Narrative

Never ending Hope

At some point in life, there comes a moment when we are forced into doing something that seems unimaginable and even inconceivable to us. As much as we would desire to escape from the situation, we find ourselves in the middle of it. A majority oaf the times we try to step away; however it is impossible to do so. That was the situation that Ludwik Gorski found himself in during World War II. He didn’t want to be part of the war but since he was a Jew he was already in the middle of the situation. He was forced to move from house to house to keep his mother and him from being sent into concentration camps. Even though, he lived during these six years of constant war, his mother and he never lost hope.

In 1939, when the war began, Ludwik Gorski was merely three years old and lived with his brother and parents. His loving mother was a teacher and his father was a lawyer who worked in a conspiracy organization. 

Living peacefully with his family in central Warsaw, life was as beautiful as it could get. One day, their lives drastically changed; German soldiers invaded the Gorski family’s home. Forced to move, he and his family had no other choice but to live with Ludwik’s grandparents where the family lived for about one year until October, 1940 when once again the Nazis arrived. After packing and stacking their belongings into the awaiting wagons, the Gorski family was transferred into the Warsaw ghetto. Witnessing daily murder, dust everywhere, crowded people, Ludwik was shocked at this new lifestyle. It was very difficult to breathe in the ghetto because there were thousands of Jews living there. Shortly after they arrived in the ghetto, Ludwik’s grandparents and brother passed away of an unknown disease. With his grandparents and brother gone, the family of three went to live in another apartment next to the Catholic Church where they hoped that they would be safe from further Nazi invasions.

 In secrecy, the people in the ghetto remained politically active. The concealed and suspenseful meetings with the conspiracy organization were held at the Gorski family apartment. Each meeting was different and sometimes Ludwik’s mother would listen to the organization’s meetings. In March, 1942, the Nazi officers knocked at their door. Aggressively they imprisoned Ludwik’s father in Pewiek. A few days later, the event repeated itself again but this time, Ludwik’s mother was arrested. Even though his mother only stayed in jail for a month, Ludwik suffered enormous trauma. Being home alone affected him tremendously, not being able to see anyone else or barely having food to eat. That time was when Ludwik started stuttering, a stutter that still remains today. Finally, his mother was released from jail so she could lead the Germans to the rest of the conspiracy plotters. Fortunately, the Germans never found them and Ludwik’s mother could be reunited with her son.

A few months after Ludwik and his parents started living in the ghetto, the living conditions became more and more atrocious; people in the ghetto were getting more frightened and more shooting started happening. Jews no longer felt they were safe becauseNazi soldiers would shoot them for [Ms. Cross1] small reasons. While this drastic change in the ghetto was happening, Ludwik’s mother quit her job as a teacher and started working in a small shop in the ghetto. Having to wake up early every day to go to work, she would bring Ludwik along. All day he would squat under a table in hopes that no one would spot him. 

  On one fine, ordinary day, Ludwik’s cousins came for a visit, so he decided to stay at home. It was a work day, so his mother went to work. Ludwik was enjoying himself, playing with his cousins at his house. Losing track of time, the children’s play was interrupted when  an aggressive knock echoed from the door. Rapidly, they rushed up the stairs into the attic to hide. There they were silently squatting, scared of what might happen. After a few minutes, which felt like an eternity to Ludwik and his cousins, the Nazis were ready to exit the house. Suddenly, out of nowhere, “ACHUUU!”, one of the cousins sneezed. From the attic, Ludwik and his cousins heard the loud stomps thumping and rushing towards them. The officers gripped the children furiously by the arm, and dragged them downstairs. Captured, the officers transported Ludwik and his cousins into “taxis”, bicycles with a tiny square shaped baggage place at the back. The soldiers took them into a square where Ludwik spotted hundreds of other children.

