Anna Groszkiewicz I found out about my parents' existence by accident

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Oral History/ POLIN Museum collection

Published on Jan 12, 2024

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Anna Groszkiewicz, a two-year-old child, was carried out of the Warsaw ghetto in a bag of tools by workers leaving for work on the other side of the wall. The escape was organized by the interviewee's aunt, Eda, her father's sister, who had been outside the ghetto for some time. The girl's parents, Michał Józef and Bronia née Karaś Szydłower, were taken in separate transports to Majdanek, where they managed to meet again before their deaths. At first, Anna hid on the so-called "Aryan side" with her aunt as Anna Świderska, and then found shelter in Warsaw's Sadyba with the Kotlewski family. She stayed there, treated like an adored granddaughter, until 1946, when she moved to Gdańsk to live with her aunt and her newlywed husband Jacek Groszkiewicz (Hersz Herszkowicz before the war). Separation from her Polish guardians was a difficult experience for the six-year-old, but Anna loved her aunt very much, and soon her younger brother Michał was born. The interviewee grew up believing that her aunt was her birth mother. She only learned the truth about her parents when she was fifteen. From then on, she felt different from her peers, although initially she did not associate it with her Jewish origins. The family returned to Warsaw, where Anna completed her studies. It was not until the anti-Semitic campaign of March 1968 that she realized that the “otherness” she felt was connected to her Jewishness. Anna did not consider leaving Poland, even though she and her relatives maintained contact with her family in Israel and the interviewee had visited them there before 1968. Anna never lost contact with the Kotlewski family, who were posthumously awarded the Righteous Among the Nations medal in 2009. During her professional career, she worked as an organic chemist. After the death of her adoptive parents, she took care of her beloved brother, who was mentally ill. Anna belongs to the Association of "Children of the Holocaust" but is not an active member – her social circle consists of – as she says – Jews "without any banner". INTERVIEWEE NAME: Anna Groszkiewicz INTERVIEWED BY: Józef Markiewicz RECORDING: Paulina Błaszczykiewicz DATE OF RECORDING: September 5, 2023 COPYRIGHT TO THE RECORDING: POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews Discover the POLIN Museum's oral history collection: https://sztetl.org.pl/pl/historia-mow... Subscribe to our channel: / @historiamowionapolin Watch the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews channels: POLIN (announcements and reports from events at the Museum): / mhzp2013 Virtual Shtetl (history and culture of Polish Jews): / virtualshtetl Polish Righteous (stories of help provided to Jews during the Holocaust): / polscysprawiedliwi Contact for the interview: [email protected] #PolinMuseum #SpokenHistory #holocaustsurvivor #ghettowarszawskie #marzec68

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