Day 6

On Saturday, we met a special woman, Monika Goldwasser. An impressive woman. Her hair was tied up in a bun, a large cup of tea stood before her, and on her face was a gentle, loving smile.

She was born in 1941 in Myślenice. She proudly told us about her parents, Salomea and Adam Goldwasser. Highly educated and wealthy academics. She also told us about her grandfather, a very respected lawyer. They were all Jews, and although the whole family knew about the Nazis and their plans, they believed that they were protected because of their academic careers and their wealth. In 1940, everyone who had a house near Wawel Castle had to leave it, whether Jewish or not, including Adam and Salomea. The family moved into the grandfather’s house near Myślenice. But here too, the family quickly lost hope of surviving the Holocaust. In 1942, the Goldwassers’ neighbors were shot, whereupon Monika’s parents decided at least to save their little daughter. In August 1942, the entire Jewish population of the town was deported to Skawina. Except Monika. Shortly before, her parents had entrusted her to a Christian farming family. At the time, she was about one year old. The Nazis checked a list to make sure no Jew had been forgotten. Monika’s absence was never noticed because Salomea held a doll in her arms instead of her daughter, dressed in Monika’s clothes. To this day, the survivor does not know for certain whether her parents were murdered in a mass shooting at the edge of the forest near Skawina or somewhere else.

This part of the story alone affected us deeply. As a newborn, to have hardly any time with one’s family, or as parents, to lose one’s small daughter, is heartbreaking. But everyone must be aware that the National Socialists not only physically injured and killed people terribly, which alone would already be horrific enough, but on top of all that also tried to break every person psychologically. The Goldwasser family is unfortunately a fitting example of the fact that even wealth, academic success, and diligence could not protect anyone from the Nazis’ cruel crimes.

Monika was safe. At first. However, the farming family decided to place Monika in a convent. A convent on the edge of the town for small Polish, Jewish, and Hungarian girls. There were about 30 orphans. The direct neighbor was the Gestapo, which regularly checked whether there were also Jewish girls among the children. The nuns lied in order to protect the girls. But life in the convent was hard. There was a lack of food, and when the Nazis were bored, they hid in the apartments around the convent and, purely for amusement, shot the nuns who were out walking with the children.

A chill ran down our spines when we heard this.

One day, a man came to the convent, and the nuns asked him to take in one of the orphaned children. He only said that he would first have to discuss it with his wife and left. But he came back with his wife. The wife saw Monika sitting in the corner and, in that very moment, decided to take her in. The couple cared for Monika, even though they knew of the girl’s Jewish background. The little family lived in constant fear of being exposed until the end of the war and remained in hiding.

Not long ago, Monika visited these hiding places and was herself shocked by how small and dirty they were. For us, it is hardly imaginable how terrible it must have been to live in constant fear in such dreadful places.

After the war, a new chapter began for the family. Monika grew up peacefully, without knowing her own story. Only when Anna, her adoptive mother, was dying did Monika learn the whole truth. For the then approximately twenty year old woman, the world collapsed. It went so far that she even hid her true identity from her husband.

One day, Monika was watching television. She saw a woman who was searching for her family that had disappeared during the Second World War, and that changed everything for Monika. It turned out that the woman on television was in fact Monika’s aunt. The only survivor among Salomea’s many sisters. Monika contacted the aunt, who was living in Israel, and they arranged to meet. Sadly, the aunt died relatively soon after this meeting. But Monika’s interest had been awakened. She wanted to know who her family was, what had happened, and ultimately who she herself was. She found further relatives in the United States and visited them. She discovered an incredible amount about herself and has since shared her story with so many people around the world.

It matters greatly to her to pass on to us young people how cruel the Holocaust and the war were, so that we become aware of our responsibility to ensure that such a crime must never happen again.