Chaja Sura (Ilana) Szlachter was born on August 29, 1918. Polish and Yiddish were spoken in her family home. Her mother, Estera, came from a village located 20 kilometers from Płock. She was a beautiful woman with jet black hair and almond eyes – she […]
Hanka Borensztejn was born on May 11, 1920 in Płock. Her father – Kos Borensztejn, son of Chaim Mortka and Nechama nee Koral, came from Płońsk. Hanka’s mother’s name was Estera – she was the daughter of Dawid Tewel Cylich and his wife Sura. After […]
Jochewet (Jadwiga) Graubart was born in 1918, she was the daughter of Abram Nusen aka Natan and Chaja née Landau. Her family was one of the most respected and well-known Jewish families in Płock. Natan Graubart was a grain merchant, the owner of a seed store and a house at 42 Kwiatka Street. Jadwiga’s mother died giving birth to her sister, Zosia, when the girl was one and three months old. From then on, until the age of six, her grandmother took care of her upbringing. When she was seven, Natan Graubart married a teacher Czesława Bruzda. Jadwiga was a sickly child, therefore she did not go to school, but she studied at home. She took her exams externally. After receiving secondary education, she attended a one-year agricultural course. At 17, she became an avid Zionist and a member of the Akiba organization. Her later life was filled with work for the organization and the drive to emigrate to Palestine.
At the outbreak of the war, she was on a training farm (hakhshara) in Cracow. After a short period of stay under German occupation, Jochewet decided to flee from Cracow together with her friend and reach Palestine. She managed to sneak into the territories occupied by the Russians and tried to get to Romania. After the failure of this attempt, she went to Vilnius, where Zionist activists, who were to reach Palestine, were further directed by halutz organizations. Jochewet was among a group of activists for whom the halutz organization applied for certificates, and on this basis she escaped from Russia to Turkey, and then via Beirut to Palestine. She spent the first period in a kibbutz and on an agricultural course organized by Meszek Poalot Ajanot.
Jadwiga Graubart:
I stayed in this kibbutz for a year, but the news from the front did not leave me alone and in March 1943 I joined the ATS. I applied for hospital service and was first referred to a training point in Sarafanda, and after 3 months of training, I was sent to Lebanon to the 3rd British military hospital in Cidon. I worked there for a year, caring mostly for soldiers from the Army of Anders, and at the same time learning nursing.
In 1944 we were transferred to Italy. We landed in Taranto on the memorable day of the capture of Monte Casino by the Anders Army. In Italy, I was assigned to the 65th BGH (British military hospital) in Trani. There were mostly wounded Yugoslav partisans transported from Yugoslavia to Italy. There was a camp for convalescent soldiers in Trani, and our day-room was the center of their lives. We organized joint Friday evenings and various cultural events for them.
Then I was transferred to the 2nd BGH in Kaserta. A group of Jewish volunteer nurses from Palestine worked with me in this hospital. Most of us were girls from kibbutzim and moshavot.
Many Jewish volunteer units belonging to the British army were stationed in Italy at that time. They welcomed us very warmly and we kept in close contact with them. There were clubs of Jewish soldiers where Jews from all armies fighting in Italy in the Allied armies met.
When the Jewish Brigade entered the war and the first wounded Jewish soldiers appeared, on days off from work we went to neighboring hospitals looking for wounded compatriots. We brought them books and newspapers and comforted them in solitude. It aroused admiration and even envy of British soldiers who admired Palestinian solidarity.
In 1944, I went on my first vacation in Italy. I went to Rome, where I was probably the first Jewish soldier to come to the newly liberated city. On the first Saturday of my stay in Rome, I went to the great synagogue. When I entered the synagogue, the Italian Jews praying there were very moved by the sight of the blue Magen David on the shoulder of my uniform. I was also immensely touched by the cordiality shown to me, and especially by the fact that some people kissed my Magen David.
Our entire group of Jewish female soldiers helped Jewish refugees in special camps. We gave them rations of chocolate, cigarettes and other food products.
After the end of the war, Jadwiga remained in Italy in the ranks of the British army until September 1946. Then she returned to Palestine to the Beit Yechoshua kibbutz.
(based on the memoirs of Jadwiga Graubart from the Yad Vashem collection)
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“Broken life. The fate of women of Płock during World War II and the Holocaust” is a series of texts on JewishPlock.eu, in which, between 22 February and 1 March 2022, we will recall the stories of Jewish women associated with Płock – those who were born in our city, but also those who lived or stayed here for a certain period of time. Courageous, persistent, wise, strong and caring. Women who fought for the survival of themselves and their families. They looked after children, orphans and the elderly, gained food, aided the wounded, and engaged in military struggle. They worked beyond their strength in Nazi forced labor camps. We will present the profiles and memories of women who survived the Holocaust. We will also commemorate the women of Płock who perished in extermination camps. Sometimes the only remaining trace of them today is a single entry in archival documents…
The project is implemented by the Nobiscum Foundation as part of the 81st anniversary of the liquidation of the ghetto in Płock.
