Far from being an abstract series of events studied at school, history is the story of what happens to us, a living legacy of the collective stories of the past that will continue to shape us as we carry these events and their impact into the future.
Sonia “Sarah” Lipowicz was born on July 10, 1923, in Chmielnik, a small shtetl in southeastern Poland. Chmielnik, first settled by Jews in the 16th century, was a good place for our people. Sarah was the third of seven children born to Avrum Lipowicz and Hadassah Berlin, who ran a flour mill together and lived a typical Hasidic family life.
I was 7 at that time. It was in May, about a month before the war broke out (in the Soviet Union the war started on June 22, 1941). In Bessarabia there was an earthquake and it eventually came down to Balti (Beltsi), where my family lived at that time.
In normal circumstances, time goes fast, but in the ghetto, it dragged exceedingly long. Every day passed very slowly, as if to spite us.
My mother and aunt worked for the Russians until my mother was smuggled out of Poland to the American Zone in Germany, where she lived in a displaced persons camp, Feldafing, and married my father on October 16, 1946. They lived in the DP camp until they could immigrate to the United States in November, 1947.
In the car I tried to be excited about finally ending this ordeal, but I felt I was dying from agony and fear. I was trying to find a way out. If we went to Lehonia, it would be the end of us. Nobody knew us there. After a while, I asked, “Where are we going?”
Finding a way to remain in the United States as an illegal alien proved to be one heck of a sweet bargain.
While in Westerbork, Selma Simon wrote to her daughters, Ruth and Hilda in England. The last letter was written four or five days before they were deported to Poland in which, sadly, Selma said, “We hope to see you soon.”
When Marcel got the news of her deportation, he knew that he would never see his mother again—the person he adored beyond anyone else. It was with a broken body and a broken heart that he arrived in Paris.
Sima could easily pass as a non-Jewish Pole because she had a light complexion and was blonde, but to be able to live as a Pole, she needed a Kennkarte (identification card), and to get a Kennkarte she needed a Polish birth certificate.
