Anna Drabik Narrative

            Imagine being a wartime baby or more importantly, a Jewish baby during World War II. Just think how dangerous that would have been, being completely reliant on your parents and the people around you, having no choice of what you do and where you go. Everywhere you travel, you hear bombs exploding, guns shooting, and people screaming and wailing in agony. For some people, survival is an impossibility–death, inevitable. But not for Anna Drabik; she was a brave child who endured the atrocity and evil of man. It has been over half a decade since the end of the war and even after all these years, the memory and terror of the Holocaust still haunts her. As the interview proceeded, remembering this time of her life brought tears in her eyes. This is the story of how a young girl survived the most gruesome, horrific, and disturbing events in all of history.

            It was 1938 and a Jewish baby girl was born; she was named Anna Drabik. During this time, it was very unfortunate to be a Jew as the Nazis were obsessed about annihilating the Jewish race; this was the Dark Ages for the Jews in Europe. The infant Anna Drabik lived her first years with her mother's family in Płotsk. They were all highly-educated and the majority of them were successful doctors. As 1939 approached, the family left Płotsk and immigrated to Łodz to meet Anna’s mother who had moved there just a few weeks before. Unfortunately, as the Nazis invaded Poland and obtained regime in its territory, they established ghettos to segregate Jews from the rest of society. Hence, it was in the Łodz Ghetto, where Anna, her mother, and grandmother, were sent to reside.

            The Łodz ghetto was the very first ghetto to have been established in Poland by the Nazis. Mrs. Drabik described her experiences in the ghetto to be so graphic it reduced her to an emotional wreck. At one point, she spoke to us about a German officer barging into their minuscule living space in the ghetto, forcing Anna and her mother to give up their possessions. This encounter utterly petrified her and even now, remembering this ordeal is traumatizing. To make matters worse, an epidemic of polio had erupted inside the ghetto. This outbreak victimized many people in the ghetto including Anna Drabik herself, therefore causing her a paralysis. The weak and unfit were being eliminated by the Nazis thus triggering fear in Anna of being rounded up and killed because she was in a poor health condition. Fortunately, her grandmother knew about a doctor in Warsaw who could help her. This doctor turned out to be Anna's uncle, and they arranged a meeting with him in the ghetto.

            In the usual circumstances, the average person was not allowed in or out of the ghetto; however, as Anna’s grandmother summoned her uncle, he appeared to have been an exception. To the eyes of the German officials supervising the ghetto, Anna’s uncle possessed the “good looks”. His appearance was that of the typical Aryan with the physical characteristics of having blue eyes and blond hair. Because of this, he was given permission to enter the secured Łodz ghetto to help Anna. Upon meeting Anna, her mother, and her grandmother, her uncle formulated a plan to smuggle them out of the ghetto. Anna's mother and grandmother had not the least bit of trouble sneaking out of the ghetto. Anna, on the other hand, had her paralysis to prevent her from escaping with ease; she had to use a different means of getting out of the ghetto.

            During the interview, Mrs. Drabik enlightened us with full details of how, under the difficult situation, she was able to flee the ghastly ghetto. As the usual sanitation truck came into the ghetto to collect garbage and waste, the young Anna, with the help of her uncle, clambered into one of the trucks and remained there as the truck drove her to the city. She had to dwell in a secret compartment in the truck with trash and rubbish all around her, their foul stench filling up her lungs, burning them from within. But at last, her escapade succeeded and she was able to be reunited with her mother in Warsaw.

            As Anna rejoined her mother, they decided to settle in the outskirts of Warsaw while her grandmother stayed in the city with her uncle. Anna and her mother were hiding in a secret location in the suburbs; however, the Nazis discovered their location and the place was burned to ashes. Fortunately, Anna and her mother were able to evade death; the only problem now was that they were homeless and had to find a new suitable home. Eventually, they were able to reside in a temporary settlement in the city where they stayed for a considerable amount of time. Meanwhile, Anna's father stayed in Warsaw and joined the Polish resistance movement, Armia Krajowa (AK). Once, Anna's father was caught by the Germans, but with his "good looks" and German-speaking ability, he was able to bribe the officer with a golden ring and watch to let him escape.

