war story

 

Anulka Starzyńska was a lively, always smiling, blonde eighteen-year-old. This small, petite person brought a smile to the face of everyone who saw her.

She grew up in a home full of warmth and love, reverberating with laughter. She had four siblings: twenty-five-year-old Hania, twenty-year-old Antek and Bronek, and three-year-old Grześ. All six lived with their parents in Warsaw's Mokotów district.

Just a few years ago, on weekdays, the children went to school, their father went to work, and their mother took care of the house. In the evenings, they ate dinner together and

then sat together in the living room, talking and joking. Now everything had changed. The war was raging. Polish schools were closed, her father had lost his job, and her mother had nothing left to cook for, nothing to look after, and nothing to care for, as they had sold all their possessions to earn a living. Her father decided they had to move. Their new home was to be a tiny, dilapidated, single-story building with a leaky roof. It was located on the outskirts of Warsaw, a safer area than Mokotów.

There was only one problem: how to get to the other side of the city, where their new home stood? Recently, roundups for camps had intensified. Safe places in Warsaw no longer existed. People left their homes and never returned, and families, frantic with despair, did everything they could to retrieve their loved ones. However, even the most determined searchers eventually lost all hope. After a year, two, three, it was always the same, leaving only a gaping emptiness in the eyes and tortured souls.

The meager remnants of the Starzyńskis' remaining possessions had already been transported to their destination. Now all they had to do was get there safely. They decided to cross the city during the day, posing as a sedate, strolling family.

It didn't work out. Suddenly, out of nowhere, the square was swarming with SS men, rifles in hand, running from all sides. SS men on motorcycles and SS men arriving in groups of a dozen or so female prisoners. All hell broke loose. Whoever was on the street at that moment had no chance of escaping. The operation lasted only a few moments. The Germans fired on everything and everyone, and the roar and sounds of explosions echoed throughout Warsaw, warning of the danger. Within minutes, terrifying, terrifying female prisoners were rolling through the city streets, leaving behind a street strewn with bodies and dripping with the blood of the innocent.

Thus began the final stage of Anna Starzyńska's life – my mother's.

They traveled to the camp like animals. Thousands were transported by freight trains. More than half did not survive due to lack of food and water. They died in their own excrement and vomit, trampled by their comrades. Members of the Starzyński family dropped like flies. Antek and Bronek were murdered during a roundup while trying to protect their sisters. Three-year-old Grześ was ripped from his mother's arms by a man and thrown out the train window. The rest survived the journey.

I was born in the camp. I was immediately taken from my mother and transported to Germany. That's how I became German. Sometimes babies and small children were treated this way, but more often they were simply killed outright or gassed.

The surviving Starzyńskis were unfit for work. They weren't strong enough. They died in the camp shortly after my birth. They were put in the oven.

No mementos, no photographs...nothing. This story is a recollection of people who survived the war and remember a family that stayed together until the end. A Pole who worked in an incinerator during the war said:

"They entered the chamber holding hands. They didn't cry or scream like most people. The pain and fear were soothed by the closeness of a loved one. They were together until the end.

Forever."