Zvi Gill lit one of six torches at the State Opening Ceremony of Holocaust Remembrance Day at Yad Vashem in 2022
Zvi Glazer (later Gill) was born in 1928 in the city of Zduńska Wola
the Germans conducted a census in the city center
"I stood by my grandpa David," Zvi later recalled
My father and brothers were taken to the gas trucks in Chelmno
but a German struck him and we were forced to separate." Zvi's mother was the head nurse at the ghetto's hospital
Knowing that anyone in bed would be killed
she made sure that every patient who could get up
She then went out wearing her Red Cross hat and walked to the gathering point at the cemetery
Zvi and his mother were transported in cattle cars to the Lodz ghetto
where Zvi became a member of the Zionist youth movement
We learned about the Land of Israel and sang Zionist songs
A human bubble in the midst of the inferno
fantasizing about the Land of Israel with its blue sky
you came across corpses lying on the sidewalks for collection in carts or wheelbarrows." During the Aktionen
She survived the brutal roundups thanks to her profession
We were hoping for liberation." But the ghetto was liquidated before the Red Army reached Lodz
Zvi was separated from his mother and transferred to a forced labor camp
where he worked in an aircraft repair factory
where he collapsed during forced labor in a heavy snowstorm
I saw Elijah the prophet in the form of a German guard."
he was put on a train to an unknown destination
and the guards ordered the prisoners to leave the carriages and lie down on the ground
The guards chased after him but he managed to slip away
It all depended on those two minutes of the escape."
Zvi arrived at the home of a German farmer
He introduced himself as a Pole and worked on the farm in exchange for food and accommodation until liberation
shortly before boarding a ship sailing from Italy to Eretz Israel (Mandatory Palestine)
a senior journalist with the Israel Broadcasting Authority
and one of the founders of Israeli television
ten grandchildren and three great-grandchildren
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The public transport operator Miejskie Przedsiębiorstwo Komunikacji
has signed a contract for the delivery of four e-buses
Solaris has been awarded this order after winning a tender launched by the carrier
The zero-emission Urbino 12 vehicles will hit the streets of the town by the end of 2022
This is not the first contract to have been carried out for Zduńska Wola by the […]
This is not the first contract to have been carried out for Zduńska Wola by the manufacturer from Bolechowo
yet the ordered vehicles will be the first electric buses to be put into service in the town
The contract is worth slightly over PLN 10 million
The town of Zduńska Wola has taken its first step on the track towards e-mobility
The four Solaris Urbino 12 electric buses ordered by the carrier stand out due to their quietness and lack of local emissions
Thanks to the appropriate configuration of batteries and the charging infrastructure
they can operate for up to 24 hours a day
Their low noise emissions and vibration levels make them particularly suited for use in the centres of towns and cities
The inhabitants of Zduńska Wola will soon have the opportunity to see this for themselves thanks to the Urbino electric buses which
will run on lines operated by MPK
“Today’s signing of the contract for 4 modern electric buses along with the infrastructure for their charging is a very important event for us
We are glad that Zduńska Wola has once again decided to choose Solaris buses and start the electric transformation of its fleet with us
The investment plans of the MPK in Zdunska Wola are impressive
all the more so as they are in line with European trends in transforming public transport into a more citizen- and environment-friendly option.”
