Narrative of Jadwiga Gałązka

The Lost Child

Imagine this: Your parents were both murdered at the Treblinka death camp when you were just a baby so you have no memory of them. You live alone with your abusive stepmother who is an alcoholic but you have no memory of your true parents so you believe that your stepmother is your biological mother. You are beaten, called names like “filthy Jew” and rejected by the only woman that you know as your mother. “Don’t hug me I’m not your mother,” you are told. You grow up suspecting that maybe there is more to you than you have been told but you know nothing for sure. You don’t find out that you are actually Jewish and that you were adopted as a baby until you are 50 years old. You have never seen your parents and don’t find a picture of them until you are in your seventies. This is the story of Jadwiga Gałązka. 

Jadwiga Gałązka was born in the Pinczów Ghetto sometime between the years 1940-1942. The exact date is unknown. Jadwiga’s parents planned to find a way to get Jadwiga out of the ghetto to keep her safe. Jadwiga’s parents did this by smuggling her out of the ghetto to be adopted by a Polish family just before they themselves were taken away to Treblinka, but exactly how they did this is unknown. Jadwiga was about 5 years old when the war ended. Her stepfather got a divorce and moved to England to start a new family leaving Jadwiga alone with her stepmother. Jadwiga’s stepfather worried that Jadwiga’s stepmother might abuse her but having already moved, he was unable to change anything.

The years when Jadwiga was alone with her stepmother were the worst that she can remember. Her stepmother was an alcoholic who would often beat her. However, for Jadwiga the worst kind of abuse wasn’t the physical, but the mental. Her stepmother repeatedly called Jadwiga repulsive names that nobody should ever be called. Jadwiga’s stepmother called her worthless and said she did nothing to help anyone even though she worked hard on the farm all day long. Jadwiga’s stepmother never showed any affection that a mother should show to her child. Jadwiga was never hugged nor kissed and was never allowed to cuddle with her mother because as her stepmother scolded, “Don’t hug me I’m not your mother”.

Around the age of 15-16 Jadwiga fled from her wretched stepmother to live with one of her stepmother’s friends in Warsaw. Jadwiga would work on her hosts’ farm all day long. Unfortunately, Jadwiga’s host was also an alcoholic and so Jadwiga was mistreated there as well. Jadwiga’s stepmother came after her to try to bring Jadwiga back to her house in the countryside. Jadwiga turned her stepmother down and stated that she, “would rather die than return with my stepmother.” Jadwiga then pleaded to everyone whom she knew to never release any of her information to anyone for fear that her stepmother would track her down again.

 Finally, someone started to display a bit of kindness towards Jadwiga when one of her neighbours in Warsaw noticed how Jadwiga was being mistreated. She informed Jadwiga of a Jewish organization that would help her to get her feet on the ground financially and to help her settle in to her own apartment. Jadwiga took the advice and her life finally started to take a turn for the better. Jadwiga was able to get settled into her own apartment, find a job and begin to live her own life. Things were starting to look up.

As an adult, Jadwiga wondered if maybe she should visit the place where she grew up. She pushed aside the idea until one day when she heard about the powerful experience that one of her friend’s husbands had when he returned to where he grew up. Feeling inspired, Jadwiga decided to return to the town where she had grown up. First she went to the town’s priest to see if he had any records about her and her stepfamily. The priest directed her to what he believed was the home of her stepparents. At the house, Jadwiga met the son of her stepfather, the man who had saved her. He informed her of some things that she should know about herself and he told her of how an Israeli family was searching everywhere for her. Jadwiga’s stepfather had been scouring Europe for her as well but he had died a month before Jadwiga’s visit. “If I had gone only a month earlier I could have met him,” Jadwiga stated with a gloomy face. Knowing that people were looking for her, Jadwiga began to feel like she meant something to someone and as she stated it, “I was worthy”.

A week later, while Jadwiga was feeling overjoyed and inspired, she received a call from her stepfather’s son. He had found some more papers that had to do with her. After receiving this information, Jadwiga journeyed to Israel so that she could meet her cousin and aunt. None of them spoke a common language and so they were forced to use a dictionary to translate. One of the things that Jadwiga learned while in Israel was that her adoption had been planned. What this meant was that her parents had known where she was going and that her stepmother had known the truth about Jadwiga but had never seen it fit to tell Jadwiga about herself.

When Jadwiga arrived back in Warsaw, she called a man in Gdansk to see if he could help her learn more about her biological family. The man sent Jadwiga many of her father’s letters, his high school grades and documents from his past. She learned that her parents had moved to Pinczów to escape the war but in the end they were forced into the ghetto and shipped off to Treblinka anyways.  No matter how hard everyone searched, no one could find a picture of Jadwiga’s father. Jadwiga was so young when she lived with her parents that she had no idea what they looked like. She soon received a picture of her mother and uncle from her cousin in Israel although Jadwiga’s family was unable to find a picture of Jadwiga’s father. In the year 2009, about two years ago, Jadwiga was finally able to gain an idea what her father looked like. Jadwiga’s daughter sent a letter to the university that Jadwiga’s father attended asking for any pictures of him. The university managed to find his old library card which Jadwiga’s daughter then enlarged to create a larger size image for her mother.

This year, 2011, was the first time that Jadwiga really felt prepared to come and tell her story to someone. For all of her life Jadwiga has feared that if too many people knew about her, including where she currently lives and where she’s from, her stepmother would be able to track her down. Even to this day Jadwiga still has nightmares of her stepmother tracking her down and finding her. Otherwise things are going well for Jadwiga. She has two grandchildren: a girl who is two years old and a boy who is turning 15 years old this spring. Her real name is Clara. She loathes the name Jadwiga and yearns to change her name to Clara but she doesn’t want to have to go through the hassle of changing all her documents. For right now, she is content as long as her grandchildren continue to call her “Gramma Clara” which warms her heart.  However the scars that the Holocaust has left on Jadwiga’s life can never be undone no matter how superb life gets.