Narrative of Marian Tyrowicz

Surviving with the Help of Luck

    “All human beings are cruel, and under pressure the inner beast comes out” and “Until people are taught tolerance this is bound to repeat itself” are true poetic words spoken by Marian Tyrowicz, about World War II and Holocaust. He was born in the town of Lwow (currently in the Ukraine) in 1928, and is currently eighty three years old. When the war began he was only eleven. He was an average child who went to school and had friends just like other kids his age. He lived in a family of six (including himself, two brothers and one sister), but only he and one brother survived. He lived through so much at such a young age, but now he has unlocked his story to share with the world. He is true living history.

    According to Marian Tyrowicz the war can be divided into two parts: The Russian occupation of Poland 1939-1941 and the German occupation from 1941-1945. During the Russian occupation his life was fairly typical as he went to school, he played with friends, and the only difference was the occasional plane flying over his town but when the war began he couldn’t finish school and only finished four classes of Polish school. The German occupation was not so easy. Being Jewish he and his family were moved to the Lwow ghetto, called Lemburg. His parents worked at a German factory outside the ghetto so they had access to people and resources in order to secure false documents for Marian and his family. He and his brother got on a train to Warsaw, where the rest of the family was to meet them after their own escape from the ghetto . Unfortunately there was not enough time before the ghetto was liquidated for the rest of his family to escape. He was now fifteen years old.

    Marian and his brother decided to live in the forest outside of Warsaw. It was June so it was still warm enough to sleep outside. They had been living there for a while when a teenage girl with a basket, who was probably looking for mushrooms

passed. Frightened by the men, she ran away and the two brothers fled the forest for Warsaw, fearing they would be caught because of the girl who saw them. Probably she informed the German officers that people were hiding in the forest. When they arrived at the Warsaw train station, they saw German soldiers lined up ready to clear the forests of anyone who might be hiding there. He says that these couple of seconds before the Germans came saved his life.

    When asked what helped him keep hope Marian said he didn’t have any hope. There was no hope, just the instinct to survive. He told us that movies always depict heroes saving everyone’s life, but he also believed that this perception wasn’t true. People would turn in their own families in order to survive and it was every man for themselves. The Jewish people felt like hunted animals. “In the movie Godzilla when the monster stepped down, the ones underneath were crushed, but there were always a few people between his toes who survived.” That was how Marian felt during the war; it was luck, pure luck that he survived.

To this day, he is still looking for the place where his family was killed. He knows that one of his brothers was shot in the ghetto. The rest of his family was probably killed in a concentration camp, but he doesn’t know which one. He has searched in a lot of places, but he is still not giving up.

    When the war ended he was eighteen with only about a fourth grade education. His main goal became to get an education. He buzzed through his middle and high school equivalency tests and quickly went to college; he worked hard to reach his goal. Afterwards, he got jobs helping the post war effort. When our group interviewed him, he was able to speak a little English, so he definitely reached his goal.

Marian now has a wife, children and grandchildren and they are now also very successful. Hi first wife, who both survived both the Warsaw Uprising and Auschwitz, was a professor at The Polish Academy of Science, and his second wife was a historian. His son is a tech expert and his granddaughter is a scientist. He is now living a joyful life; however, he will never be the same, and the awful memories will remain forever in his mind, life and soul.

    Marian now has a wife, children and grandchildren and they are now also very successful. Hi first wife, who both survived both the Warsaw Uprising and Auschwitz, was a professor at The Polish Academy of Science, and his second wife was a historian. His son is a tech expert and his granddaughter is a scientist. He is now living a joyful life; however, he will never be the same, and the awful memories will remain forever in his mind, life and soul.