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 […]
Ewa Guterman was born in 1908 to the family of Jakub Alterowicz and Necha née Tyszman. She had several siblings: brothers Pinkus, Icek Szlama, Mojżesz, Eliasz and sister Czarna. Ewa made a living by tailoring, which she learned at the “ORT” courses in Warsaw. In […]
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) and Szlomo (Stefan) and sisters Tema and Fela.
The Zylbersztajn family came to Płock when Eda was 15-16 years old. In Płock, they lived at 27 Kolegialna Street. Jakub ran a carpentry workshop there. He was an excellent craftsman – in 1932 he presented his furniture at the exhibition “The Art of Płock”.
Eda attended the Jewish Coeducational Middle School of the Humanities. She became politically involved quite early and was the only one of all her siblings to belong to the communist party. In mid-1935 she met her husband – Mieczysław Tureniec, who then came to Płock, and at the end of that year she moved to Warsaw, where she studied at the “Wszechnica” university and worked. Their first daughter, Ingusia, was born on January 17, 1938.
Estera and her husband survived the war in the East. In September 1939, they fled to Równe, where Mieczysław got a job. In April 1940, Ingusia died of meningitis. At the beginning of June 1941, their second daughter, Larysa, was born. In the summer of 1941, they fled further east. In June 1943, Larysa died of croup. In January 1944, Eda and her husband went to Darnica on the Dnieper, near Kiev. They lived first in the wagons, then in a dugout, as the bombing continued, despite the fact that the front had already moved far to the west. Mieczysław worked as a supplier, then as an inspector in the Kiev branch of the Union of Polish Patriots. In December 1944 their son Henryk was born. In the summer of 1945, Mieczysław was called to return to Poland, and Eda and Henryk lived in the house of the Union of Polish Patriots in Krasków near Moscow, awaiting permission to return to the country. In the second half of November 1945 they were in Poland together.
After the war, Eda worked, among others, in “Książka i Wiedza” publishing house as an editor, then as a Russian translator.
In 1981, she emigrated with her husband to Sweden. She died in 2006.
(text based on the memoirs of Halina Hylander-Tureniec)
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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.
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. […]
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 […]
As part of the 81st anniversary of the liquidation of the ghetto in Płock, the Nobiscum Foundation would like to invite you to watch the film “Black skies. The fate of Płock Jews in the years 1941-1945”, which we produced thanks to the funding of the Association of the Jewish Historical Institute in Poland.
The film tells the story of Jews of Płock who, after being deported from the ghetto liquidated at the turn of February and March 1941, found themselves in Działdowo, Chmielnik, Skarżysko-Kamienna, Częstochowa, Starachowice-Wierzbnik or Bodzentyn. It is based on the memoirs of Jewish residents of Płock, mainly Adam Neuman-Nowicki, who passed away in 2021 and to whom the film is dedicated, and Tema Lichtensztajn.
Since the release date, the film will be constantly available on our channels on Facebook, Youtube and Vimeo, in Polish, with Polish and English subtitles.
Poet, prose writer and journalist well-known before the war, was born in Płock as Marian Stanisław Lewin on October 20, 1878 in the family of a merchant, Bernard Lewin and Anna née Grynbaum. He completed his higher education in Switzerland, France and Italy. He was […]