Solaris Bus & Coach Board Member for Sales
The new e-buses will be powered by High Energy batteries
the carrier has opted to purchase charging infrastructure
two dual chargers that enable each to concurrently recharge two buses with a charging power of 40 kW or one bus with a charging power of 80 kW
Smooth operation of the 12-metre e-buses will be ensured by an electric central traction motor
equipped with fully automated air-conditioning for the whole vehicle
four seats in each bus will be specially adjusted to transport passengers with disabilities
The buses will also feature numerous amenities and modern solutions such as illuminated USB charging ports
Passengers will begin their journey by boarding through doors arranged in a 2-2-2 layout
In order to enhance passengers’ safety
the commissioned Solaris buses will feature a driver alcohol detection system
They will also boast an enclosed driver cabin with a full-height
semi-glazed partition separating it from the passenger compartment and a system to record communication between the driver and passengers
A comfortable ride will be ensured by a passenger information system and cameras monitoring the passenger compartment and the road in front of the vehicle
as well as by devices monitoring the street while reversing
The first Solaris buses joined the fleet of the local operator MPK in 1999
both the operator’s fleet and the manufacturer’s offering have undergone a profound transformation
vehicles fuelled with alternative energy sources are accounting for an increasingly significant share of the Bolechowo factory’s output
The Urbino 12 electric bus is one of the most popular and best-selling models in the zero-emission Solaris range
This is the very model with which carriers often embark on their adventure with e-mobility
The 12-metre e-bus is also the first ever electric vehicle to have been awarded the “Bus of the Year” title
© Copyright 2012 - 2025 | Vado e Torno Edizioni | All rights reserved | P.I
returned to his Polish hometown of Zduńska Wola a week after the Germans retreated
to see if anyone from his family was still alive
Of the over 8,000 Jews who lived in Zduńska Wola when the war began
Upon seeing him some of his former Polish neighbors expressed their surprise and obvious disappointment
“So many Zhidkies are still alive?” they asked
Like many Jewish Holocaust survivors from Poland
nor did he want any of his children to ever set foot on Polish soil
I decided to visit Poland in December of 1988 in order to accompany and film Hasidic singer and storyteller Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach
during his ten-day concert tour of major Polish cities
I told my father I would soon visit Poland and be in his hometown of Zduńska Wola
Realizing his objections would not dissuade me
who had died when my father was only ten months old
His mother remarried and my father had a difficult relationship with his stern and unsympathetic stepfather
often finding solace in the cemetery where he prayed at his father’s grave
my father had suffered a series of debilitating strokes and was asking me to pray at his father’s grave for his recovery
He told me how to find his father’s tombstone: upon entering the cemetery’s main gate
count ten rows along the back wall and then count four rows forward
When I got to Zduńska Wola a few days later I found the Jewish cemetery in shambles and overgrown with dense vegetation
Many tombstones were missing and most of those that remained had been toppled
There were a number of open pits where graves had been dug up
I learned this was mostly the work of locals who believed Jews had buried their valuables in the cemetery to hide them from the Germans
The sad condition of the cemetery seemed to confirm my father’s belief about Poles
They could not even let dead Jews rest in peace
I counted ten rows to the right and four rows forward
all the tombstones in that section of the cemetery had been removed or smashed into small fragments
I found no sign of my paternal grandfather’s tombstone
I figured the tombstone is merely a pointer; what is most sacred is the actual resting place of my grandfather
Whether I was off by a few feet to the right or left was not so important
which are traditionally recited at an ancestor’s grave
and asked my grandfather to intercede in Heaven and do whatever he could on behalf of his ailing son
my father asked if I had found his father’s grave
“Your father’s tombstone was exactly where you said it would be
ten rows on the right side and four rows forward.” I figured even if the tombstone no longer existed in reality
let it at least continue to exist in my father’s memory
My father was born in 1915 at a time when Poland did not exist as an independent country
Poland had been partitioned and absorbed by the neighboring Prussian
under the leadership of Marshal Józef Piłsudski
The newly reconstituted Poland that emerged was only two-thirds ethnically Polish Catholic
This gave rise and urgency to the question of who is a “true Pole.”
