Narrative

Anonymous Savior

Joanna Sobolewska was playing in her teacher’s apartment when her new parents entered the room. Mrs Winda Niczowa was a polish teacher who taught in secret, because, it wasn’t allowed to teach back then. If the Nazis found out, she would be punished. The teacher waited with the small girl, which was clueless to the war, the deaths, and the chaos that was occurring all around her. Little Joanna just sat there; so naive at the time and then there was a knock on the door. Her new mother stepped into the room, very well dressed and put together followed by her new dad, who was also well dressed. Both were Polish. This is Joanna Sobolewska’s first memory. Joanna was only four years old, so she has no memory of anything before this moment. This is probably because we subconsciously choose to remember the better memories over the memories of despair.

Nineteen years after meeting her Polish parents, Joanna’s new father, Mr Sobolewska, wrote a letter to Joanna’s Jewish parents explaining how Joanna was found and raised. The letter stated that during the liquidation of the ghetto in 1943, Joanna was found in the sewers of the ghetto by a Police officer working for the Nazis. Luckily, this man found sympathy and hid her with a Polish teacher instead of turning Joanna in to the Gestapo, a confidential Nazi organization. The fate of Joanna’s Jewish parents is unknown to Joanna but Sobolewscy, a childless couple at the time, heard of Joanna and thought that she was the child of their Jewish friends. One night, Sobolewscy left for a party and on their way back, stopped by at Mrs Winda’s apartment to meet Joanna. Her new mother decided to name her Inka, to ease suspicion of Joanna being a Jew.On their way home, the family had to take back alleys in the ghetto, to avoid the Nazis. During their journey they saw a burning building. People were throwing themselves from the building. There were women with their kids, jumping in desperation to survive. It was January 18, 1943, during the Warsaw Ghetto Liquidation. Later on, several people stared at the Sobolewski family, because the parents were so well dressed while Joanna was in an oversized coat and a large hat. When they finally arrived home, a lot of neighbors stared and Joanna but not many spoke up about her being a Jewish child. Mr and Mrs Sobolewska survived the war, along with Joanna. Her Polish father died in 1965, leaving his fortune behind. His second family wanted all of the inheritance, but Joanna did too. Unfortunately they had a case and the second family lost which ruined their relationship.

Joanna has never seen a picture of her real parents, except for a miniscule picture of her mother, when she was a student. Her Polish mother’s last words to her were “you are my child, and only mine.” Joanna never understood what this meant, but  she found out eventually. When Joanna was 18, she got into a serious argument with her father because they both had trouble coping with her mother’s death. Her dad told her she takes everything for granted and he decided to tell Joanna her true life story. At first, Joanna thought that her father meant she was her mother’s child, not his. Unfortunately, it turned out that neither of them were her real parents. She was still young and naive so she didn’t have the capability to understand the situation during the war, therefore, she was furious with her parents that all her friends get to return home to see their real parents while Joanna doesn’t remember hers. After finding peace of mind and coming to terms with her situation, Joanna decided to search for her Jewish family

She was really curious about everything that had happened, so she started to investigate her past. She wrote a letter to the Israeli embassy asking to place her picture and some personal information in the Jewish newspaper, so her relatives can find her. Her cousin saw her picture in the newspaper and wrote her a letter explaining his history and how he knows they’re related. Bolek, her cousin and Bronka, her cousin’s mother, invited her to Israel but she couldn’t get a passport, because it was hard to get one during communism. Eventually she went there illegally in 1974 where she has the opportunity to meet her entire Jewish family. She returned to Israel in 1994 where she was reunited with Bolek and Bronka, who unfortunately died shortly after. Joanna still keeps in touch with Bolek’s wife and Bronka’s daughter, Zosia, and her husband, Amiram. When concluding the interview, Joanna Sobolewska stated “the more I know, the less I understand.” Throughout the whole interview, we could see tears filling up in Mrs. Sobolewska’s eyes. It’s incredibly painful for holocaust survivors to tell everyone their story, because they need to relive the memories that stole so much from them.