The Girl in the Cellar

by Gerda Krebs Seifer

  In November 1945, I received a letter from a friend of my parents, who’d found me through the Red Cross. Tarasiukowa opened the envelope and read the letter before she handed it to me. No privacy whatsoever. She had to know what the letter was about before I read it. Mrs. Rysia Masłowska, whose teenaged daughter had been murdered by the Nazis, lived in Katowice. She survived the war by living on false papers. She invited me to come live with her. She offered to care for me, promising to send me to the university, even offering to adopt me. But by then I was too old to be adopted and I had had one beloved mother and no one could ever replace Mamusia.

  Mrs. Masłowska’s invitation seemed like a gift from heaven. She enclosed money in the envelope for a train ticket, but greedy Janina removed the 250 zloty from the envelope, waving it before my eyes. “May I borrow it?” she asked, and she and I both knew it wasn’t a question. “Yes,” I answered weakly. She further told me that she couldn’t possibly allow me to leave until she found a replacement for me and once again I agreed to wait. Janina wielded great power over the whole family and, frankly, we were all afraid of her.

  I wanted to reply to Mrs. Masłowska to thank her for her kind invitation, but I didn’t even have enough money for stamps! Mr. Tarasiuk secretly gave me money for postage so that I could reply to her and correspond with my family in England whom I’d also found through the Red Cross. I had to question whether I was in my right mind to work for the Tarasiuks without pay, living in a dismal, dirty room. Janina didn’t fool me, but I acted as if I believed her promise to find my replacement, knowing full well she’d never find anyone willing to work as I did for no pay. Even so, I waited and hoped. Weeks went by, and nothing changed.

  Every couple of weeks, I’d weakly ask if she’d found anyone, but she emphatically answered “Not yet!” I had no one to ask for advice or help. Depressed though I was, I talked to myself. “Daddy saved me from the Holocaust, the war is over, and I’m free… so how can I still be afraid and under the clutches of Janina Tarasiukowa? I have to collect my courage to tell her I need the money that she took from me to buy a train ticket because I’m leaving.”

  Finally, a day arrived when I overcame my fear and decided to leave that evening. I packed my belongings into a small box. I had so little to carry—no change of clothing, no mementos, photographs, or personal articles, except for one precious little knit scarf that belonged to my mother. It was the only memento that Tarasiukowa let me keep. Memories of my parents I kept deep down in my heart. During the war, it had been too dangerous for me to have any connection of any sort with my family, since I led a life of lies and false papers, a false name, a false birth certificate, and a false religion.

  That day in January of 1946, when Janina came home from work, and with my heart racing, I announced, “I’m leaving today, and I need 250 zloty for the ticket.” The woman became incensed, screaming how ungrateful I was. “Is this how you repay me for saving your life?” I squirmed. I couldn’t speak, I wondered if I should renege on my decision and stay. After her fury and outrage, I kept quiet while she went upstairs to her brother’s apartment to borrow the money for my ticket. I had doubts if I was doing the right thing. Had I been unfair to her? Should I have waited longer for a better time? But then her husband approached me on the sly, whispering, “If you don’t leave today, Alka, you’ll never escape this miserable life.” Pan Tarasiuk gave me the encouragement and confidence I dearly needed. I was so innocent in those days; he could have exploited me or taken advantage of me if he’d wanted, but he never did. He was an honorable man.