Two answers emerged to the question of what constitutes Polishness
defined it as a community of cultural and historical values that was inclusive
championed by Piłsudski and his leftist Polish Socialist Party
adopted a tolerant stance toward Poland’s Jews and other minorities
who embraced Poland’s struggle for freedom
Diametrically opposed to Piłsudski’s approach was the exclusivist vision of Polishness espoused by Roman Dmowski
a founder of the right-wing National Democratic Party
The “exclusivists” deemed anyone who was not Roman Catholic or not of ethnic Polish descent to be outside the Polish national community
Dmowski and his party advocated a form of Polish ethno-nationalism that was hostile towards all Polish minorities but was especially bitter towards Poland’s Jews
Not only were Jews to be excluded from Polish nationhood
but they were seen as an internal threat to all things Polish
as the “anti-Pole.” This view saw Poles and Polish values as jeopardized by these “ungrateful guests” who had overstayed their welcome and abused the hospitality of their host country
the founding father of the Second Polish Republic
directly or indirectly ruled Poland for most of my father’s formative years
I recall my father speaking warmly of Piłsudski as a friend of Poland’s Jews
it was Piłsudski’s vision of a multi-ethnic and tolerant Poland that my father hoped would prevail over that of the ethno-nationalists
my father received a draft notice from the Polish army
Until then he had spent most of his adolescence in religious study and in prayer together with other young Hasidic followers of the Rebbe of Ger
The Hasidic culture of his insulated environment could not have been more different than the secular culture of the Polish army
My father was concerned how he could remain an observant Jew there
He would be forced to shave off his beard and side curls
replace his Hasidic garb with an army uniform
First he said: “Fun dinen in militer kon men zikh lernen tzu dinen dem eybershtn” (by serving in the army you can learn how to serve the Creator)
Then he added: “Vu a yid gefint zikh kon er shtendik blaybn a yid (wherever a Jew finds himself he can always remain a true Jew)
For the nearly two years that he served in the Polish army he ate only raw fruits and vegetables that he got from the army kitchen
and eggs that he cooked in his own kosher pot
One night a week he was able to leave his army base and get a home-cooked kosher meal at the nearby home of a relative
the commanding officer reviewed his military record and remarked: “It says here you fulfilled all your obligations to the Polish army
yet you never ate a single Polish army meal.” The officer stood up and discharged my father with a salute
My father always spoke with pride of his Polish military service and of his ability to remain true to his religious values
By the time my father returned to civilian life
Piłsudski’s vision of an inclusive Poland had been replaced with virulent ethno-nationalism
The clique of military men who succeeded Piłsudski was unwilling or unable to rein in nationalist extremism
This “regime of the colonels” sought to find favor with Poland’s neighbor
hoping this would save Poland from invasion
In the four years leading up to the outbreak of World War II the Polish government passed laws against Jewish businesses
expelled Jewish students from universities and outlawed Jewish ritual slaughter
my father was again mobilized by the Polish army
He was captured in the first week of fighting and spent the rest of the war in the Zdunska Wola ghetto
the Lodz ghetto and the Hasag forced labor camp in Czestochowa
During the war my parents had each lost their spouses
After the war they met and married in Łódź which had by then become Poland’s largest Jewish community
Although they came from a similar background – both came from very observant Jewish homes – they would probably never have considered each other suitable marriage partners
came from the more affluent and respected Nussbaum family
During the day she attended Polish public school where she learned to appreciate Polish literature
and every afternoon she attended a Bais Yaakov religious school for girls
studied in yeshiva and had little exposure to worldly knowledge or secular culture
Mainly what my parents had in common was their shared memories of prewar Zduńska Wola and their urgent postwar desire to rebuild new families
The sarcastic expression “Hitler iz geven zeyer shadkhn: Hitler was their matchmaker” certainly applied to them
In Łódź my parents met many other Jewish survivors who were afraid of going back to their towns and sought safety in numbers
After a short stay they fled Poland for the safety of the American Occupied Zone in Germany
which in Hebrew means “one who consoles or comforts.”
