Narrative

An Erased Childhood

Born in the Tarnopól ghetto in 1942, Maryla Lewandowska experienced hiding, running away and taking huge risks when she was just a toddler. Since she was deprived of childhood memories, she would travel to gather information about her history from numerous friends. She also begged her mother to share past experiences. Her father was her motivation; selfless and compassionate, he tried his best to put his family first. Because of him, Maryla had survived; he was her hero.

When the war came to an end, Maryla's mother wanted to forget the repulsive images of history and move on. This simply was impossible because her daughter was seeking information from family members, friends and anyone who might have known anything about her past. She waited for the right moment to ask her mother about the war, when she was in a splendid mood and the sun outside was shining. But alas, her mother would continue to avoid flashback moments because they were just too painful to endure. Maryla did manage to obtain a story of how her mother was saved. A Polish lady had been the savior of Maryla’s mother, who had simply offered to stow her away in a cabin hidden in the woods. She had hid her during the whole war, never abandoning the house and remained unnoticed and unfound. Maryla’s childhood, however, forever remains an unclear memory.

She hasn’t confirmed that the stories were true, but Maryla assumes that the stories are true, given that they were told by her mother and some friends. When we asked her about her strongest memory, Maryla Lewandowska responded “Za mała byłam żeby pamiętać” ( I was too young to remember...) However she remembers bits of how she was saved. This story was of her father, who had secretly hid Maryla under his coat one day during his stonework time, and dropped her off at an orphanage. This was extremely risky, but successful since Maryla continued to live in the orphanage. There was a lady who stayed with Maryla and had kept her alive.  Later the orphanage was relocated because the previous location was placed in the center of town, which was dangerous and unbearably loud. Maryla’s mom knew the location of her daughter but wasn’t able to help, for that would be a terrible danger. She didn’t take the chance of coming for her, since the Nazis would cause great harm to any Jewish child that received help from an outsider. The punishment was severe, taking the child’s legs and banging them against a wall.

“Mój ojciec którego nazywam bohaterem” (My father, who I call a hero). Maryla considers her father a hero, for he is the reason she is still alive. Unfortunately, her father had died an intense death. He was shot, bullet to the head by a Nazi soldier. It truly was gruesome and hard for Maryla to endure, knowing this information about her father.  But the memory that Maryla has of him is what keeps him alive in her heart. She only owns two pictures of her father. Out of her immediate family, only Maryla and her mother had survived.

During our interview with Ms. Lewandowska, she reminisced about how she viewed Hitler as a person. “Wariata Hitlera” (Hitler’s crazy), “Ogłupiały naród poszedł za nim.” (Stupid nation followed him), she believes. During the beginning of the war, Hitler was very charismatic and had convinced many Germans to side with him on believing that the Jews were horrible people. Later on, he persecuted over 10,000,000 Jews in concentration camps like Auschwitz and Birkenau. She explains how Jews were discriminated and how absurd it was to think of walking on the same sidewalk as the germans. “Nie mogli chodzić przez, a co jak usiądź na ławce, nie ma mowy!” (We couldn’t walk through, and how to sit on the benches, that can’t be!)

Currently, Maryla Lewandowska contributes and enforces manifestations against the neo-fascists. Previously, they brought whistles and whistled to suppress the sound of the neo-fascists. Maryla also has musical talents. She played piano and even performed on live radio. She concludes our interview by revealing that she will always be paranoid about Germans and who took part in the Nazi propaganda system.