Memories from Auschwitz
Creators: name: Project Team, Their Finest Hour
Publisher: name: University of Oxford
Year: 2024
Subjects: classificationCode: 430304
subject: British history
classificationCode: 430308
subject: European history (excl. British, classical Greek and Roman)
classificationCode: 430316
subject: International history

description: Today I would like to share a story about my aunt, Zofia Wasiak, my mum's sister. Unfortunately, she passed away in Auschwitz. She was only 21 or 22 years old. She was very young and very pretty. She was helping soldiers by passing messages. In Poland, in a town called Łódź, all the girls were more likely to pass through and the Germans wouldn't question them, so they would go across the checkpoints and pass the messages through to the army that was fighting the Germans. They were able to do that because, before the war, they were at a school teaching them to be Women Soldiers. They were taught that this was what they had to do. When the Germans started to suspect something, they went to one of the girls and unfortunately tortured her to get all the names. My aunt was warned by someone to run. Unfortunately, they went for my great-grandmother and were torturing her instead. My aunt couldn't bear this, so she returned, and her mother was returned safe and sound. We don't know too much about her being in Auschwitz, but we don't know the true stories because the letters we have from her were screened by the Germans. She wrote four letters to us. She was saying it was lovely and great, which we know is not true. It was quite sad. She was writing in German, not in Polish, as they wouldn't allow it. She had a lovely 21 years of life. She decided that she wanted to help out during the war, and she knew the consequences. What she did was really brave, returning knowing that the outcome was to save her mother's life.My mum has her name, Sofia, to remember her. She was always very fond of my mother.It's an inspiring story in some ways, and in other ways, it is heartbreaking. It was really difficult to go around Germans and not be caught. There were many checkpoints all the time, and it was very risky. That's how they found out somehow.I have three coins that I brought from that time. The war started in 1939, but the Germans were coming to Poland much earlier, and when the war started, they had kind of invaded already. Czechoslovakia surrendered quickly, but Poland fought for a long time. Our Polish government ran to England during the war and originally tried to do some kind of pushback, so lots of teenagers were preparing to go, but unfortunately, the government said it wasn't going ahead. We had a whole generation of people not surviving. That's what we were taught at school about the brave young people.The German coins: my grandfather took part in the war as well. (He took part in Katyn—the Russians were much worse than the Germans. Thank God he was sent to fight in Italy more than the Russians—in Katyn, it was a slaughter like cows. Russia did not admit it for a very long time. Five years ago, our Polish president and generals went to pay respects to the dead of Katyn, and the flight crashed. Russians are even now interfering.)My grandfather had the coins. When the Germans would come into the houses, my grandparents needed to hide things. One way to hide things was to dig a hole in the ground. The other way was to have sculptures made of heavy metals, so they painted a really heavy sculpture of a horse so that the Germans would not take it.Before the war, he used radios. The Germans knew this because it was official. He ran and joined the army. When the Germans came, my grandmother said, "He's not here." They left him alone because my grandfather's sister was married to a German, so they left the family alone.My grandmother had to work as a servant for the sister-in-law, but her husband, who was German, called Max, was absolutely lovely. She had two little children, and Max was always kind and would give her food and let her go home.My grandmother's two boys, aged 2 and 3 years old, died during the war due to lack of medication. My parents had lots of heartbreak. My great-grandmother, after being tortured, was not fine. She did not get over it. As an adult, she couldn't live with herself.My aunt's fiancée was devastated too after he heard she died. She died a year before the war ended in Auschwitz. We have never mentally been ready to go to Auschwitz and see the records.She was absolutely gorgeous. As a child, we needed to read a lot about the war. At school, we learned a lot about how horrible it was. When you read the letters, it's almost comical because they were edited. Knowing she had a tremendous heart, we think she would have been helpful to anyone who needed help there.My parents would always say bad things about the Russians more than the Germans because the Russians were more cruel. They had no mercy. When the Russians came in, they were raping women, burning people, and making people suffer even more. Many Polish people from that era, who learned from their grandparents, knew the Germans were not nice.Some Germans had compassion and would help. There were many Germans who helped and had compassion, but the Russians had zero compassion. Loads of Polish people were helping Jewish people, knowing the consequences could mean losing their lives.When I was seven, we lived in houses joined together, and there were tall cellars. During the war, people could go there to survive, and sometimes in the cellars, you would hide Jewish people. My grandad was working for two guys who had a factory, Lempar and Meso, and just before the war (they were Jewish), they said to my grandfather, "We're going to the USA. Come with us." My grandmother said, "No, I'm not leaving my older mother here."My mum was pregnant with me (1976), and my grandad was really ill. She got a letter from one of them asking how he was, but it was too late. He died before I was born. Lempar and Meso got to America. We tried to see if we could find the family and say thank you. My grandfather was really happy to work for them.