We were among the last displaced persons to leave Germany
With the help of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS) we settled in Schenectady
HIAS volunteers found a good job for my father and a nice place for us to live
They registered me in Schenectady’s Riverside Public School under the name “Martin” which I was told would be easier for people to pronounce than Menachem
They helped us get a TV set so we could learn English
I was adapting well to this wonderful new land
Many years later I obtained our family’s dossier from HIAS and learned that less than three months after we arrived my father was complaining that he didn’t belong in Schenectady
The director of the Schenectady Jewish Community Center
is not sufficient to overcome his religious and spiritual needs
He is dissatisfied with the limited Jewish educational facilities that the community can provide for his older boy; kosher food is a big problem for him in Schenectady and he is apparently a soloist in terms of his religious needs
having neither a minyan (a prayer quorum) nor a group of people who have the same religious and cultural values
As soon as he could scrape together enough money
my father moved us from Schenectady to a poor neighborhood in Brooklyn that contained a small community of Hasidic survivors
He registered me in a Hasidic yeshiva and joined a small Hasidic prayer house
in the company of survivors with similar backgrounds as his own
they seemed to have traveled back to prewar Jewish Poland
They reminisced about their childhood and adolescence
colorful characters and spiritual pilgrimages to the Rebbe
They recounted humorous anecdotes that made sense only to those with a shared upbringing
When they talked about the past it was almost as if the Holocaust had never happened
I enjoyed seeing my father become so animated
I especially enjoyed seeing him smile and laugh
Witnessing the power which prewar Jewish Poland had on my father
I developed a nostalgia for a place I had never been to and for a time which no longer existed
Being a “Polish Jew” became an important part of my identity
My attraction to the prewar Jewish Poland of my parents increased over the years
When I heard Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach would be giving a concert tour of Hasidic music throughout Poland I jumped at the opportunity to join him
I knew that the tiny and mostly assimilated Jewish community still living in communist Poland was in no way representative of the diverse prewar Jewish community my parents had known but I hoped I could learn something from this aging remnant of Polish Jewry
I naturally assumed these Polish Jews would comprise the majority of Rabbi Carlebach’s audiences since I couldn’t imagine any Polish Christians coming out to hear Jewish music and stories
The vast majority in the audience were indeed Polish Christians
I asked them why they came and got a variety of answers
Some came out of simple curiosity to see the “Singing Rabbi.” Some came as an act of defiance against the then ruling communist authorities who had expelled thousands of Polish Jews in 1968
To show their objection to the communist’s “anti-Zionist” campaign many in the audience chose to become “anti-anti-Semites.” Some
who knew that the Hasidic movement had been born on Polish soil
saw this music as a “homecoming” of their own national history and culture
For ten days I witnessed thousands of Poles dancing and swaying to Hasidic music and entranced by Hasidic tales
I saw countless Poles coming over to Rabbi Carlebach
asking to shake his hand or bless their children
These were not scenes I would have expected based on the depictions of Polish Christians I had grown up with
In the years that followed I made many trips to Poland where I continued to encounter Christian Poles who were interested in things Jewish
I made a stop in Zduńska Wola and noticed the Jewish cemetery looked a little cleaner and better maintained
Clearly there were local people taking care of it
The first of these I met was Elżbieta Bartsch
a graduate student at Krakow’s Jagiellonian University
thesis about the Zduńska Wola Jewish cemetery and her PhD dissertation on Jewish genealogy
Kamila briefly appeared in a PBS documentary film I produced in 2004 called “Hiding and Seeking”
which tells the story of my family’s journey to Poland to search for the Polish farmers who risked their lives for 28 months to hide my father-in-law and his two brothers
(“Hiding and Seeking” can be viewed free of charge at https://vimeo.com/497317050
In 2007 Kamila invited me to a rededication ceremony for the restored Zduńska Wola cemetery
The following year she invited me back to Zduńska Wola for a gathering she had organized called the First National Conference of Poles who Preserve Jewish Memory
I was moved by the dozens of Memory Keepers who came from all across Poland to attend the event
lone voices speaking out about Polish-Jewish history being an integral part of Polish history
But in 2014 it seemed as if their iconoclastic views had finally become mainstream
That was the year I returned to Poland to attend the opening of the Polin Museum of the History of Polish Jews
