大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by Jane Pearson, a volunteer from Age Concern, Dorchester on behalf of Mr Ludwik Simonsohn, and has been added to the site with his permission. Mr Simonsohn fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

Mr Fialkowski took me back to Warsaw once to see my parents a couple of months after my escape. I met them outside the Ghetto in the back of a very run-down shop. First my mother managed to get out; I saw her only briefly, then she had to go and a few minutes later I saw my father. My mother told me to be a good boy and gave me my aunt鈥檚 address in Israel 鈥� I was seven years old. I never saw my family again after 1942; I do not know whether they died of starvation, typhoid or were murdered. On the way back we met a chap who had escaped as he was being taken to Treblinka. He told us the Jews were not being resettled, but murdered 鈥� nobody believed him.

But back in the ghetto the youngsters started organising themselves into a fighting unit and Mr Fialkowski was involved in this. Pistols and rifles were smuggled in. There had been half a million Jews cramped into this little area. By January 1943 there were only about 50-60,000 left; 6,000 a day were being taken out for gassing. The Revolt started in January 1943 and ended at the beginning of May. They expelled the German forces from the ghetto; they killed Germans. Then the Germans sent in tanks and were again expelled. They sent in more troops who went systematically from house to house with flame throwers. On 9 May they were at the HQ of the underground movement led by a 23 year old called Anieleiwitz. The last 56,000 Jews were killed, a few managed to escape (1,000 through the sewers), some joined the Home Army and formed a battlegroup when the general Warsaw Uprising occurred against the Germans.

The Fialkowski鈥檚 bungalow backed onto a stonemason鈥檚 bungalow and was about a mile out of the village. There was a long straight stretch of road leading to it so that you could see the Germans coming to do searches 鈥� which they did regularly 鈥� and had time to escape. Mr Fialkowski and I made a scrape under the back fence so that I could squeeze underneath, get through undergrowth and drop down into some trenches that had been dug in the First World War. From these trenches I could jump across the road and into the woods or get into the cemetery that was nearby. In the cemetery I found a dis-used crypt. I would roll back the stone that sealed it and crawl in there and be dry and safe - no Polish peasantry would go into the cemetery at night. I learnt to survive on berries, fruits and wild mushrooms; I could be in there for two or three days.

Mr Fialkowski was a great provider. He worked for the Gestapo Commandant in Radom as his driver and of course the Germans didn鈥檛 know he was Jewish. He used to steal things from them 鈥� rubber stamps to forge travel documents, ammunition, revolvers, food coupons. He would come home on Friday evenings and I would take the booty to his friends in the woods. He was the leader of a local Jewish Partisan Group whilst being a driver for the Germans.

At first we lived very well. Mr Fialkowski had a workshop attached to his bungalow and underneath it was a cellar in which he had an illicit still where he brewed vodka. I used to help him. He taught me to read and write, how to trap rabbits and shoot pigeons from the air with a catapult. I could not go to school or run about like other boys. I used to forage for the family and fill sacks with leaves that I stacked up against the walls to roof level in preparation for the cold Polish winters. We had a carbide lamp which I had to clean out 鈥� a horrible, dirty job. I cleaned the hearth and the house, peeled potatoes and planted vegetables. They had an outside toilet and I used to manure the vegetable patch with its contents. In the meantime, Mr Fialkowski鈥檚 son 鈥� a blond, blue-eyed boy 鈥� went to the local school and life went on. His daughter started developing Jewish looks and so she was sent to a convent.

In 1943 some Polish peasants up the road took in a young Jewish couple with a baby. They betrayed them to the Germans who came at night and killed them. I told Mr Fialkowski what had happened; he got his lads and they went and killed the Poles. There were three underground movements 鈥� Jews who had escaped from camps and hidden in the woods, the Army Kraiova which was a Home Army, and Polish communists who fought against the Polish Nationals 鈥� and in between all these the Jews were caught up.

In late 1944, things changed. Our house was suddenly surrounded by a group of young men. One stayed at the front gate while the others came in round the back. They were dressed in leather jackets and we thought it was the Gestapo and we had been rumbled. But they told Mr Fialkowski to sit in a chair. They pushed us into the sitting room. Then they pronounced sentence of death on Mr Fialkowski for having a camera and killed him with machine pistols. His wife threw herself in front of him but she was too late; his daughter screamed hysterically. His son was at school and so I was left cleaning up the mess; there was blood all over the place. We found out that it was the Polish Home Army who, knowing he worked for the Germans, decided he was a traitor and that he should be liquidated. Later he was given a full military funeral by the Germans, and buried in the military section of the local cemetery. A volley was fired over his grave.

