Romana Holder’s friends’ daughter

This is the daughter of my friends Jula and Filip Gotfryd. I don’t remember her name and I don’t know when she was born. I think the photo was taken at the end of the 1930s, maybe in Kolomyia, where her parents came from.

Before the war in Kolomyia my husband had three friends - the Gotfryd brothers, Andrzej, Filip and Miecio. They were dentists, and they had a lot of money, so during the war they survived in the Kolomyia Ghetto. This little girl and her aunt - the wife of Andrzej - wanted to hide somewhere, but the child began to cry, and the bastards - the Germans - found them and killed them. This child’s mother, Jula, was saved by a priest. 

After I got married in 1945 I met the family in Katowice. We stayed in touch with them even after we moved to Warsaw. We freqently went to Katowice, where they lived, especially as Filip Gotfryd was a good dentist. We had an army car, so we visited them. Jula became my friend. She gave me this photograph of her little daughter.

After 1956 the Gotfryds went to West Germany. My son visited them in the 1970s. After he graduated he went abroad, first to Sweden - many different people were going there at that time - and then to France, then London, and finally West Germany, to the Gotfryds.