built in Poland’s capital city and partially funded by the Polish government
documents nearly 1,000 years of Jewish life in Poland
At the opening ceremonies I watched as a Polish military honor guard solemnly placed wreaths at the memorial to the Jewish fighters and victims of the Warsaw Ghetto
These Polish soldiers were wearing the same military cap and uniform my father had once worn
I could only wonder what his reaction would have been to this
I wondered the same when Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski
stood up afterwards and said: “It is impossible to understand and fully appreciate Polish history without knowing the history of Polish Jews
not only because of the many centuries Jews lived on our soil
but also for the contributions of Jews to many aspects of Polish life – to the economy
tolerant and open Poland long ago envisioned by Marshall Piłsudski had finally and miraculously become a reality
The Museum opening aroused an unknown reservoir of Polish pride I didn’t even know I possessed
I wanted to do something concrete to show my support for the direction Poland was now taking
I returned home with much enthusiasm and great hopes for Poland’s future
I ignored the cynical reaction of some of my friends who dismissed the museum as a public relations ploy to deflect attention from Poland’s anti-Semitic image or as a way to draw Jewish tourist dollars to the country
I decided to embrace the “Polish” side of my Polish-Jewish identity
I always sensed there was something distinctively Polish about Polish Jews
something that makes us different from Russian or Hungarian or German Jews
who had lived on Polish soil for centuries
had to have been influenced by their Polish neighbors
As a symbolic gesture of solidarity with my “Polishness,” I obtained Polish citizenship
Why had he “failed to defend the good name of Poland?” they charged
who greatly impressed me with his open-mindedness at the museum’s opening
The new government took a pronounced rightward turn which energized and invigorated the country’s resurgent ethno-nationalist groups
The government is not overtly anti-Semitic but it tolerates mass demonstrations by nationalists who openly call for “Poland for Poles” and who proudly wear the insignia of Poland’s prewar anti-Semitic parties
It also avoids openly condemning the ethno-nationalists for fear it would lose their support
as a way of further placating this constituency
the government passed a controversial law that outlaws blaming the Polish “nation” for crimes committed during the Holocaust
It’s unclear whether survivors like my father would be in violation of this vaguely worded law if they recounted instances they witnessed of Poles who blackmailed Jews in hiding
handed them over to the Nazis or killed Jews themselves even when no Nazis were around
This law represents an unambiguous attempt to re-write history and is vigorously opposed by Poland’s Memory Keepers
it was clear that the brave work of Poland’s Memory Keepers remains unfinished
I would like to show the Memory Keepers that I stand with them
As an American I support their fight for a more tolerant
As a Polish citizen I support their fight for Poland to live up to its most noble Polish ideals
to bring to fruition the Poland my parents and millions of Polish Jews once hoped for
As a Jew I support them for doing the sacred work which Jews all over the world should be doing; caring for the millions of our ancestors laying in abandoned cemeteries on Polish soil
As I was preparing to go to Poland in 2005
At this point his physical condition had greatly deteriorated
He had to be fed through a gastric feeding tube
I assumed he would ask me to pray at his father’s grave
who had always refused to return to Poland
Menachem Daum produced and directed several acclaimed documentary films, including “Hiding and Seeking”, about his search for the Polish farmers who saved members of his family during the Holocaust. He is currently at work on “Gone But Not Forgotten” about Christian Poles who preserve the Jewish heritage sites that were sacred to his parents and ancestors
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Holocaust survivors recall most vivid memoriesThe Associated PressJERUSALEM — In an annual ritual, Israel will come to a standstill Monday morning for the country's official Holocaust remembrance day. Air raid sirens will wail across the country as pedestrians stop in their tracks and drivers exit their vehicles and bow their heads to honor the six million victims of the Nazi genocide of World War II that wiped out a third of world Jewry.
For Israelis of all walks of life, the two-minute tribute offers a moment to remember the victims and focus on an image that dreaded period represents to them. For Israel's dwindling population of elderly Holocaust survivors, however, the painful memories linger year-round.
Hundreds of thousands of survivors made their way to pre-state Israel after the war and helped build the new country. With less than 200,000 survivors remaining, Israel is still home to the largest such community in the world.
