Of all the stories to have come out of the terrible World War II years, among the most poignant are those of children who were saved from death by going underground – literally. These young children spent formative years buried beneath a barn floor or confined to an attic, without toys, books, or writing materials, let alone an iPad, to occupy their time. What did they do? How did they play and learn? Were they immobilized by fear? Did they emerge emotionally stunted for life? Here are the stories of three such child survivors with a Baltimore connection.
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I was introduced to this fascinating piece of our Jewish history by my coworker Yehudis Barer. Her father, Dr. Leon Gersten, was recently reunited, near his New York home, with Czeslaw Polziec, a child of the Polish family that gave him refuge 69 years ago. CNN and other major media outlets* recorded the celebration, which took place on the first night of Chanukah, 2013. The two men exchanged emotional greetings, and Mr. Polziec met the numerous children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren who would not exist but for his family’s extraordinary courage. “I think my father was overwhelmed with emotion meeting Czeslaw again,” said Mrs. Barer, “and is very grateful that the Polziecs received the honor and recognition they so deserved.”
It was July of 1942, in their hometown of Frystak, Poland. Eight-and-a-half-year-old Leon and his mother Frieda managed to evade a Nazi roundup. Sixteen hundred fellow residents were not as fortunate and went to their deaths. Frieda trudged from door to door in the Polish countryside, begging farmers to take her in with her son. For the Poles, the stakes were very high – death, no questions asked – for anyone who harbored Jewish fugitives. Most Polish farmers, understandably, did not want to take the risk.
After she was turned down repeatedly, one peasant couple, Stanislaw and Maria Polziec, whom Mrs. Gersten knew through her work as a peddler, agreed to provide refuge not only for the two of them but for an aunt, uncle, and cousin, the Weisenfelds, as well. The five Jews hid in the attic of the Polziec barn for two years, which included some close calls. At one point, they ran down to a hole dug in the ground under the barn to hide from Nazis, while the Germans, suspecting that he was harboring Jews, beat Stanislaw bloody. Yet, the Polziec family, including their young children, continued to keep the secret.
In August, 1944, the hidden family began to hear the Russians bombing the nearby city and realized that they would soon be liberated. Worried about a possible German counterattack, they decided to escape. They ran to the Russian front in middle of the night, leaving without a proper goodbye or thank you to the Polziecs.
After the war, Dr. Gersten settled in New York, where he attended Yeshiva Torah Vodaath, and later earned his doctorate in clinical psychology.
The families kept in touch over the years. Mrs. Gersten sent Czeslaw’s parents, Marie and Stanislaw, money and packages through the 1970s, until they died. One of the daughters came to work in America in the 1980s, and Leon Gersten helped her find a job. Then they lost touch. It was Mrs. Barer’s brother, Rabbi Yonasan Gersten (of Memphis) who initiated a search through the Jewish Foundation for the Righteous and the help of Yad Vashem.
When asked about how he coped in his “prison,” Dr. Gersten says, “I occupied my time daydreaming about foods of the past and fantasizing about being invisible and possessing magical powers: having a horse that could fly; searching for lice; watching spiders trapping flies; peeking through the window at the countryside and imagining how it would be to play outside; repetitively looking at my few special possessions, like my piece of silver paper; and buying off my uncle with a few pieces of potato to tell stories. We had no games and nothing to read. But listening to the adults talking was interesting.
“Except for when we were faced with immediately threatening situations, I felt that G-d would not let the Germans kill me,” continues Dr. Gersten. “I identified with my mother's optimistic feeling that G-d would let us live, and I was not in a constant state of fear….Unless a dangerous situation arose, our focus was on what we do when we got to Israel; we thought we might grow oranges. We felt that, in all probability, Messiah would come. After all, the Jewish nation was basically annihilated. My mother had a great deal of genuine faith. Her mother came to her in a dream, and told her that she would survive.”
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Henry Reches has lived in Baltimore for 62 years. A native of Mosciska, Poland, he and his older brother Mark, a”h, also hid under a barn, along with their parents, grandmother, uncle, and an unrelated brother and sister, from November 1942 until liberation in July, 1944. They were saved thanks to righteous gentiles, the Staszczak and Wrobel families.
Mr. Reches’ daughter Jodi documented the details of her father’s childhood saga in a 2009 Where What When article, “Biala Kuritza: A Holocaust Survival Story.” She wrote, “Eight people – including two small boys who were hardly used to being confined like that – were in a space large enough to sit or lie down but not stand up. The only source of light was a small kerosene lamp that stood in a crevice in the dirt wall. The ‘bathroom’ was a bucket that was removed every evening except if it was unsafe for one of the members of the Staszczak family to do so. During those times, the stench was unbearable. When it rained, the group found themselves lying in water as a result of the run off from nearby hilltops, one of which housed a cemetery….”
