Apolonia Starzec with her husband Adolf Starzec and a friend in the mountains

That's me, my husband, Adolf Starzec, and our friend. We were in the Polish mountains for the winter holidays. The photo was taken in the 1940s. My husband, Adolf Starzec, isn't Jewish. He grew up in the country, in tough conditions. The parents scrimped and saved to educate their children, to pay for their studies. He was the youngest one, brought up by his aunt. An aunt with ten children. He came from the Cracow region, from a village near Tarnow, called Zukowice Stare. He was a good student, it was planned he would become a priest. But he changed his mind. He completed a high school in Tarnow, where he lived in lodgings, and then went to university in Cracow. Tarnow is like Cracow in miniature. Beautiful architecture. It's the student period we know each other from. From the socialist movement. He thought it was it for him. He was also active on peasant organizations. Had contacts with Witos, he was many years my elder. He did manage to complete his studies. He defended himself beautifully during the trial, got six years. Released eventually, he worked as a simple construction worker, carried bricks. And when the war broke out, all the court files, of course, fell into the Gestapo's hands. He fled to Russia. He was there all the time. And only after his return we did get to know each other again. And we got married. He was a man who sincerely fought for freedom and truth and who believed that was the right way. A very noble man. He lived in Cracow for some time after the war. Our little son had already been born. I remember how I traveled to Cracow with the baby boy in a wrap, he didn't walk yet. We hiked a lot in the mountains with my husband. We didn't ski but hiked and that's how we spent any leisure time we had.

Photos from this interviewee