Narrative

Living History

Group 8

The Young Child with Old Memories

        Krystyna Budnicka was seven when it all began. She was living in Warsaw with her loving family, the youngest child. She got everything she wanted and her family members took care of her like no other child. They all were living a joyful, stable life. Suddenly everything had to change, there was no exit, and they couldn’t run away. Krystyna was a Jew.“Dla żydow nie było nadziei” “For Jews there was no hope”, she remarked. As a child she encountered more than one would probably ever in her life. Death. Torture. Bloodshed. That was all the Nazis wanted. This is Krystyna’s story…

September 1, 1939, World War II started. Krystyna and her Jewish family saw hundreds of Jews flooding the ghetto where she lived. At that time, her family was fortunate enough not to have transferred to the ghetto since they already lived there. Krystyna was also lucky to have creative, male family members work as carpenters who used their talents to build a secret bunker underground their house. During the time that the Nazis were in power, she had to hide underground for nine months. Almost no food, almost no water, but a lot of suffering. Suspecting that something was going on in the sewers, Nazis started throwing gas bombs, killing everyone in their way. Every time they saw a head emerging from the manholes they shot the person “tak jak kaczki” “just like ducks”, she mumbled.  

During the bombing, her family went back and forth from the bunker to the sewers. In the bunker “było jak w piekarniku” “it was like an oven,” because the Nazis started burning the ghetto, trying to kill all the Jews who were left. The earth got warm and so did the bunker. Luckily the bunker was connected to the sewers so they had another escape plan. The sewers were filled with gas, it was impossible to breath. After nine months in those conditions, the family members, “wygladalismy jak szkielety” “looked like skeletons,” and some were sick. She expressed, “nawet nie wygladalismy jak ludzie.” “We didn’t even look like humans.” The living conditions got worse. They had to move.

The four brothers volunteered to go look for a place, however before they could even get out from the bunker they were shot dead by the Nazis. To escape from the sewers and go to “stronę aryiską” “the Aryan side”, they had to meet in a secret location, during the night where they would be saved by members of the Jewish organization. As they arrived at the point where they were supposed to be rescued, they remained seated on wooden boards for forty- eight hours. That night, some men from the Jewish organization found out that the manhole was shut. They had to move to another one. Her parents were weak and weren’t able to go any further as they had no strength. They decided to stay and told Krystyna,“Wy idżcie, my zostaniemy, wszystko będzie dobrze”  “you go, we will stay, don’t worry everything is going to be fine,” Due to their parents decision her sister decided not to leave her parents and she declared, “ Ja nię zostawie ich samych” “ I won’t leave them alone.” Krystyna went along with her brothers and sister-in-law, not knowing that she would never see her parents and sister again.

In 1943, there were four left from the family: Krystyna, brother Rafal, sister-in-law Ants, and her youngest brother. They all carried on, looking like living corpses. All of them were packed into sacks, so the Nazis couldn’t see them and were transferred to their new hiding place. They were settled in a cellar of a burned-out apartment building. Soon after getting out of the sewers her younger brother died. They were all separated for safety reasons.  Her big brother Rafal then worked underground making a bunker for the future uprising. He was discovered by the Nazis and executed in Aleje Jerozolimskie. Eventually, her sister-in-law and Krystyna were the only family members left, until weakness claimed her sister-in-law and Krystyna was alone.  

One by one, she lost all her family members, until she was the only one left. In 1945 the war ended, but for Krystyna the war never ended. Nothing could compensate for the lost family, she had nowhere to go. She would ask herself “gdzie mój dom. Gdzie mam się podziać” “Where’s my home. Where do I go?” Krystyna was 11 years old when hell slowly started to change into heaven. It would be several years before she felt she was free, but what she saw and how she felt will never be forgotten.