Narrative

The Story Katarzyna Andrejew

Throughout World War II, the Holocaust affected lives of people all over Europe, many of which still feel that they aren’t fulfilled. Katarzyna Andrejew is one of those people and even now, after 68 years, she feels her life is incomplete. The Holocaust tore up her family in such a terrible way it is hard to imagine, but Katarzyna hasn’t given up hope as she still believes a miracle will happen and she will be reunited with her missing family. Katarzyna told us “Czuję, że nie mogę odejść z tego świata dopóki jest choć cień nadziei, że znajdę swoją rodzinę” (I feel that I can’t leave from this world until there is even a faint chance that I will be reunited with my family).  This is the story of a “lucky” girl who was saved from the ghetto, but even after almost 70 years she still searches for the missing pieces of her life.

When Katarzyna was still a child she had no idea that she was a Jew, a survivor of the Holocaust. Katarzyna said “Kiedy byłam małą dziewczynką zawsze czułam się dziwnie, że nie mam ani dziadków ani cioci i wujków.” (As a child I always found it strange that I never had any aunts, uncles or grandparents.)  Although one day, Katarzyna’s father shared a secret with her, “Kiedy będziesz miała czternaście lat powiem ci coś naprawdę ważnego.” (When you will be fourteen years old I will tell you something really important.) So Katarzyna continued to live normally. A memory that has stayed with her until today was a class in elementary school, during which she teased a boy for wearing a hat that looked “Jewish”.  On the special evening of her fourteenth birthday Katarzyna was extremely curious as to what the secret would be. Katarzyna predicted that “Tatuś powie mi skąd się biorą dzieci” (my daddy will tell me where kids come from) but that wasn’t the case...

That evening her father sat her down in the comfortable chair in the living room and began to tell her about her past, early childhood and the war. Katarzyna was told the truth, “Mój ukochany Tato powiedział mi skąd pochodzę i co się stało przed wojną.”(My beloved father told me where I come from and what happened before the war.) Katarzyna found out that her parents married each other during the war, her father who loved her mother more than anyone ever could, sped up his proposal in order to save his beloved from the Nazis. The entire family was forced to live in the Pruszków Ghetto and that is where Katarzyna comes into the story.

Katarzyna was born on either the 21 or 22 of March in 1942 in the ghetto. The fact that even her parents were unsure of the exact day shows how hectic and disorganized life must have been in the ghettos. When Katarzyna’s father became aware of the liquidation of Polish ghettos, he strove to find a safe place for her mother, her aunt and herself to escape to. Only after they miraculously managed to escape, her mother's sister decided to return to the ghetto, because “Moja ciocia nie mogła życ bez rodziny, czuła sie źle, że ona mogła przeżyc” (My aunt couldn’t live without her family, she felt guilty about the fact that she got to live and her family didn’t.).  Katarzyna and her parents stayed with a Wehrmacht officer who was married to one of her mothers best friends because after all “Najciemniej jest pod latarnią” (It’s darkest under the lantern), meaning that the best place to hide is the most obvious one. Katarzyna found it incredible that a German officer would proudly take her out for walks on the streets of Warsaw, with a bright smile she said “Tato powiedział mi jak ten oficer Wehrmachtu spacerował ze mną po ulicach Warszawy i podobno zawsze powtarzał jaką ładną dziewczynką jestem” (My daddy told me how the officer would proudly take me out for walks around Warsaw and told me what a beautiful girl I was). Haphazardly they were reminded that the war wasn’t over, when terrible news came to her family. The German officer that took care of and hid them was sent to the Eastern Front, and they were forced to find different places to hide throughout Poland.

For Katarzyna just a simple thought of her family being split up brought up emotions, but with tears in her eyes she continued her story, about how her parents “Znalezli mi kryjówkę we wschodniej Polsce” (Found me a hideout in Eastern Poland). Over there she stayed for the next year peacefully, but even in such a patriotic country as Poland you could find a “szmalcownik” (A person who told on people who hid or helped Jews). Then Katarzyna told us about her most vivid memory of the war, one day a “szmalcownik” told on the family that was hiding her. To this day she remembers how she hid under the covers when the SS officers came, “widziałam ich skórzane buty jak przechodzili po drewnianej podłodze ” (I saw their leather shoes hitting the wooden floor)... As Katarzyna recalled the story she wiped a tear from her eye and continued “I wtedy znalezli mnie, małe dziecko i kopneli mnie prosto w brzuszek” (And then they found me the tiny child hiding under the covers, one of the officers threw me on the ground and kicked me straight in my tummy). Fortunately, the Germans couldn’t prove anything and soon they left to deal more misery to the lives of other people. Over there Katarzyna hid until the end of the war. She was one of the lucky people who was never found by the Nazis.

Once Poland was liberated by the Red Army Katarzyna’s parents found her and she was once again together with her family. Her parents weren’t able to stay in Warsaw where all the terrible things took place and so the chain of events moved them to Poznan and there Katarzyna grew up with no idea of her true origin. At the end of her father’s story he said “Musisz mi przyrzec, że nigdy nikomu nie powiesz o swojej przeszłości” (You have to promise me that you will never tell anyone the story of your past). Without any other choice Katarzyna agreed and then continued to live her life according to her father’s wish. Although ever since Katarzyna found out about her past, she kept dreaming about having a large family around her. She married to a Polish man, gave birth to a daughter and continued her peaceful life for another 35 years until 1981, when her parents passed away. Eventually, she felt it was fair to begin searching for other members of her family. In 2001 she signed up for the organization “The Children of the Holocaust.” Unfortunately all her efforts seemed to have been wasted, until one day in 2005 she received a phone call... It was a Jewish WWII organization and they found her cousins who lived in Israel.

Katarzyna told us her dream was to have a huge family and she felt incomplete without it. Finding even a trace of her family from before the war took her 68 years, but as she said “Najważniejsze w życiu jest czucie się spełnionym. Ja czuje, że dopóki jest choć cień nadziei, że odnajde swoją cała rodzine nie moge odejść z tego świata.” (I believe that the most important thing in life is to feel complete and I won’t be able to achieve that until I still have hope to find the descendants of my family from before the war.) Katarzyna Andrejew’s story is truly touching, she told us to treasure the family we have, because you never know the value of something until you lose it.