To capture the experience in a snapshot would be impossible. Still, The Associated Press asked a group of survivors who endured the worst horrors of the Holocaust to share their strongest singular memory. Without exception, each focused on those closest to them who did not survive.
— Asher Aud (Sieradski), 86 (Poland): Married, three children and ten grandchildren. Retired from Israel Military Industries, a state-owned weapons manufacturer.
Asher Aud's odyssey reads like a history of the Holocaust's horrors.
Over six years, he was separated from his parents and siblings in his native Polish town of Zdunska Wola and then scavenged for scraps of bread and staved off a debilitating illness alone in the Lodz ghetto before he was deported to the Auschwitz death camp.
There, he avoided the gas chambers and crematoria, and after a long incarceration, he weathered the notorious death march through the snow to Mauthausen, where those who fell behind were shot dead on the spot. After the war, he passed through a series of displaced person camps before he boarded a ship to the Holy Land where he did his best to forget the past for the next half century.
Aud will be one of the six survivors chosen to light a symbolic torch at Israel's official ceremony Sunday night marking the remembrance day.
Of all the atrocities he endured, Aud said the strongest memory is the one that was most traumatic — parting from his mother at the age of 14.
It was September 1942. The Nazis had rounded up the Jewish community inside the local cemetery and were preparing to deport them. His father and older brother had already been taken and he was left with his mother and younger brother, Gavriel.
"I remember looking down and I happened to be standing on my grandmother's tombstone," he recalled. "The Germans walked among us and anytime they saw a mother with a child, they tore the child from her arms and threw them into the back of trucks."
That's when he realized life as he knew it was over.
"I looked around and I just said 'mother, this is where we are going to be separated,'" he said.
Soon after they were marched through two lines of German soldiers. "I didn't even feel it when the Germans hit me but every time they struck my mother and brother it was like they were cutting my flesh," he said.
— Shmuel Bogler, 84 (Hungary): Married, two children, five grandchildren. Retired police officer.
"The first thing they did was beat us and separate the woman from the men. It happened so quickly, I couldn't even part from my mother and sister," he said.
Next to go was his father, who was told to go left at the notorious selection line of Nazi doctor Josef Mengele, who was known as the "angel of death" for deciding who would live and who would die.
"I remember him begging: 'I am still young, I can run, I can work.' But it didn't help and I couldn't say farewell to him either," Bogler recalled.
At 14, he and his brother were left alone. They survived Auschwitz, where he vividly remembers the screaming of Jewish inmates who were burned alive and the smell of their charred flesh. "I don't know if mother and father were among them. I have no evidence of how they died," he said.
The brothers wandered together between work camps, where he remembers them being constantly hungry and infested with lice. Eventually they were liberated from the Buchenwald concentration camp, and Bogler later made his way to Israel, where he fought in its 1948 war of independence.
"I still have nightmares to this day," he said. "Just two weeks ago I had a dream in which I was taken to a death camp."
Though he is no longer an observant Jew, Bogler said he still goes to synagogue to honor his father who was religious and whose beard and sidelocks were sheared by the Nazis in humiliating fashion.
"The hardest part is not having a Jewish grave for my parents in which to honor them," he said.
— Jacob Philipson Armon, 76 (The Netherlands): Married, two children, one grandchild. Retired from Israeli defense contractor Rafael.
For Jacob Philipson Armon, memories are hard to come by. He was only two when his native Holland was captured by the Nazis, and three years later he went into hiding just like his more famous compatriot Anne Frank. The family's five children were dispersed among various non-Jews who risked their lives to protect them.
His story has mostly been recreated by documents, the testimony of others and the smidgen of images seared into his mind. "I remember the scary things. I remember crying and being so hungry that I couldn't fall asleep," he said.
The most traumatic thing he recalls was when German troops kicked down the door of the family home of his protector, Kit Winkel, and searched for Jews.