  When Janina returned with the money, I took it and hurriedly and left. Outside, the streets were dark, and a bitter wind blew. In snow and darkness, I walked to the railroad station. The station was mayhem. There was no order, no proper police. The trains ran irregularly, arriving early, late, or not at all. I purchased a ticket to Katowice and somehow found the platform where the train was scheduled to depart. I boarded the train and found each wagon packed to capacity. Corridors were overcrowded, and there was no space to stand. I searched one compartment after another, from the first to the last wagon. Fortunately, I found a seat in a cabin sometimes used by a conductor. It was cold and cramped, a few steps above the regular car and reeked of urine, but it would get me out of the city. My satisfaction lasted fewer than five minutes, because suddenly a Russian soldier appeared with a girl in tow and ordered me out. He had power and I did not. I descended the steps, fearful and anxious, trying again to get inside the stuffed train. Some people climbed on the roof, having nowhere else to go. I stood on steps outside of one wagon, holding onto the door as the engine started chugging and the train slowly began to move. I wasn’t entirely sure I was on the right train, but I gripped the freezing door handle as it picked up speed. I was leaving Poznań! As the train sped along, wind whipped through my thin jacket, and my hair blew every which way. I was determined to hold on for dear life, to get away. Riding on the outside of the speeding rail car, I kept telling myself,“Hold on tight to the frozen handle no matter what. Your future depends on leaving Poznań now and getting to Katowice.” After a long while—maybe one hour or maybe just thirty minutes—the train stopped at a station, and a few people got off. And I was able to go inside the train and find a seat on a bench. I was grateful for the warmth and a place to sit.

  By morning, the train arrived in Katowice. It was Sunday, church bells were ringing for early Mass, and virgin snow covered the streets. It was quiet and peaceful with almost empty streets in the early morning hour.

  For a moment, I considered stopping at the church for a quick prayer before meeting Mrs Masłowska, but I gave up that idea the next moment. I wasn’t living with Janina anymore and didn’t have to abide by her rules.

  Holding the envelope with Mrs. Masłowksa’s address, I asked a few pedestrians where I’d find her street. The handwriting on the envelope wasn’t very clear, and the first house I tried was wrong. I went to another address, but it too was wrong. I became very nervous, wondering what I’d do or where I’d go if I couldn’t locate Mrs. Masłowska. One thing I was sure of: I’d never under any circumstances go back to Poznań. Gathering my courage, I approached another stranger for help, and he pointed me to another street. The third building was solid, elegant, and well kept. I climbed three flights of stairs and rang the bell, my heart pounding. I fervently hoped it was the right house, that my friend would recognize me, and that she’d still be willing to put a roof over my head. I held my breath. The door swung open, and a tall, grey-haired woman took one look at me and started crying.

  “Gerdusia,” she said, “my poor child, come in.” I looked like a ragamuffin. My hair was uncombed, my shoes torn, and my paper skirt and jacket were in shreds. Under my arm was my small paper package with all my belongings. She took me gently into in her arms and held me for a long while.

  “Would you like to take a bath?” she asked

  I hadn’t had a bath in three years. “A bath?” was all I could think to answer. I couldn’t believe my good luck. I was overjoyed, but my delight soon turned to worry. I had to tell her about the lice in my hair and clothes. I felt an overwhelming shame over my shabby appearance. I shouldn’t have worried. Mrs. Masłowska surmised my situation and gave me some of her own clothing to wear, which she left in the bathroom, and I never laid eyes on my old lice-infested clothing again. It was a miracle; within days, both head and body lice were gone, and I wore clean underwear and clothes.

  The next day, Mrs. Masłowska took me to a United Nations Relief Association (UNRA) office. This huge warehouse contained clothing sent from England and the United States for people like me. I received a good pair of shoes, a used skirt, and two blouses, pink and white, all items in perfect condition. Now I had a choice of blouses, an unimagined luxury. Imagine my feeling to suddenly become an owner of two blouses. Gosh! Which should I wear first, the pink or the white blouse? What a difficult decision! Having clean clothing and a clean bed to sleep in was a wonderful feeling, but to
have a friend who cared for me and talked to me was even better.

  Those first few days of freedom and the kindness of Mrs. Masłowska were remarkable. My friend was an emancipated woman, who even before the war, believed that women had rights and could think for themselves, that they could make their own choices and decisions. Soon after the war, she immersed herself in collecting data, taking photographs, interviewing Holocaust survivors and Poles who had hidden Jews. Each day, she’d travel to different neighborhoods of southwestern Poland.9 She’d meet various people at Jewish Agencies, collecting information about how they’d been able to survive, if they’d been helped and by whom, whether they’d been deported to labor or concentration camps, and how they’d managed to stay alive. She typed all the information on her old typewriter, planning one day to write a book about their experiences.