            Not long after Anna and her mother had settle in their temporary home that her mother decided it was best to flee the city. During this time, the Nazis in Warsaw had become stricter, harsher, and more brutal now that the Warsaw Ghetto had been established, so Anna’s mother made up her mind to move to Bialystok. Their journey to Bialystok had been very difficult mainly because that they had to travel on foot for many days. Fortunately, Anna’s uncle had been extremely kind, providing a helping hand to carry the paralysed Anna for the entire venture. This endeavour lasted for days until, at last, they reached Bialystok where they meet up with their father once again. While her uncle returned to Łodz, Anna and her parents settled in the city as a blissful family. However, this joyful moment didn’t last very long. Several weeks past, then the Russians arrived in the town where there was a recruitment rally for the Red Army; hundreds were signing up for the final push against the Nazis. The Russians forcibly recruited Anna’s father for the Red Army while her mother was moved east towards the Russian territory of Kazakhstan for no known reason. The young Anna was left with her aunt who promised her mother to take care of Anna; later on however, her aunt was also forced to move to Kazakhstan therefore leaving Anna behind without family.

            Before leaving off to Kazakhstan however, Anna's aunt handed her over to the care of a Ukrainian woman. Anna was one of 12 children who were being looked after by this woman. Mrs. Drabik described this episode of her life to be one of her most traumatic memory of the war. Anna and the rest of the children lived in extremely poor conditions with not enough food, uncomfortable shelter, ravaging weather, and the clash of the war. They experienced a constant cold that it seemed for Anna that there was no longer summer; that it was an eternal winter. Anna was assigned with the chore of wandering in the fields, collecting dry cow faeces to use as fuel for the furnace. For beds, they slept on the frozen ground with no mattresses, covers, or blankets. Every night, when wind blew through the gaps on the walls, Anna felt the coldness seep into her body to very last bone. As a result of these very poor living conditions, she acquired typhus. Ironically, she was quite glad to have this illness because she was able to rest in the shelf right above the stove, and this gave her heat and comfort. But amidst all these hardships, it was in here under the roof the Ukrainian woman's house that her father was reunited with Anna, at last.

            After Anna's father had been recruited to the Red Army, he gradually rose in ranks, finally becoming a major whose job it was to specialize in locating land mines. After the war, his position as major came as a very useful advantage for getting information of the whereabouts of the rest of his family. When Anna's father tried to look for her, he had a really difficult time figuring out where Anna was located because over the years since they separated, Anna had gone through dramatic changes in her appearance. But finally, he had at last found his daughter and they reunited joyfully.

            She was in a very distraught condition when her father finally found her after the war. When she saw the man at the door of the Ukrainian woman's house, she didn't believe that it was her father. Her father tried all ways of convincing Anna that he was actually her father. He had a hard time doing this until he produced from his chest pocket a photograph of Anna when she was about one and a half years old. “I couldn’t believe it… How could a random person have a photograph of me that much close to his heart? This must really be my father!”

            Because he was a respected major in the Red Army, he had a cosy residence where Anna was came to live. Meanwhile, the Poles from Kazakhstan started moving westwards and Anna's mother sought for her daughter and husband. Anna’s mother searched tirelessly until finally arriving in front of the house that was her husband’s supposed residence. It was in the middle of the night when she reached that place where Anna’s father’s assistant encountered her at the door. She insisted to see him immediately but the assistant denied all knowledge of them ever living in the house which was an order from Anna’s father so that any officials from the Red Army wouldn’t bother him anymore. Even when the assistant threatened to shoot her, she still persisted and this convinced the assistant to let the woman in who claimed to be the major’s wife. Anna's father saw her and immediately recognized her as his wife. The family was reunited and Anna's father decided to disconnect with the Red Army to evade further responsibilities which would interfere with his family life. In 1946, the family decided on going back to Poland.

            The effects of the Holocaust on Anna had been unimaginable. She described her experiences as a child to be similar to being handled as objects. She was passed on from person to person, travelling all the time. This meant that there wasn't enough time for her to love or be loved, and this trait she applied to her daughter. Also, as Anna's mother was constantly paranoid and overprotective of her even after the war, Mrs. Drabik considered herself to be one of those mothers with the constant anxiety and worry about her children. According to her, the negative effects of the war and the Holocaust only start to waver after two or three generations. "No survivor of the Holocaust is ever mentally or emotional sane...".

            “Never again…” these words Mrs. Anna Drabik used to describe her entire ordeal and encounter with the terror and horror of the Holocaust. It is therefore our duty to preserve her legacy and ensure that such a horrifying event would never happen again.