Narrative of Zofia Żukowska
“Personal Victory Over Hitler”
On Tuesday March 22nd, our group had the pleasure to interview Mrs. Zuzia Zukowska, a survivor of the Holocaust and absolutely one of the strongest and bravest persons who populates the Earth. Now 75 years of age, she comes from a Jewish family and was raised by her engineer-father and a patriotic, loving mother. She claims that one of the reasons she survived the war was the encouragement and escort of her mother. Sent to different ghettos, and even to a concentration camp, this woman has certainly undergone through a lot. Despite all the horrifying experiences and incidents she had experienced, this exuberant woman was smiling thorough the interview and filled the room with compassion and understanding. After settling herself to the back of her armchair, she prepared herself and, finally, started to narrate her thrilling story.
Mrs. Zukowska initiated her story by the substantial words, “Sometimes you have to laugh in serious situations”. The war started when Zofia was only four years old, and even though so many years have passed since then, the memories of wartime have stayed vivid in her head. Her first experience of the war was right after the Germans had invaded Poland - she was hiding in the cellar of their house with her parents, sheltered from the bombs that were falling continuously from the sky. She could hear the intense roars of the fighter planes that were patterning the sky. Once in a while, a deafening whistle would fall through the grey skies once a bomb was launched. Explosions and destruction all around her, young Zofia was scared to death.
After hiding a few days, Zofia observed something approaching from the sky. It was falling down with an enormous speed, right above the house - a bomb. She still can’t forget the crippling feeling she had that moment. Without any time to escape, or even fully realize what was going on, her family’s house was smashed into pieces - and so was the ordinary and tranquil life of Zofia and her family.
Not a long time after the Germans had started their invasion, Zofia’s father was sent to the Polish army. After the day he left, Zofia never saw him again. A companion of her father later explained that while he had been able to abscond from an officer camp, her father was later murdered in a battle. However, no one knew if this story held true; Zofia and her mother could only wish that he had experienced an honourable and painless death.
Her mother, in turn, was Zofia’s support and the object of her faith during the traumatic years of war. Her mom was there always remind her how important it was to survive, claiming that survival would mean a “personal victory over Hitler”.
Even though Zofia and her mother were both Polish-speaking and resembled more Slavs than typical Jews, their religious views were openly known. Her mother decided that it would be better to at least try to prolong their capture. Therefore they fled to Lublin to the house of their cousins. Unfortunately, only a few weeks after their arrival, the Nazis started to gather local Jews and remove them to the Lublin Ghetto. The liquidation began soon, and Zofia’s family saw best to hide in the cellar of the house. However, Nazis weren’t tricked that easily. They had predicted that people would be hunkering inside the buildings and so they began to burn the houses down, leaving only one option for the daring people who were still hiding inside – to escape the burning buildings and succumb to the Nazis. Zofia’s family was no exception and so they were hounded out. The Nazis received them with open arms.
Thus, Zofia and her mother were separated from the rest of the family and sent to a concentration camp. Zofia’s mother was a very strong woman so she was assigned to a factory which produced fly paper. The days in the factory were really challenging; Zofia’s mother would wake up at five every morning, leave for work and return exhausted at night time. She had to work from Monday to Friday, with only a few hours of sleep every day. Working in a fly paper factory forced each labourer to her their hands dirty and they were covered with sticky glue from day to day. The Germans, however, wouldn’t allow them to wash themselves. If the Nazis found someone extremely unkempt, they would just brutally shot them. ‘ “To avoid epidemics and infections from to spread out” ‘, pronounced Zofia with disgust.
Zofia, yet unaffected by all the horrifying things happening around her, was a very calm and faithful child. Every day when her mother left to work, she would follow her all the way to the camp gates just to say goodbye to her. One day during their usual farewell, Zofia had a sudden panic attack. She was foaming from the mouth, her body shivering violently. She was crying for her mother not to leave her, clinging desperately to her mother’s arms. Her mother, shocked by the incident, decided to skip work and stay by her daughter’s side.
Fortunately that day, one of the more meticulous guards in charge of counting the workers made a mistake and Zofia’s mother could skip work unnoticed. Later Zofia and her mother found out that none of the women who left to work that morning returned; they had all been executed. Without Zofia’s sudden panic attack, her mother would have died that day. Zofia was only five years old when the panic attack incident occurred.
