Narrative of Róża Górska

The Lost Girl

Our group met Róża Górska on Living History Day. She was not what we were expecting because we were told that we would be interviewing a different survivor but herradiant smile melted all of our hesitation away. We could see her bright personality shining through. One could just imagine her will to survive, and that‟s probably what got her through the difficult times of the Holocaust. When she sat down, we only had to ask one question before she launched right into telling her story with significant detail and emotion. This is her story:  Her life, completely destroyed and turned chaotic due to the start of the war.  Because of prejudice and discrimination, so many people died, so many people were ruined.

Róża Górska was born right at the start of the war, in 1939 in Lodz which was located in Poland but now is in Ukraine. Since her family was Jewish, the family was soon forced to move into the Warsaw Ghetto. Her father managed to escape from the ghetto with the help of Germans friends made when he received part of his education at a German middle school.

Unfortunately, Róża and her mother could not sneak away like her father so Róża had to live alone with her mother in a room. Her first memories were in the ghetto. She remembers her crib back from when she was a baby, as well as her caring and loving mother. A large portrait of an unknown baby with just two front teeth was placed next to her crib that was soft and guarded by a net. Róża was a very mischievous baby and always tried to escape from the crib and crawl around, mostly to her mother.

When Rosa was a child, her mother was very ill and Róża was always told that she was not allowed to enter her mom‟s bedroom because of the risk of contamination. However, the bond of child and mother is not easily broken, and she always attempted to escape from her crib and to her mother‟s warm bed. When she succeeded in this task, she would crawl and hide under the covers cuddling next to her mother. „I felt the most safe there,” Rosa sighed as she spoke to us. One day Róża woke up and escaped to find her mother‟s bed empty. She wailed at the top of her lungs, feeling frightened and lonely, until a man who she had never seen her before picked her up and told her that Róża was travelling to the village tomorrow with him. He was a wonderful man who loved children, and became her savior. If she had stayed there all alone in the ghetto, she would have been killed quickly. Later in her life, Róża learned that her sickly mother was sent to Treblinka and was exterminated there on that fateful day Rosa was left without a mother.

The next morning, the friendly man dressed her up and exclaimed, “From now on, your name is Marysia Kolakowska”. She then fell asleep, and when she woke up she had no idea where she was though she would later learn that she was under the protection of nuns. Someone murmured in the background, “That poor child, everyone is dead”. These words chilled her then and rang through her head throughout her whole life, Róża whispered to us.

Here, at the nunnery, her new life began. Luckily for her, the benevolent man had removed her from the horrifying Ghetto. This was in 1943 and she lived at the nun‟s house in Warsaw. The main nun was her guardian and for the rest of the war, she lived there and led a mostly blessed life with the affectionate nun whose name is unknown.

When the warended, many families came to the nunnery to try to find the children they lost during the war or to adopt new children. One family was interested in Maria/ Róża and claimed that she was their lost child. The nun considered this family however in the end refused to let them adopt her. When Róża had asked why, the nun had exclaimed, “I would never give you to anybody!” The nun was very sympathetic and treated Róża as if she was her own child. Róża is very thankful to this nun and wish she could have appreciated what the nun was doing for her when she was a child.

The nun sent Róża to the nun school which was a private school with dorms. Some teachers were very gentle to her and told Róża that she was beautiful and kind. However, her guardian stopped all of the teachers from admiring her because she was afraid Róża would turn out narcissistic if people kept on complimenting her. When she was 8, her life took a large turn to the worse. Her teacher was a nun who was cruel and disliked children, especially children who lived in the dorms. Unfortunately, Róża lived in the dorms, and her teacher loathed her especially. For 3 years, she had to contend with a harsh teacher who constantly picked on her. The teacher would always purposely try to find faults in Róża such as her skirt was too short or that she had awful handwriting... This horrible treatment caused Róża to become almost suicidal. She hated her teacher and the painful abuse lead Róża to spend much of her time praying to die and join her family in heaven. One time, the nun wanted to embarrass Róża so much that she made Róża sleep on a dog‟s bed and stay there for hours!

