Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Monday, August 11, 2008
Thursday, August 7, 2008
Nina's Story
Nina was born into a wealthy family in a nice area of the Polish city of L'vov (now in the Ukraine). When the Russians took over in 1939, a general liked their apartment and moved in. She and her mother were allowed to stay on as servants in their own home.
Shortly after she graduated from high school, the Russians and the Germans broke up. She was on vacation in the mountains near home in 1941, when her dad called and said they had to come back to town. The next Sunday morning they woke to the sounds of the German bombs.
When the Russians left and the Germans arrived, she was forced to move to the poor part of town, which was walled off with guard towers and became a ghetto of 115,000 Jews. She refused to wear the yellow star armband because she didn't look Jewish and nobody bothered her. But one day a nice German soldier stopped her and said she's in great danger if she doesn't, because she could be killed on the spot if anybody finds out. She spent a lot of time doing odd jobs, mostly cleaning the street, because they'd beat her if she didn't. She applied for a job as a nanny to a German family and was accepted.
They were good to her, and even offered to take her out of the ghetto when they left, but she said no because she wanted to stick around Poland to see whether her family would turn up. Her brother was a famous doctor. Because he operated the first and only EKG machine in Poland, she figured the Germans would have to let him live, so
eventually he'd be looking for her. She more-or-less enjoyed working for the family because the baby really liked her, and she had food and a clean place to sleep. She didn't get paid, but she said she was "happy enough not to get shot."
Eventually they moved her to a concentration camp nearby, where she did physical labor like moving stones and making building materials. She wasn't there for long before they rounded everybody up and took them into the forest to shoot them. She fainted, and so they thought she was dead. When she woke up, she took off running into the forest.
She hid there for a while, then went back to the ghetto to look for her family. She stayed around the area in hiding with Polish families for a year, and then decided it was too dangerous, and headed west. She was in hiding until the end of the war, and moved to New York in 1947. All of her father's substantial property in Berlin and Poland/Ukraine was lost. None of her family survived except her.
(Nina's life story summary was emailed to me by my friend Kenny Garrett, he helped her out legally somehow and heard her entire life story. She is emailing him her memoirs, so maybe they'll show up here too.)
Shortly after she graduated from high school, the Russians and the Germans broke up. She was on vacation in the mountains near home in 1941, when her dad called and said they had to come back to town. The next Sunday morning they woke to the sounds of the German bombs.
When the Russians left and the Germans arrived, she was forced to move to the poor part of town, which was walled off with guard towers and became a ghetto of 115,000 Jews. She refused to wear the yellow star armband because she didn't look Jewish and nobody bothered her. But one day a nice German soldier stopped her and said she's in great danger if she doesn't, because she could be killed on the spot if anybody finds out. She spent a lot of time doing odd jobs, mostly cleaning the street, because they'd beat her if she didn't. She applied for a job as a nanny to a German family and was accepted.
They were good to her, and even offered to take her out of the ghetto when they left, but she said no because she wanted to stick around Poland to see whether her family would turn up. Her brother was a famous doctor. Because he operated the first and only EKG machine in Poland, she figured the Germans would have to let him live, so
eventually he'd be looking for her. She more-or-less enjoyed working for the family because the baby really liked her, and she had food and a clean place to sleep. She didn't get paid, but she said she was "happy enough not to get shot."
Eventually they moved her to a concentration camp nearby, where she did physical labor like moving stones and making building materials. She wasn't there for long before they rounded everybody up and took them into the forest to shoot them. She fainted, and so they thought she was dead. When she woke up, she took off running into the forest.
She hid there for a while, then went back to the ghetto to look for her family. She stayed around the area in hiding with Polish families for a year, and then decided it was too dangerous, and headed west. She was in hiding until the end of the war, and moved to New York in 1947. All of her father's substantial property in Berlin and Poland/Ukraine was lost. None of her family survived except her.
(Nina's life story summary was emailed to me by my friend Kenny Garrett, he helped her out legally somehow and heard her entire life story. She is emailing him her memoirs, so maybe they'll show up here too.)
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