  One day, I walked into her living room and to my great surprise and joy, there was my uncle Henryk Leibel, sitting in a chair and smiling. The last news I’d had of him was a postcard sent from the Ural Mountains in 1941. Evidently, he had known Mrs. Masłowska and in the postwar chaos, he’d found her again and they had become friends. Now, to his delight, I was another surviving relative. I told him my family’s story and asked questions about his own war experiences. We couldn’t stop talking. His parents had died on the long train ride to Russia, but he had ended up working in Ural Mountains despite brutal conditions and had miraculously survived.

  He told me that after he’d come back from Russia, he stopped in Przemyśl. Because he was a lawyer once, he’d taken the initiative, hoping that I’d somehow survived, of going to City Hall to register me as owner of Mother’s building on Piłsudskiego Street, as I was my parents’ only heir. Although I had no rights to any real estate ownership under the current Communist government, Uncle Leibel’s quick thinking enabled me to eventually gain ownership of mother’s building sometime in early 2000.10

  One evening, Mrs. Masłowska said she’d heard about a Rabbi Solomon Schonfeld from London, currently staying in Warsaw, who was gathering a group of war orphans to travel to England. She knew I had relatives in Leeds, namely, my father’s sister Eveline Krebs Mantel. With tremendous tact, she asked if I might prefer to join my relatives in England or stay with her—that she’d be happy to continue caring for me. She added that she’d pay for my education and that I could choose any school I wanted. It took me two seconds to make a decision. Grateful as I was for her friendship and generosity and for getting me out of an untenable situation with the Tarasiuks, I wanted to leave Poland, its oppressive regime, and the horrifying memories of the past five years. She further recommended that before I left, I should first try to regain possession of my mother’s building—my building now.

  I told her without hesitation, “To hell with that building! More than anything I want to get out of Poland. Our family lost so much more than a building. Living in a free world is more important than any structure.”

  Up until that moment of my declaration, leaving Poland seemed a totally impossible dream, as the Communists forbade emigration. Still, though I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to live in a free, faraway country such as Great Britain, I knew any country would be better than Poland. Leaving Poland and living in England was as unlikely as planning a trip to the moon.

  Once again, Mrs. Masłowska gave me money for a railroad ticket, and that evening I took the night train to Warsaw.

  The next morning as I left the train station in Warsaw, I saw a city totally destroyed. Before the war, Warsaw had often been called little Paris, but now it was in ruins. As far as the eye could see, there was nothing but rubble and destruction. Skeletons of buildings hinted at once magnificent edifices. There were no streets and no street names. Roads were torn up, and one had to climb over rocks and stones, watching for deep holes, most of them filled with rainwater or melting snow.

  It was six o’ clock in the morning, and I was hungry. To my surprise, I saw a woman with a small cart, selling sausages and black bread. I bought a piece of sausage and a chunk of bread and ate them while sitting on a rock. I worried that it might be too early to try to meet Rabbi Schonfeld. He was staying at the Hotel Polonia, the only building still standing in the center of Warsaw and located very close to the railroad station.

  I entered the hotel, waiting in the lobby until a decent hour. At around 8:00 a.m., I took the elevator to the third floor. The door opened automatically and I found myself in a long noisy corridor with many children and a few adults running to and fro. A man approached me, asking in Yiddish why I was there. As I didn’t speak Yiddish, I answered in Polish.

  “I’m wondering if I’m in the right place? I’m looking for Rabbi Schonfeld. I want to go to England.”

  It was unreasonable, expecting to travel right away to England, a foreign country. But I needed to get away from the place that had brought such pain, sadness, fear, poverty, and destruction. I desperately wanted to find freedom, to get an education, to locate relatives, maybe even find happiness once more. I knew it was chutzpah and bravado that made me speak in such a way to a stranger.

  The man responded in Polish, asking if I had relatives in England and why I wanted to go there.

