Narrative

War. It does not only kill people, but can also tear families apart, hence leaving deep scars and small children with no memory of their ancestry. Some of the survivors of World War II were Jews like Jadwiga Gałązka who had to struggle to find out her family roots, living decades without a real family.

Like many Jewish Children in World War II, survival started in the ghettos, with parents craving to smuggle their children out. Blessed, Jadwiga, known at that time as Klara, was one of the children who would survive. With the help of her parents, she emerged from the Pinczów ghetto an was adopted. Unfortunately, fate cursed her. Instead of getting an attentive adoptive family, she received the opposite.

Her new father was a partisan. While he fled to England where he later started a new family, Jadwiga had to battle with his alcoholic wife. They lived alone in a town called Babice, located 8 kilometers from the Pinczów ghetto. Forced to endure endless work, harsh beatings and the worst, terrible insults, the wretched girl’s heart was torn apart. With the survival spirit extinguished, her mind battled thoughts of suicide. At the age of 14-15, she decided to escape to the home of a family friend in Warsaw. Once there, the adults also abused her, both physically and mentally. To her, “the beating is not worse, but the words.” Nobody wanted to take her if she didn’t work hard, people kept explaining, “Nothing is free.” Not independence. Not even freedom.

How did she find out she was Jewish and adopted? Easy. Children hug their mothers to show their affection, but Jadwiga’s adoptive mother kept repeating, “Don’t hug me, I’m not your mother.” Also, whenever she did something wrong, the adoptive mother hissed, “Filthy Jew.” At that time, Jadwiga was not aware what a Jew exactly was; she just knew that according to her adoptive mother, it was something awful.

Jadwiga’s adoptive father and his new family in England looked for her when the war was over. Half a century later, she found out that her adoptive father regretted leaving her in Poland, sensing the wickedness of his ex-wife. It was hard to find Jadwiga, since she moved a lot with her adoptive mother and also when she lived alone. After her escape, the mother did not want to let go and she found Jadwiga. When her mother wanted to take her back, independent Jadwiga opposed, “I’d rather die than go with you!” Until this day she is afraid that her adoptive mother will find her.

As an adult she visited her hometown. Her sub consciousness brought her to a church and to a house which she somehow could pick out of her early childhood memories. In this house lived the brother of her adoptive father who surprisingly remembered her. The meeting was relieving, but also very shocking: Her adoptive father had died just a month before her visit. “I was late. I was a month late. The man who took me died a month earlier. … A month earlier and I would have known everything,” she mourned in the interview.  

As she continued to research her heritage, Jadwiga found out more in the archives that a historian showed her: Her parents were burned in the Treblinka Concentration Camp. He also found the university that her biological father attended. Finding the library card from a university in Heidelberg was an enormous remembrance of her father thanks to a picture of him on it. The historian also informed Jadwiga that her father was a lawyer. In addition, she even received the trials that her father led and a handwritten biography of her father's life, which was very touching, since he himself created this work.

Even though there is a large number of sources and information, a huge hole still remains in the puzzle of Jadwiga’s history. When Jadwiga tries to remember her past, there are no traumas of the war in her head but nightmares of the time with her adoptive mother. Everything is a result of World War II and she has lived with her emotional scars.