Henry Reches was only three years old when he went into the hole, and his brother was five. “In a way, it was a bracha that my father was so young,” Jodi explained, “and doesn’t remember much. Perhaps this served to lessen the emotional trauma of living this way for two years as a little boy, though an experience like this has to leave its imprint.
“It’s hard to imagine,” she says, “but my father basically sat quietly for two years! That was a nes in and of itself. My Uncle Mark was artistic and liked to sketch on cigarette wrappers and other small pieces of paper that the Polish family gave him. Also, Mark was old enough to read, and his eyes were young enough to read by the minimal light of the kerosene lamp; he would read the paper whenever the Stasczaks and Wrobels brought one and keep everyone abreast of the war situation. But aside from that, Mark didn’t do much either.”
“I don’t recall how I spent my time,” said Mr. Reches, “but I know there were no toys or anything else a three-year-old kid would play with. I did the same thing as the rest of my family: nothing. I understood that we were in danger, and I was scared. The adults did everything they could to make to make sure I didn’t cry or become unruly.”
Josefa Wrobel’s teenaged sons, Janek and Jerzy, would bring food to the hole, usually every day, except for when it was not possible, due to the escalating war and hostilities surrounding the farm. As farmers, they grew a lot of the food themselves. They would bring soup, bread, and water, whatever they could spare. The Staszczaks were not wealthy people, and times were hard for them, as well. They also did not want to arouse suspicion at the market by suddenly purchasing increased quantities of food. The grandmother fasted every Monday and Thursday to ensure that there would be enough food for the children.
At one point during the hiding, the Nazis wanted to use the Staszczaks’ barn as a local headquarters. The Staszczaks had no choice but to comply with these barbarians, as many lives were at stake. However, after availing themselves of the Staszczaks’ “hospitality” for a day, the Nazis abruptly packed up and left, telling the Staszczaks they didn’t like it there and were moving on to find a better facility. Once again, everyone in the hole – along with the Staszczaks – was spared.
When asked how their experiences affected her family, Jodi says, “Growing up as the daughter, granddaughter, and niece of Holocaust survivors, I would say that going through that made the Reches family samayach bechelkam, happy with their lot. My grandfather, a”h, considered himself a very rich man, because they survived and were able to come to America and build a new life in Baltimore. And my father wanted to make sure that my brother and I enjoyed our childhood and that we had family time with fun – not necessarily extravagant – activities like going to ballgames, amusement parks, and beach vacations in the summer. As survivors of horror, they truly embrace life.”
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Baltimorean Naomi (nee Rosenberg) Samson, a”h, most of whose family was murdered by the Nazis, y”s, was nine years old in 1942. Early one morning, German Nazis and their Polish collaborators opened fire on the townspeople. The native of Goray, Poland, and her few remaining family members were forced to run for their lives. Similar to Mr. Reches’ story, they survived thanks to the benevolence of a Polish farmer’s wife, who shielded them in a crawl space beneath a barn for nearly two years. Mrs. Samson documented this harrowing ordeal – the terror and confusion she felt as a child buried alive – in her moving memoir, Hide: A Child’s View of the Holocaust (Bison Original).
As her son, Joseph Samson, mentions in his preface to his mother’s book: “My mother’s story, printed here, is not only a recounting of her memories but also the culmination of a lifelong struggle to live with them, a struggle that did not neatly end when the war was over in 1945.…There were times when her struggle with sadness and fear almost overwhelmed her. But she fought this fight as well and bestowed upon me, my brother, and my sister the love and nurturing of a devoted and caring mother, a strong and courageous mother who persevered and gave to her children when there was little left inside of her. She gave with her heart, although her heart had been broken. She gave with her soul, although her soul had been robbed. She led us down the road to adulthood with unconditional love and encouragement and without bitterness, guilt, or resentment. My mother was tough when she had to be and taught us to stand up for ourselves and what we believed in. But most of all she was compassionate, helping others in need, offering a bag of groceries or lending an empathetic ear to a recent immigrant, neighbor, friend, or stranger, as well as to her family.”
Sherry Samson Leeb, Mrs. Samson’s daughter, who lives in Silver Spring, Maryland, remarks, “My mother was an amazing woman, whose warmth and genuine love for people touched everyone she met. Her warmth, her strength of spirit, and positive outlook on life were shining examples of the resilience that lies within all of us. Although she dealt with nightmares and physical pain, the result of spending her formative years confined underground, she never wanted her children to feel anything but happy, and wanted to do everything in her power to make sure that we were able to ‘live free.’ Her zest for life even included riding on a motorcycle at the age of 79, with her son-in-law.
My mother, ten years old at the height of the Holocaust, passed away this past year at the age of 80. Toward the end, as friends and family would visit, although she was almost too weak to talk, ever the optimist, she would say, ‘I had seven decades more of life than Hitler and the Nazis wanted me to have.’ And then she'd smile.”
