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When Germans entered the city, my brother, Wladek got himself some fake papers, and continued working at the Polytechnic (the Polytechnic as such was closed, but individual sections kept on functioning). Later I found out that after I left my younger brother was also in Lwow, along with his wife. But at the time I did not know this. I never met her.
Both my brothers were killed a short time before the Soviet army entered Lwow, I mean, before liberation [1944]. My younger brother was killed about half a year before the Soviet army came in, and the older one just 3 months before. Wladek was so sure of himself that he even gave shelter to a Jewish friend, Henryk Meth.
The Germans came to get this other Jew and they asked him about Wladek. He said: ‘at the Polytechnic.’ So they went to get my brother, then they took Berta, and that was that – my brother and his wife were killed together with this friend of theirs.
My younger brother was captured together with his wife in a round-up in Lwow, in a restaurant. They deciphered his papers, I mean they figured out they were fake, and so he, too, was killed. Out of my direct family I was the only one left, alone like a thumb. In Kiev I got in touch with an old school friend, asked him about my family’s fate – he found nobody. Moreover, I also tried to find out what happened to my fiancee, Izabela Handelsman, who was supposed to come to Lwow...
But unfortunately, I got no news at all. Apparently my parents did get together in the end, in the ghetto in Czestochowa. They were both killed in the early months of 1943, [the liquidation of the Czestochowa ghetto took place at the turn of 1942-43] in Treblinka. 31.
Both my brothers were killed a short time before the Soviet army entered Lwow, I mean, before liberation [1944]. My younger brother was killed about half a year before the Soviet army came in, and the older one just 3 months before. Wladek was so sure of himself that he even gave shelter to a Jewish friend, Henryk Meth.
The Germans came to get this other Jew and they asked him about Wladek. He said: ‘at the Polytechnic.’ So they went to get my brother, then they took Berta, and that was that – my brother and his wife were killed together with this friend of theirs.
My younger brother was captured together with his wife in a round-up in Lwow, in a restaurant. They deciphered his papers, I mean they figured out they were fake, and so he, too, was killed. Out of my direct family I was the only one left, alone like a thumb. In Kiev I got in touch with an old school friend, asked him about my family’s fate – he found nobody. Moreover, I also tried to find out what happened to my fiancee, Izabela Handelsman, who was supposed to come to Lwow...
But unfortunately, I got no news at all. Apparently my parents did get together in the end, in the ghetto in Czestochowa. They were both killed in the early months of 1943, [the liquidation of the Czestochowa ghetto took place at the turn of 1942-43] in Treblinka. 31.
Period
Location
Ukraine
Interview
Stefan Minc