Mira (Kazimiera) Mariensztras (Mariańska) was born in 1902 in Vilnius as the daughter of Matylda and Otton Butkiewicz. Her mother was a wealthy person, she had her own train station, and she exported timber from Lithuania. Mira was a pianist by education – she graduated […]
Eda (Estera) Zylbersztajn was born in 1916 in Warsaw, as the daughter of Jakub and Frajda nee Najman. Her father came from Lublin, he was a carpenter. Frajda, the daughter of Abram and Pesia, was born in Śniatyń. Eda had four siblings: brothers Ajzyk (Adek) […]
Ilonka Rappel was born in 1919 in Warsaw. Her parents were Adolf – a glove maker and shop owner, and Gustawa née Sztechtman. Ilonka’s family came from Płock (her grandfather, Rachmil Szechtman, owned a soap manufacture on Zduńska Street), and she spent her childhood there. She was a graduate of the Regina Żółkiewska State Middle School in Płock. In 1937 she moved to Warsaw, she used to visit Płock in the summer.
At the outbreak of World War II, she lived at the corner of Marszałkowska and Próżna Streets, then at the corner of Elektoralna and Chłodna Streets, where she looked after the apartment of the Warsaw-based attorney Hempel. As a result of the bombing of the city, the house on Elektoralna Street was destroyed and all Ilonka’s belongings were lost. At that time, her father, mother and younger sister Lilka took refuge with their grandparents in Płock. Anti-Jewish repressions became more and more severe. Ilonka was caught for forced labor by SS men several times. At that time, she lived with relatives: aunt Finkielsztejn and her daughter Lunia with her husband Kuba Kenigsberg and son Andrzej. Living conditions became more and more difficult. Ilonka’s relatives changed their apartment several times. Even then, there was hunger in the open ghetto, and after its closure, the situation got even worse.
In the fall of 1941, she met her friend, Moniek Zelewicz, who came from Stopnica. He offered to take her out of the ghetto and go to his hometown. Moniek had extensive contacts, he knew and paid many Germans and Polish policemen. He took advantage of these acquaintances and led Ilonka out of the walls of the ghetto. They went together to Kielce, and from there to Busko and Stopnica. Ilonka initially lived with Moniek’s cousin, who soon proposed to her and, after a modest wedding ceremony, they began living together. They earned their living running a locksmith’s workshop. At that time, Ilonka’s father died of a heart attack. Ilonka’s mother – Gustawa and her daughter Lilka were displaced to Żarnowiec near Kielce, and from there they were sent to the gas chambers in Treblinka.
In the fall of 1942, all young people were gathered in the market square in Stopnica, loaded onto trucks and transported to the camp in Skarżysko-Kamienna. In early 1943, Ilonka fell ill with typhus. In the summer of 1944, the Germans decided to evacuate the ammunition factory in Skarżysko and transport the dismantled machines to the Reich. Ilonka was sent to the Hasag factory in Częstochowa, Moniek and other specialists were held in order to dismantle the machines. Afraid of being sent to Germany, he escaped from the camp – after the war, Ilonka looked for his traces without success. Work in the camp in Częstochowa was very hard, but her self-preservation instinct helped her survive.
After the city was occupied by the Soviet Army, she was released. All her relatives were murdered in the Holocaust. In 1946, she married Adam Neuman-Nowicki from Płock (1925-2021). In 1957, with her husband and daughter Ania (born 1947), she emigrated to Israel, and in 1963 to the United States. She died in 1997 during heart surgery.
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“Broken life. The fate of women of Płock during World War II and the Holocaust” is a series of texts on JewishPlock.eu, in which, between 22 February and 1 March 2022, we will recall the stories of Jewish women associated with Płock – those who were born in our city, but also those who lived or stayed here for a certain period of time. Courageous, persistent, wise, strong and caring. Women who fought for the survival of themselves and their families. They looked after children, orphans and the elderly, gained food, aided the wounded, and engaged in military struggle. They worked beyond their strength in Nazi forced labor camps. We will present the profiles and memories of women who survived the Holocaust. We will also commemorate the women of Płock who perished in extermination camps. Sometimes the only remaining trace of them today is a single entry in archival documents…
The project is implemented by the Nobiscum Foundation as part of the 81st anniversary of the liquidation of the ghetto in Płock.
Łucja Weinles née Kaufman was born in 1874 in the village of Pawłowo, which at that time belonged to her grandfather Wolf Kaufman. She was the daughter of Hinda of the Kirsztejn family known in Płock and Moszek Aron Kaufman, who came from Lipno and […]