"They burst into the house and started to search for documents, turning over furniture and tearing down wallpaper. One soldier stood and stared at me. I sat frozen, not daring to move. I was so frightened I almost couldn't breathe," he said. "Then came a Dutch policeman who was accompanying the German soldiers and he told the soldier that he saw something in another room. By luring the soldier away, he probably saved my life."
Other details were filled in by others. His mother, who was also hidden and survived the war, later told him that the last thing she told him before she handed him over to his protector was: "Remember you are a Jewish boy, be proud of it." His protector said he was, boasting to non-Jewish children that he was a Jew being hidden. She quickly quieted him before the news spread, which would have put both in danger.
Only 13 of 100 family members survived. His father, who was hidden in an attic, was informed upon and later died at the Sobibor death camp.
Armon credits his own life to his savior, Winkel, who hid him for three years.
"I call her my angel. She would pet me on the head, calm me and help me sleep. That's how I recovered," he said.
After the war, when his mother came to reclaim him, he initially refused.
"I stared at her and said 'you are not my mother. My mother is dead,'" he recalled. It was Winkel who convinced the seven-year-old to rejoin his family, who later moved to Israel.
— Ester Koffler Paul, 82 (Galicia, today Ukraine): Married, three children, nine grandchildren, three great-grandchildren. Retired homemaker.
When Ester Koffler Paul thinks back on her Holocaust ordeal, she mostly remembers her sister. Paul was 8, and her sister Nunia was 10 in 1941, when the Nazis invaded their hometown of Buchach in what is now Ukraine. Their mother died before the war and their father was taken by the Nazis and murdered along with 700 other Jewish men.
The girls were put under the care of their grandparents, who had returned from pre-state Israel because they missed the family. An uncle, who was an engineer, built an underground bunker below their home with a tunnel that led to a public garden.
When the Nazis came knocking on the door, her grandparents stayed behind so they could cover up and seal the escape hatch as the girls crawled away. "They sacrificed themselves," she said. "The Germans captured them and stopped looking."
For the next few years they were on the run together, sleeping in fields, subsisting on scraps of food non-Jews gave them from time to time. When the Russians took over their town they returned home, but it was soon recaptured by the Germans and once again they faced Nazi troops. This time they were caught on the street and handed over to the Gestapo.
"They asked me what my name was and I said 'Romka Vochick.' I had never heard that name before and where I came up with it I don't know. It was as if someone just landed on me and put the name in my head," she said, of the non-Jewish sounding name. "That is the name that saved me."
Her sister couldn't bring herself to lying, fearing that she would be found out and beaten. "She had an accent and was afraid," Paul said.
"I believe in fate," Paul said. "There was some kind of higher power that was at work. I don't know how to explain it. It happened, but it is hard to explain it all."
ZDUNSKA WOLA, Poland, May 26 (UPI) -- A video from a motorcycle event in Poland shows a biker's burnout attempt go up in flames when his smoking back tire sparks a fire.
The man attempts to blow out the flames with his mouth and dumps a glass of water on the motorcycle, but the fire continues to burn until bystanders help with a fire extinguisher and sand.
The video's description says the rider suffered burns to his hand and raised money from other attendees at the festival to help repair his bike.
Fay Sussman and Judy Menczel(Supplied)Of Poland's 3.3 million Jews
and many descendants of survivors regard the country as a 'graveyard'
Yet Poles are increasingly interested in their country's Jewish history
Rachael Kohn reports.LoadingKamila Klauszinska remembers her childhood games among the mysteriously carved stones in the wilderness on the edge of her little town in Poland: Zdunska Wola
It was only when she grew up and started to learn of her town's history
that she discovered her 'magic garden' was a Jewish cemetery; the broken discarded headstones were a sign of a community that had disappeared
That revelation started her on a journey of recovery in a country that was once home to 3.3 million Jews
three million of whom died in the Holocaust
'I connected my life to the Jewish cemetery in Zdunska Wola,' she says
'I feel that I need to do that and that its very important for people and also for me
because nobody takes care of this place and nobody takes care of the Jewish memory of my town
It was the magnanimous efforts of Klauszinska and others like her
that convinced Australian klezmer singer and recording artist Fay Sussman to return to her native Poland
a place she once vowed she would never set foot in
so you can imagine Poland was a massive graveyard then,' she says
'My father was dobbed on … My husband's family were interned in labour camps in Siberia
and when they came back looking for surviving relatives and their home they found their home had been taken by Poles and their lives were threatened
so I vowed I would never return to Poland.'
