Wallace Witkowski
Nació: 1928, en Kielce, Polonia
Describe las condiciones de vida duras para los no judíos en Polonia [Entrevista: 1990]
We were, of course, survivors of a period in which every able bodied person, age 14 and up, had to work 10 hours a day, 6 days a week. Otherwise, we would be shipped to Germany to forced labor camps or to work in factories of the German war machine. We were given rations of food so, um, most of us went often hungry. We were decimated by disease. Typhus, typhoid fever, was prevalent. My mother survived typhoid fever. Us kids did not get sick. Uh...we were...uh...terrorized by continuous...uh.. dragnets, "lapanki," [roundups] we called it in Polish. You walk on a street from your house to your aunt's house, and suddenly the street is closed by the gendarmes on both sides. And all the people are surrounded and asked to show their papers. "Are you working somewhere? Who are you? What's your occupation? What are you doing now?" And whoever appeared not employed in a meaningful way that involves supporting the German war effort was being singled out, put in a truck, and shipped to the railroad station and put on a train and shipped to Germany. There were hardly any families that did not feel the...the tragedy of war.
We were, of course, survivors of a period in which every able bodied person, age 14 and up, had to work 10 hours a day, 6 days a week. Otherwise, we would be shipped to Germany to forced labor camps or to work in factories of the German war machine. We were given rations of food so, um, most of us went often hungry. We were decimated by disease. Typhus, typhoid fever, was prevalent. My mother survived typhoid fever. Us kids did not get sick. Uh...we were...uh...terrorized by continuous...uh.. dragnets, "lapanki," [roundups] we called it in Polish. You walk on a street from your house to your aunt's house, and suddenly the street is closed by the gendarmes on both sides. And all the people are surrounded and asked to show their papers. "Are you working somewhere? Who are you? What's your occupation? What are you doing now?" And whoever appeared not employed in a meaningful way that involves supporting the German war effort was being singled out, put in a truck, and shipped to the railroad station and put on a train and shipped to Germany. There were hardly any families that did not feel the...the tragedy of war.
Wallace y su familia eran polacos católicos. Su padre era ingeniero químico y su madre era maestra. Los alemanes ocuparon Kielce en 1939. Wallace vio los pogroms contra los judíos en 1942. Wallace era activo en la resistencia anti-nazi, y era mensajero entre grupos partisanos. En 1946, en la Polonia liberada, Wallace vio el pogrom de Kielce. Fue reunido con su padre en los Estados Unidos en 1949; los otros miembros de la familia los siguieron. El régimen comunista en Polonia negó permiso a su única hermana para emigrar por casi una década.
— US Holocaust Memorial Museum - Collections
