the child’s head, you will pay for it.” She got scared and left us alone.

One afternoon, a neighbor came for a friendly visit. We were sitting and making small talk. Shlomo was hiding behind the closet. Suddenly, he had a coughing spell that came out before he could squelch it. My neighbor jumped and looked around and quickly said, “Good-bye.” When he left, Shlomo and I were panic stricken. “What will he think? Did he realize that the noise had come from behind the closet? Will he go to the police and ask them to investigate? Is there anything that we should do or not do?”

Shlomo had a bright idea! We had a wood-burning stove that was connected to the chimney with a wide aluminum pipe. That pipe had several sections. “Let’s pry one of the sections off,” he said, “You will go to this man, tell him that the section had come loose and fell off. Ask for his help to fix it. I will sneak out to make sure that there will be no chance that he could accidentally peek behind the closet and see me.”

And that is what we did. Shlomo loosened the pipe section and tip-toed out of the house. I went to my neighbor and pleaded for his help to fix that pipe that had fallen off. He was very nice and helpful, came in, and fixed the pipe; but he also made sure to look around the room to see if something was amiss.

That was another close call, but we had been lucky, again. How long would our luck hold? God only knew.

To be continued.

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Read more by Felicia Graber.