Not a long time from the panic attack incident, Zofia started to ask peculiar questions like, “Why do I know I’m going to die?” She would glance at the comatose babies who were resting on the arms of their mothers, her eyes filled with jealousy. She would sigh and harp, “Why can’t I be like those babies who don’t realize they’re going to be killed? Why, mother, why?”
Convinced by these words to undertake necessary but dangerous risks, Zofia’s mother started to rebuild her daughter’s confidence and made a risky plan in order to save her daughter from this hell on earth. Thus, on a dark and rainy night, Zofia and her mother approached the abominable barbed wire fence, the only thing that was separating them from freedom. Zofia’s mother discovered a minor hole in the wire and, together, they were able to carefully enlarge it a bit. Because of the extremely harsh conditions they had been living in, both Zofia and her mother had become very emaciated. Thus, there was a chance they would make it through but only one problem existed.
There was no way to predict whether the current was flowing inside the wire or not.
Zofia and her mother had no time to hesitate. If they would scruple for too long, they would surely be caught by the Nazis. The desire for freedom was effusive and thus, Zofia was hurled through the hole to the free world waiting behind the ominous barbed wire, her mother following her.
Zofia and her mother were very fortunate - the electricity was turned off that night. Both of them got safely through without major injuries but their fight for freedom had only begun. In front of them spread a vast field, which had been plowed recently, thus filled in thick mud.
Crawling in the mud and hiding under a black raincoat, Zofia and her mother began their fight of life and death. Whilst avoiding the searchlights of the Nazis and creeping in the thick, heavy mud, the field started to seem endless to Zofia. She and her mother had to stop occasionally in order to watch the lights, and when the lights would stretch out from them, Zofia and her mother would grovel for their lives. Thanks to Zofia’s observant mother, they were able to cross the field without getting spotted. Zofia was so exhausted in the end that her mother had to drag her by her hair. When they had finally crossed the field, her mother was clenching several hair tufts in her muddy fists.
By the time these two had reached the forest, they were both fatigued. Dragging their heavy feet, Zofia and her mother saw a faint light shining through the trees. They reached a house which had lights on during night time, despite the fact it was forbidden. Zofia’s mother thought that this defiance was enough to prove that this house was inhabited by very bold people who would provide them help. Thus, with trembling hands, Zofia and her mother knocked on the door.
The family inside was, just as Zofia’s mother had thought, very courageous and kind. The family let Zofia and her mother wash both themselves and their clothes. The fugitives were even provided a small meal. However, in the morning, Zofia and her mother had to take off; the Nazis could appear anytime to make inspections. Thus, Zofia’s mother decided that they would return to Warsaw.
Germans were patrolling the train station, so Zofia and her mother had no other options but to wait for a train to slow down and jump aboard. They managed to catch a train to Warsaw and travelled all the way from Lublin to Warsaw in the toilets of the train, avoiding customers by escaping to the joint of two carriages every time someone would approach.
When they finally reached their destination, the troubles still weren’t over. Zofia’s mother was looking for their relatives, but soon found out that all of them had died. Thus, Zofia and her mother were left all alone to the world that was slowly turning against them. Without any money and with a Jewish background, the years Zofia and her mother spent in Warsaw were true hell.
During warm seasons, Zofia and her mother would sleep outside and spend their days searching for a job. In wintertime, they would bed in people’s attics. As the time went by, burglars and other foul people would approach them in their greed, asking for money. They threatened Zofia and her mother, saying that they would report the pair to the Nazis if they wouldn’t give them money.
Afraid of getting reported, Zofia’s mother decided to get false documents. Zofia and her mother were changing their IDs frequently during the time they lived in Warsaw. Zofia had the inexplicable sum of 11 different identities during these years. Every morning, Zofia would repeat her new name over and over in order to memorize it.
After the war, Zofia became an atheist. She had reached the conclusion that there wasn’t a God who would allow things she had seen and gone through to happen. Still, there was someone that she had never lost her faith in, someone who had encouraged her and made her survive - her beloved mother. With her solicitous mother by her side, Zofia’s body and mind had filled with a fighting spirit and she had fought her way through all the hardships and survived the Holocaust.
Ultimately, this abnormally brave woman took a deep breath and concluded her story with the words, “Gaining my personal victory over Hitler...It was totally worth it.”