Joanna Podgórska (Dobrowolska), was born on May 6, 1936 in Warsaw into an assimilated Jewish family of a chemical engineer, graduate of the Warsaw University of Technology, Jerzy Neuding. Her mother's surname was Perl. Both of her parents worked, the family was wealthy and Polish was spoken in the family home. Before the war, Joanna lived with her parents in a tenement house on Bagatela Street in Warsaw, from where, during the German occupation, she was displaced with them to the ghetto where she lived on Biała Street 8. For a period of time, she was sent to a kindergarten in the ghetto on Elektoralna Street, during which her parents ran classes for young people in the apartment. Her father, Jerzy Neuding, died in the spring of 1942 after being arrested by the Germans. In July of the same year, Joanna Podgórska left the Warsaw ghetto with her mother and first lived with her mother's friend Wanda Ptaszyńska, and then, thanks to the help of Mrs. Irka Chmieleńska, she was placed in her parents' house in Anin. After three months of staying there, she was sent to a sanatorium in Zagórze run by Dr. Kazimierz Dąbrowski, where she was issued a birth certificate in the name of Joanna Dobrowolska. In Zagórze, her mother found her again and took her to Warsaw, where they both lived in an apartment at ul. Narbutta 38. Her grandmother Anna Neuding also left the ghetto and Joanna remained mainly under her care, learning from her about Polish history and language, as well as practices related to the Catholic faith. The Warsaw Uprising caught the women at ul. Narbutta 38. During the Uprising, Joanna was relocated with her mother and grandmother to a labor camp near Grudziądz, where her mother ran a community center for children. They returned to Warsaw in April 1945. After the war, she went to school and graduated from a librarianship high school, and worked in various libraries in Warsaw for the rest of her professional life. She passed away in November 2023. INTERVIEWEE'S NAME: Joanna Podgórska INTERVIEWED BY: Józef Markiewicz RECORDING: Paulina Błaszczykiewicz DATE OF RECORDING: March 10, 2023 COPYRIGHT TO THE RECORDING: POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews 00:00:05 - Presentation of the youthful period in the life of the interviewee, her parents and grandparents, events from her childhood that influenced her adult life. 00:09:01 - The beginning of the occupation period in the capital. Her mother, a psychologist, works at CENTOS (Central Society for the Care of Orphans) in the Warsaw Ghetto. Her father, a pre-war activist of the PPS (Polish Socialist Party), runs secret classes for youth in the ghetto. The interlocutor's exit from the ghetto with her mother, moving in with her mother's friend on the so-called Aryan side. The mother's involvement in the sweets trade in order to earn money. 00:18:49 - Determining the burial place of the interlocutor's father. The pre-war fate of the parents, the circumstances of their engagement and marriage. The circumstances of the arrest of the mother's sister and her being taken to the ghetto during the war. 00:24:53 - The fate of the interlocutor's grandmother in the Warsaw ghetto and a description of her exit from the ghetto to the so-called "Aryan side". 00:26:36 - The interlocutor's memories from the period of her stay in the Warsaw ghetto, interwoven with memories from the post-war period and the period after the outbreak of the Warsaw Uprising. 00:34:26 - The circumstances of life in the Warsaw ghetto as remembered by the interlocutor, description of the food consumed, living conditions. 00:38:15 - The interlocutor's memories from the period in the camp in Grudziądz after the end of the Warsaw Uprising. The mother running a children's club in the camp. The fate of the interlocutor and the mother after being liberated from the camp and the entry of Russian troops. 00:46:58 - Return to Warsaw in April 1944. Description of the destroyed city. Post-war fate, the mother's work as a psychologist. 01:07:26 - The influence of the interlocutor's Jewish origin on her adult life. Membership in the "Children of the Holocaust" Association. 01:13:09 - Memories from 1968. The interlocutor's mother's reluctance to leave Poland, lack of personal anti-Semitic experiences; 01:16:15 - The figures of the parents and grandparents in the interlocutor's memories, establishing their real surnames, fate during the occupation. The mother's post-war work for the Jewish Committee in Warsaw as a child psychologist. 01:19:58 - Renewed memories from the period of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. 01:22:03 - Description of the interlocutor's participation in post-war Jewish life in Warsaw. Discover the POLIN Museum's oral history collection: https://sztetl.org.pl/pl/historia-mow... 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