Luckily for Róża, the constant harassment ended when the school was closed in 1949.However, because of the school closing, the dorms she lived in were to be closed too.  Rotated us she was very afraid because she might have to leave the school and get sent to an orphanage. In a desperate attempt to find relatives, distant or close, she visited the Red Cross; however she was crushed to find that no one was looking for her. One way of finding her family and making sure that they were actually related to her was if they knew about a distinct blemish on her leg. However the mark was fading. As the mark faded, her hope to find family faded as well.

When she was 14, a family came to adopt a daughter, and the caretaker of the nunnery let Róża leave with them. She called her new parents Aunt and Uncle, and it was very pleasant to be with them during holidays and when she came home from her boarding school. However, she became very close with Uncle as well as the two boys the couple had so, after a while, Aunt became jealous and started to treat  Róża as an enemy, stealing the men‟s attention. That was why Róża knew that even her pitiful happiness of having people she could actually call “family” would not last long. Luckily, she graduated before “Aunt” could officially kick her out.

In 1956, Róża finished high school and travelled to Lublin to study physiology at a college. She claims that, “these were the brightest moments of her life”. Róża told us with a huge smile of her face, that, “this was the most beautiful time. Caring friends, I was popular among boys, and I felt equal because everyone lived in the dorms, not just me.” Here, she felt like she this was where she belonged. Róża told our group that she sometimes thought her life was a dream because previously, her life was controlled by someone else and she couldn’t imagine her own life.

After a few years, she graduated from college and got married. Róża then joined the Children of the Holocaust Society. At the very first meeting, a woman came up to her and told her that they must be cousins. Róża replied that it is not possible because all of her relatives died. The lady then showed Róża pictures of Róża when she was young, and Róża‟s mom and her dad. Her mom was very beautiful in the pictures, and she learned that her father was an educated man. Róża rejoiced to find that she had her cousin left because all her life she had been alone. “This was one moment when I felt a huge weight lifted from my shoulders”, Róża commented. Her cousin introduced Róża to her own sister and they both started telling stories of the past.  Little by little, the gaps in Róża‟s life started to fill up.

From her two cousins, Róża learned that her biological father remarried after the war; however during the war her father and brother were sent to a labour camp in Kazakhstan. Luckily, an army came along recruiting soldiers and both her brother and father joined, thinking that it would be better than staying there in the horrible camp.  The conditions were very harsh and terrible in the army but her father came back and reunited with his sister again. Her brother perished while fighting in the army. Her aunt told her father that his wife had died in Treblinka, and his daughter was given to nuns. He started to search desperately for Róża everywhere, through radio, and newspaper, advertising that he would pay a huge reward for finding her. He was searching for her all around Poland, but every time he had a lead, it was always the wrong girl and everything was a disappointment. On one of his last searches, he met a woman who had a child that was the same age as her, and he raised that child as if she was Róża. Her father died without ever finding the real Róża.

These days Róża teaches anyone she can her message. Her message is that you have to do everything to overcome stereotypes and you should never judge or label a person. Just because of the economy and people who believed in stereotypes, stereotypes lead to discrimination, and millions of people were murdered; her own life was turned completely upside-down. She proclaims that once she visited a cemetery and she remembers an inscription of a headstone and she shivered at the passage:  “First we threw them out of our hearts, and then got rid of them before we were sorry”.

Those actions might have been what happened during the Holocaust.

We asked Róża if the horrible events that happened in her life had effected what she thought about Germans. After a long pause, she sighed and told us that she has met many Germans who are loving and friendly, and she are very close friends with many. It‟s a coincidence that Germans and the Nazis who terrorized Jews came from the same countries. A person can‟t declare that all the people from one nation are cruel because there are always loving and cruel people in every nation and it has nothing to do with religion or nationality. If adperson decides that Germans are all cruel, dark and sadistic people, then one would be the same as the Nazis that actual were that way.  “First we threw them out of our hearts, and then got rid of them before we were sorry”.  That was the inscription that was on the headstone. We all hope that such an event would never happen again.