  “I lost my whole family in Poland. My father’s sister lives in Leeds and I hope to live with her. She sent me a letter, inviting me to stay with her.” I held out the letter, and he read it.

  Then I saw HIM, a tall handsome man with bright blue eyes and a long black beard, wearing a British Officer’s uniform with many medals on his chest: Rabbi Solomon Schonfeld. He approached us, and the Polish man showed him the letter from my aunt. The rabbi read it and nodded, saying that yes, I could go to England, and that I would be a part of his transport of war orphans.

  The man interpreted for the rabbi. He said that we’d be leaving from Gdynia in March and that I’d be notified where to report. I couldn’t comprehend the words he uttered, as it had happened so quickly. I was stunned. Then the elevator door opened, and a man emerged holding a small child by the hand. He began to beg both the man and the rabbi to take his boy to England.

  “Please!” he said. “I’ll get to England somehow, but please, please take my child on the transport!” Not unkindly, the man informed him that the list was closed and he couldn’t take more children. He pointed to me, saying, “This girl is last on our list.”

  My good fortune didn’t escape me. Had I waited another fifteen minutes before going to see the rabbi, the little boy would have been the last on the list, and I would’ve been left behind in Poland.

  I returned to Katowice and told my benefactress my good luck, that I’d been accepted for transport to England in six weeks. She said she was sorry to see me go but she felt that I’d be much better off going to England than staying with her. While in Katowice, Mrs. Masłowska introduced me to Anita S. and her mother, both survivors from Lwów. Anita and I became good friends.11

  Six weeks passed in a flash, and I flew from Warsaw to Gdynia, a port on the Baltic. It was my first airplane flight, and we were told that we should have a lemon and a paper bag, because the plane wasn’t pressurized and we could suffer airsickness. The whole plane was filled with war orphans leaving Poland. I was too excited to be sick, but I sucked on the lemon anyway, the first I’d seen in six years.

  We boarded a Swedish ship. In the middle of the night, we set sail, traveling the Baltic and the North Sea to England. We were all very enthusiastic and happy to leave Poland with its memories of the horrors and murders of the Shoah. I shared the cabin with three other girls, but once the ship left the port, I became seasick and spent most of the trip vomiting and in bed. We never asked each other where we’d come from or how we’d survived, nor did we exchange names. Perhaps, if I hadn’t been so ill, I might have made new friends and kept in contact with them, but the choppy seas didn’t relent for six days. We left Gdynia in the middle of the night, and in the morning, I woke up feeling nauseated, a dim light filtering through the porthole. Outside, the sea danced
up and down, waves beating against the ship, my stomach matching its twists and turns. Needless to say, I couldn’t rouse myself when we were called for breakfast and stayed in bed. Some passengers fared much better, unaffected by roiling seas.

  One girl came to my cabin, excitedly announcing that sardines would be served at lunch, a food we hadn’t seen since war broke out. But the very thought of sardines made me even queasier.

  I remember Rabbi Schonfeld teaching us some English words and songs:

  Oh, it ain’t gonna rain no more, no more

  It ain’t gonna rain no more

  How in the heck will I wash my neck

  if it ain’t gonna rain no more?

  The other song that I learned and remembered was the popular tune, “You Are My Sunshine.” This song has many meanings for me, and each time I hear it, I see the ship’s deck with the wonderful rabbi, teaching us the words.

  You are my sunshine, my only sunshine

  You make me happy when skies are gray

  You’ll never know dear, how much I love you

  Please don’t take my sunshine away.

  What did the words mean to lonely kids going into the unknown? They made me think about my mother, whom I had lost at age fourteen, and I tried to imagine that she was still near me and would always watch over me.

  We arrived in Southampton on March 1, 1946. After going through many formalities, we finally disembarked and were able to put our feet on terra firma. Some children were taken to a shelter or home in London, where they remained for a long time. I had no idea where I would end up that day. Most of the orphans would stay in a hostel provided by a Jewish agency, because they had no relatives to stay with and no other destination. Some planned to go to Palestine, others had relatives as I did, but the rabbi and the English committee took care of all the arrangements.