Hearing about Klauszinska's efforts changed everything
and Sussman agreed to do a tour—which she stresses she did not receive money for—bringing her Yiddish klezmer repertoire to venues around Poland
Her mission was to encourage the renewal of the historic Jewish-Polish relationship that existed for 1,000 years before it was eradicated by the Nazis
The tour was filmed by Judy Menczel and Paul Green
which premiered at the International Jewish Film Festival in Sydney
It shows that the Nazi ideology did not succeed in breaking the Polish-Jewish relationship forever
Yiddish melodies and traumatic memories sometimes survived in secrecy
as young Polish singer and violinist Magda Brudzinska discovered when she was drawn to the music of klezmer
When she sang 'My Yiddishe Mama' from her first album
her grandmother unexpectedly broke down in a torrent of tears
'She told the story that no one knew in my family
And the story was that he helped her to escape from the transport to the death camp
He just "stole her" and she changed everything
and her name was not Yadviga but Chaya.'
In one of the most touching parts of Pockets of Hope
the blonde and blue-eyed Brudzinska sings 'My Yiddishe Mama' with the curly red-haired Sussman in the Cheder Café in Krakow
and they fall into each other's arms in a soulful embrace
Yiddish is an emotional language and klezmer songs reflect that
but there is also a more theologically grounded reason for the changing Polish-Jewish relationship
since it was he who presided over the fall of communism and the rebirth of an almost entirely Catholic nation
John Paul was also the first pope in the Church's 2,000 year history to enter a synagogue
'Pope John Paul II did more than anybody in the last 2,000 years to fight anti-Semitism,' says Shudrich
'And John Paul changes the Catholic Church and changes Poland even more … Vatican II takes the Jews from a negative to neutral
and John Paul II takes the Jews from a neutral to a positive.'
A young woman on a train even tells Sussman that Poles now in their thirties are referred to as 'the JP2 generation'
The Polish Pope's blunt admonition that 'antisemitism is a sin' is almost part of these young Poles' DNA
and there are contrary views on both sides of the equation
also know as Sydney stand-up comedian Austen Tayshus
echoes the view of many Holocaust survivor descendants when he calls Poland a graveyard
'It's a graveyard of the Jewish people
a place where Jewish culture thrived and is just a remnant right now
and there's no: "We didn't know
Nobody knew." There's none of that.'
And not all Poles are so willing to care for the memory of the Jewish past
One of the stories in Pockets of Hope is about two brothers who try to convince the mayor of a small Polish town to remove a toilet block erected on top of a Jewish cemetery where their grandfather is buried
but self-styled singing activist Fay Sussman believes that music can melt hearts and form bonds between people who are implacably opposed to each other
She is actively working on projects she hopes will repair relationships between Jews and Palestinians
Poland's annual International Jewish Festival in Krakow
where Sussman's Polish pilgrimage culminates in the film
draws thousands of people from around the world in a celebration of all kinds of Jewish music; not only Yiddish Klezmer
Like so many other Jewish initiatives in today's Poland
Kamila Klauszinska was awarded the highest honour by the Polish government for her outstanding commitment to conserving the memory of Poland's Jewish past
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The Spirit of Things explores contemporary values and beliefs as expressed through ritual
and focusing on the nature of spiritual meaning in our lives
Maksymilian Faktorowicz had already held all the jobs he'd need to become a master cosmetician
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whose skill and intuition served him in becoming a pioneer in the field of makeup for the constantly changing needs of the early film industry
which he then channeled into a cosmetics empire for an insatiable consumer market