So we were left without him and things became very difficult. I became the main forager and supporter of the family. I stole vegetables and made nettle soup. One day I managed to steal a chicken which I killed, but not without a struggle. All the Polish lads were running wild and I was one of them. We got up to all sorts of mischief. We used to jump on the back of this train going through and shovel coal out onto the track, where other lads would pick it up and we would sell it in the town. We used to go scrumping apples in a local orchard. The farmer鈥檚 wife had a bulldog she would set on us and we would rush to escape over the fence. She made our lives a misery and we decided to pay her back. I made a zip-gun and we lay in ambush and shot her and her cow in the backside. The cow set off down the road dragging her on the end of its chain. She never troubled us again.

The son joined the Hitler Youth and raped his sister. They were 15 and 12 respectively and I was 8 years old. I tried to pull him off her and he swung round and smashed his fist in my face and smashed me against the wall. He stole curtains from his mother to buy cigarettes and then told his mother I had done it and gave me the hiding of my life. He had a cat o鈥� nine tails attached to the end of a goat鈥檚 foot with lead weights on the end and he laid my back open. He stole eggs and blamed me, with the same result. Then he tried to assault me. My mother had given me a small hunting knife with a ruby set in the top that he stole from me. I had made myself a new one out of a three-cornered chisel which I sharpened, and I stuck this into his groin.

On one of my foraging trips, I met up with a Carmelite nun who realised that I was Jewish and took me home and fed me. She gave me a stick grenade and showed me how to use it. I carried it in a sewn-in pocket in my trousers. One day the son was rummaging through his mother鈥檚 cupboard and found my Jewish yellow star. He found me and started dragging me out to take me to the Germans; there was a bounty of 1000 sloty for any Jew caught. I pulled out my hand grenade and pulled the cap and said to him, 鈥淥K, I die, you die, we all die鈥� and he let me go saying he was only joking. The next time, a few weeks later, he pinioned my arms and I said, 鈥淵ou better go and ask your mother and she will tell you that you are a Jew. You will die, and your mother and your sister will die too鈥�. When his mother confirmed this, he tried to commit suicide by jumping off a bridge and broke his legs. I had no more problems with him after that.

In 1945, just before the Russians came in, we watched the Germans preparing their defence. They dug trenches and put two huge cannon pointing down the road towards Warsaw. They mined all the telegraph poles and the railways, bridges and culverts. I was out with these lads so we watched all this. In the morning we heard the guns roaring in the distance. We disarmed all the mines so none of these things went off; none of the bridges were blown up either. The Russians came across country instead of down the road 鈥� 30 or 40 T34 tanks with Mongolian soldiers. I spoke Russian and made friends with the Russians and went with them towards Berlin. We had got as far as Radom when we found some retreating Germans. The Russians lined them up against a wall and shot them. Then they cut off their private parts and took their watches. I didn鈥檛 like this at all, left them and returned to Grodzisk. I had given my aunt鈥檚 address to Mrs Fialkowski and, because she was illiterate, her daughter wrote to my aunt in Palestine. My aunt applied to the British Authorities for a visa for me, which was refused. So she wrote to my third cousins in this country asking if they could try and get me out. My cousins heard about Dr Soloman Schonfeld, a Rabbi who had formed a group of people called the Jewish Emergency Council. Through this Council he had applied to the British Government for a block visa to bring 1000 children out of Europe, which was granted on the understanding that the Jewish community would pay all expenses; it was not to be a drain on the British taxpayer.

Dr Schonfeld came and collected me and another 145 children from all over Poland. After assembling in a synagogue in Warsaw, we went by train up north and then flew in a Russian bomber to Gadynia. It was March 1946. From the airport we were taken to the port by lorry. My friend, Zigmund, and I were sitting at the back when one of the boys fell out. He was running in the slush after the lorry and we managed to pull him back in but he lost one of his boots and cried and cried 鈥� shoes were like gold dust to us. We were a miserable sight, most of us were sick, some with mumps or measles, and had lice. We were malnourished and ragged and ranged in age from 2 to 15, boys and girls. When we got to Stockholm on the boat (the Ragne 鈥� four to a cabin) that Dr Schonfeld had chartered for us, the Swedes threw buckets of candies, chocolates and sweets to us. The food on the boat was wonderful but too rich for us to stomach. We had lived wild for so long that we stole the bread off the table and herrings from the galley and went back to our cabin for a feast. Most of us had individual weapons and some of the youngsters wanted to hijack the boat and go to Palestine, but Dr Schonfeld found out about this. We had a vote and decided that the Swedes had done us no harm and that we wanted to go to England and make our own way there. On the North Sea there was a terrible storm and we were all ill. We landed in Hamburg and I remember there was not a building standing.

Finally we arrived in London 鈥� I was 10 years and 3 months old. Dr Schonfeld arranged for all of us to have an education and created a special class so that we could learn English. He was literally our father 鈥� a wonderful man. In all he was only able to find and rescue 450 children 鈥� I was one of the lucky ones.

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