That day, his mother had never been so afraid and panicked as when she found out that Nazis had taken her son. She sprinted out of the house and came in time to save Ludwik. Arriving at the square, Ludwik saw his mother arguing with a Nazi officer. The Nazi told her that if she was to retrieve Ludwik from him, she would have to bring him another child as a replacement because if that officer didn’t bring a certain number of children, then the other officers would shoot him for not fulfilling orders.

At the same time, the cousins, the other children and Ludwik were being led into an old, filthy cattle car. Suddenly, someone attempted to run away so all the attention was focused on that child. Out of the blue, his mother quickly picked Ludwik up and she hustled him into a side street. No one in the Gorski family ever saw the cousins again.

One week after that narrow escape, Ludwik’s mother informed him she had found a way for him to get transported out from the ghetto; she had bribed an officer. At the time Ludwik was around 6 years old. The officer was going to take Ludwik to another apartment outside the ghetto where, though he would be separated from his parents, he would be safe. Ludwik still remembers traveling extremely far through a long, wide road surrounded by trees. The apartment ended up being close to the ghetto but Ludwik and the officer took the long way because it was necessary to make sure no one was following. Being outside the ghetto, Ludwik realized how extraordinary the world was; no one was frightened and people seemed to be enjoying themselves. He felt relieved and content to not see constant shooting.

Each day, Ludwik would wait in misery for news from his parents. Only three weeks after his arrival did he receive a note from his parents who he missed terribly. His mother wrote that she was still working in the shop and that she got a note from Ludwik’s father in a very surprising manner. She wrote that one day a Polish policeman knocked on her door. She didn’t immediately open the door because she wasn’t really sure if he was helping her or not but the policeman begged her to let him in because his foot had been injured and he was in terrible pain. Ludwik’s mother let him in and from his boot he pulled out a note. It was from Ludwik’s father. The note from his father stated that he was fine and was still a prisoner in Pewiek. Ludwik’s mother and he never heard from the father again. When his mother realized that she and his father were no longer able to communicate,  she tried finding information. Had he been shot in prison? Sent to Auschwitz?  Her questions remained unanswered.. The only thing that Ludwik knows for certain is that he died around August of that same year.

After receiving that fateful note from Ludwik’s father, his mother understood she had to get out of the ghetto, so she made the same deal with the officer as she had made for Ludwik. Ludwik and his mother were finally reunited at the apartment outside of the ghetto and lived there for two years. During those two years Ludwik only went outside twice. He hid from the other kids because he was afraid that people would recognize that he was Jewish. When he was hiding, he hid in some sort of a library. There, Ludwik would spend his time teaching himself how to read and write. Occasionally, he got the help of his mother. One day, Ludwik and his mother spotted smoke coming from the ghetto. Feeling his stomach tighten while realizing that the Germans were burning homes with prisoners inside them, they prayed for their safety. It was 1942 and the remaining people who were living in the ghetto were transported to Treblinka, a concentration camp about one hundred kilometers away from Warsaw. In 1942 about half a million people were exported there. The Nazis destroyed Treblinka to hide the evidence of what happened there.

In 1943, two years after Ludwik and his mother moved to the apartment, the Nazis started searching the houses for workers they could transport to Germany. They desired extra workers since all of theirs were either fighting the opposing sides or were officers in concentration camps. Ludwik’s mother told him they had to move into a ghetto that the Germans had already searched. Thus, they moved again, but this time to Praga, a city situated on the other side of the Vistula River. Everyday people on the streets were getting shot without mercy.

Ludwik never had a proper childhood since he was forced to hide. The two years after the war, Ludwik Gorski became sick and contended with sickness after sickness. He caught every imaginable illness because his immune system wasn’t used to the new surroundings. He also went to 4th grade ahead of everyone else. He studied at the University of Warsaw and graduated there. Currently, he works as a doctor of physics. Ludwik was incredibly strong at heart and throughout the war he might have lost a lot, mostly his childhood. However, he never allowed himself to lose hope.