Auerbacher Inge - Children of terror

Children of Terror

Inge Auerbacher and
Bozenna Urbanowicz Gilbride

iUniverse, Inc.

New York Bloomington

Copyright 2009 by Inge Auerbacher and Bozenna Urbanowicz Gilbride

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ISBN: 978-1-4401-7809-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4401-7953-2 (ebook)

Printed in the United States of America

iUniverse rev. date: 11/16/2009

Dedication

We dedicate this book with our love to
all the children of the world.

Our wish is that they grow up in peace,
without hunger and without prejudice.

Acknowledgments

Joint Thanks

We both want to thank our editor, Felicia Friedland Weinberg, who was our pilot and made our manuscript fly and soar above the clouds. Our gratitude goes to Ed Weinberg for his excellent fine-tuning of our work, expert attention to detail and technological help. We are indebted to Professor Richard C. Lukas for granting us permission to use segments from his book, Forgotten Survivors Polish Christians Remember The Nazi Occupation , published by the University Press of Kansas, 2004. Appreciation goes to Lauren Simeone Berman for bringing our pictures to life, and to Professor Shawn Kildea and Gina Grosso, for their encouragement and friendship.

Thanks from Bozenna

I give special thanks to my husband Dick for taking over the household chores, which allowed me to write this book. He claims to be the only man in town with dishpan hands. Thank you to Stephen Mannino for the illustrations; Liz Macchio for her encouragement; Kathryn Burton of K. Burton/Kitty Kat Graphics for the magnificent photos; Blaine Phelps for teaching me what I needed to know about how to write this book on my computer; and Karolina Matiunin of Lublin, Poland, for the map illustration. I am grateful for the kind words of Bill Donohue of Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, and Ambassador Aldona Wos. Lastly, I want to thank God for our survival and the good health to finish this book.

I dedicate my story to my children, Richard T., Timothy, Stephen and Christine; and to my grandsons, Gregory, Trevor and Richard J.

Thanks from Inge

I am grateful to my wonderful friend and soul sister, Bozenna, for co-writing this book with me. I want to also include Bozennas loving husband Dick, who showed much patience for both of us during the stressful time writing our stories. I am most grateful to my dear friend Aaron Morgan, graphic artist, for the generous contribution of his great artistic talent to our project. Many thanks go to Rabbi Dr. Hirsch Joseph Simckes, of the St Johns University Department of Theology, for being my friend, and for always being there for me. Deep gratitude goes to David G. Marwell, Ph.D, Director of the Museum of Jewish Heritage A Living Memorial to the Holocaust, for sharing his kindness and wisdom. I am grateful to my dear friend Seymour L. Goldstein for being the wind beneath my wings, forever giving me inspiration, guidance, and the encouragement to go on and never give up. I am immensely grateful to my parents for their eternal love, and to God for keeping me safe in his divine embrace.

Contents

Prologue

During the Holocaust of World War II, eleven million innocent people were killed. Much has been written about the six million Jews, and very little about the five million others. Among them were millions of Christian Poles.

Bozenna, a practicing Roman Catholic from Poland, and Inge, an observant Jew from Germany, were born in 1934, a few months apart from each other. They met many years later in the United States when they both participated in a high school seminar on the Holocaust. They felt a similarity in their experiences, and have been friends ever since.

Inge was recently a houseguest at Bozennas home on Long Island, New York. They went for a walk. Two shadows formed on the ground in the dimming sunlight. Inge, being taller than Bozenna, stepped back slightly in order to equalize the height of the shadows. As the shadows became twins, Bozenna said, Can you tell the difference?

The idea was born that they write a book together, comparing their lives and experiences as children growing up in a time of terror.

Bozennas
Story

Home Sweet Home

I was born on October 12, 1934 to Wiktor and Janina Urbanowicz, in the small village of Leonowka, located in the far eastern province of Wolyn in Poland. Its population of 300 consisted primarily of Ukrainian Christians and, like my family, Polish Roman Catholics. The meld also included a small group of Polish and Ukrainian Jews.

No one talked about his or her ethnic roots; religion was not an issue. Whenever they met on their way to the market or church, people just talked about their crops and how they were doing.

I could name all the families in the village, but families didnt socialize with each other because they worked such long hours and had no extra energy to visit. However, everyone learned from everyone else. To this day I still count some beautiful Jewish recipes as part of my cooking repertoire, along with my Polish, American and Irish dishes.

I was the oldest of four children and was delivered, like almost everyone else, by the towns midwife. My parents were dark-haired and of medium height. I was followed two years later by my brother, Czeslaw, and in another two years by my sister, Irena. Baby Krystyna was born one year later. Though my mother had four children within six years, she also worked hard in the fields, and as the oldest I was responsible for watching my siblings, even from a very young age.

My mother christened me Bozenna, which means of God. My second name is Boguslawa, meaning praise be to God. It is still a puzzle to me what my mother expected of her first-born child, but I helped as much as I could. I tried very hard to live up to my name.

We lived in a typical Polish one-story farmhouse, painted gray and white. The house stood back from the street. Walking down a short path, one would enter a tiny ganek (porch), which was followed by a large living room with cheerful green plants lining the many windows. The ganek had a bench on either side, but we didnt have much time to sit there. A long bedroom ran the length of the house.

All of us slept in the bedroom. My bed was right under the window, and not too far outside was the chicken coop. The rooster woke me up early every morning with his cock-a-doodle-do, which was a great annoyance to me.

Near the fireplace, there were two more beds where my siblings slept. The girls slept in one bed, my brother in the other. My parents place was at the far end of the long room. There was also a kitchen and dining room area, which had a trap door opening into the root cellar, a cool area where perishable food was stored.