Narrative

Łódż in the Eyes of Henryka Żyndul

Imagine taking a train through a ghetto and walking 40km every day in World War II. Every day feeling terrified while traveling to the countryside in search of food for your mother.  World War II was one of the bloodiest wars in the history of mankind.  Anyone who survived those six terrible years of war was unbelievably lucky. Henryka Żyndul was among those lucky ones who did. Her story is impressive, packed with risky and alarming events that occurred during the war.

At just seven years old, Henryka Żyndul was living peacefully in the Polish town of Łódź. In September, Germans moved into Poland, taking over her city. When the war officially broke out, Henryka was forced to move out of her home, as it was to be a part of the Łódz ghetto. She attended school for only two weeks because Polish schools were closed since the Nazis did not think that a Pole had to be educated. People Henryka knew, friends and relatives, were taken to prisons or camps. One of her uncles was shot by a plane while standing in front of his house. Another one of her uncles was taken to prison. At the beginning of the war, she watched the first hanging of Jews in Łódź, in one of the city’s main squares. Additionally, she was witness to an accidental prison fire and the burnt bodies of prisoners, in Radgoszcz, not far from Łódź.

Henryka lived alone with her mother. Her father left to fight in the war, and she had no siblings. In order to get food from a farm outside of the city, she took trolley 41, which passed through the ghetto to a farm. Unlike other trolleys, this one had windows which weren’t blocked by wooden boards. For this reason, Henryka could look at what was happening in the ghetto. Everyday, at the beginning of the war, she noticed her Jewish childhood friend in the ghetto. As the weeks passed, she stopped seeing her at all until eventually, the ghetto was suddenly empty.

After getting off the trolley and walking fourteen kilometers, Henryka arrived at the farm with an empty stomach. At the farm she traded items such as clothing dye for food or she helped at the farm. After receiving the food, she walked back to her apartment as traveling by trolley was too dangerous for the return trip, because people could steal her food. So Henryka walked 40 kilometers back home. Even on foot, the journey back wasn’t incredibly safe. One time, Henryka was passing by German teens while carrying eggs in her sleeves. The Germans pushed her around, called her names and made fun of her. She fell to the ground and the eggs cracked over her clothes. On a different occasion, she was walking home during a cold and snowy winter.  She was so tired and worn-out, she knelt  to take a break from walking. She was so cold that she felt that she could literally freeze to death.Fortunately, at that moment, a man passed by her, took Henryka to his house and warmed her up with food and alcohol.

By the time the war was over, Henryka was a lot more mature than she was before the war. The first thing she wanted was an education so she attended school again and returned to second grade immediately after the war. Her desire to learn and educate herself properly was overpowering, so she leveled up quickly. Many things changed after the war, including the new rules of the PRL (which made changes such as getting food stamps. She sighed as she said that her worst memory, even after the war, was hunger. Starvation killed a lot of people during this time in history. Henryka has no positive memories from the war, although when asked about her father, she paused to think, smiled and said “Tak, zobaczyłam się z moim tatą po wojnie.” [I regained contact with my father after the war.]

Hearing Henryka Żyndul’s terrifying story of her experiences in World War II had a profound impact on all who heard it. World War II not only stole Henryka Żyndul’s childhood, forcing her to mature too quickly, but also destroyed millions of lives. It’s impossible to imagine what danger Henryka had to put up with being just seven years old when the war broke out. Watching terror, and living in hell was a daunting feat to be able to endure, being so young. Hearing Henryka Żyndul’s story first hand helped us to depict the situation of people back in WWII. Henryka definitely has a story to tell, and all should learn and never forget it.