Tosia: Chapter 9

Portrait of a Jewish woman in her own words, written by her daughter, Felicia Graber.
Updated January 25, 2025.
Part 9 of 10

I was slowly getting my health back when Shlomo became the target of an investigation by the Polish Internal Revenue Service. These were very scary times. Two or three agents came to the store and checked the books and the inventory. After that, they demanded to search our apartment. They looked in every nook and cranny. They searched through Shlomo’s desk, all our drawers, and took everything out. I knew that Shlomo had some hiding places in his desk where he kept some “black market” merchandise.

I was terrified. What would happen to us if they found the hidden things? Would he go to jail? Or worse, would his life be in danger? What would happen to me and my children? Had we survived this horrible war to have to deal again with antagonistic bureaucrats? I did not trust these Polish Communist officials. They probably could not wait to throw the book at us.

Luckily, they did not find anything illegal or wrong. However, they claimed Shlomo had not paid all the taxes he was supposed to pay, even though he had paid what had been required by law. They even impounded some merchandise which they would hold until the payment was made in full. My nerves were shattered. What would come next? Shlomo flew to Warsaw to see someone who would help in the matter.

He came back very depressed. “We are being extorted. The Communists are becoming stronger and are on a warpath against all capitalists. And, we are definitely one of those. There is only one thing that we can do—we have to get out of Poland.” This was all too much for me at this time in my life. I was still recuperating from the surgery and needed all the help I could get; I had a sick child on top of all this. How could I manage? This was no time for me to start a new life in a foreign country. But there was nothing I could do.

Shlomo, being his old maverick self, managed to officially change our names to Bialecki so that we could obtain passports. I did not fully understand why this was necessary but then, it was Shlomo who arranged it all. Obviously, I was not happy with this arrangement. Why couldn’t we just go back to our “real” name—Lederberger. We had a son, who was named Leon, after my father-in-law. Bialecki would just not do. But again, there was nothing I could do. Shlomo promised me we would return to our original name as soon as possible when we were settled in the West.

Then, somehow, Shlomo got to a Belgian Vice-Consul, bribed him and received Belgian visas for the four of us. We were to take the train from Warsaw to Brussels. Shlomo found a distant cousin there. Plans were that Brussels would be just a stopover. We would go to South America, probably Brazil, as soon as it was feasible. Shlomo found a young man to manage our store. Of course, Shlomo took as much merchandise as he could safely stash away in hidden pockets of his pants and jackets. He changed all the złotys he could get our hands on into British pounds. Those were supposed to be one of the safest, most stable currencies. I assume that American dollars were hard to get on the black market, otherwise he would have probably preferred those.

We were making preparations to leave. Officially we were going on a family vacation, thus we packed only whatever we could carry in our four suitcases. I know that most of our friends, as well as our staff, suspected that we would not be coming back, but no one said anything.

Felucja, who had been taking piano lessons and was doing beautifully, even got to open the first yearly concert in Sopot’s concert hall to be held after the war. At the age of seven, she was the youngest “artist” to perform. Her teacher begged me to make sure that she continued her piano studies no matter what. We were very proud of her, she played so well.

Then, on October 6,1947, we boarded the train and started our journey towards a new life. However, as we were sitting in the train, waiting for the departure, Shlomo bought a newspaper and started reading. Suddenly, he said: “Read this. The Bagian vice-consul committed suicide because he was caught taking bribes.” I panicked, “That’s the end. They are going to arrest us. We survived the war just to end up like this?” But nothing happened.

We crossed the Polish border without incident. The trip took two or three days—I do not remember exactly. When we arrived at the German border, my heart pounded. I could not believe that I would ever enter German space and breathe German air. I would not get off the train; I would not set foot on German soil. When the German border custom official came in to check the passport, and I saw a German in uniform, I froze. Luckily, the formalities were over quite rapidly, and we were on our way.

One of the first things Shlomo discovered when arriving in Brussels was that the English pounds we had were worthless. They were forgeries, which the Germans had printed in the hope of flooding the market and destroying England’s economy. Apparently, there were also plans to do the same with the American dollar, but they did get enough time to do it.

Now, suddenly we found ourselves destitute. We rented a dingy apartment, which was halfway underground so that we had very little daylight. Leon was a fussy and spoiled baby, and it was very difficult to keep him quiet as the doctors had ordered. Every time he cried there was a danger that his hernia would “slide” down and he would be in mortal danger.

Felucja was enrolled in a French school. How would she manage? There was no time to worry about it. Surely, she would be fine. It was important for her to know the truth about her background before she started school. I insisted Shlomo tell her she was Jewish and he was her real father. He told her the night before she started school.

At first, Felucja seemed to take it all in stride. Every day, she came home from school with tons of questions. She wanted to know about her grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins. Had they all been Jewish? And, she had questions about the war.

Sometime soon afterwards, Felucja started to tell tall tales. She made up imaginary stories about an older sister who had been killed by German attack dogs. She told that story to her teacher who commiserated with me the next time I met her. I decided to have a serious talk with Felucja. Poor child, she had a hard time differentiating between truth and fiction, not that I could blame her. Slowly but surely, she stopped her tales and returned to being the good, obedient child she had always been.

To be continued.
Read Chapter 10.

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Read more by Felicia Graber.