Before the war

JEWISH INTELLIGENTSIA

Franka and Jakub Ostern travelled a lot and loved the mountains. After seven years of happy marriage, their daughter Hania was born. They lived at 31 Lipowa Street. Jakub was a science teacher at the Maria Konopnicka Girls' Middle School and taught at a Jewish school. When he came home from work, he would always bring his daughter gifts in small packages hung on the buttons of his coat. 

Jakub came from Dębica, where he grew up in an assimilated Jewish family. He had five siblings. Hania's mother was a communism activist in her youth, for which she was arrested in 1921. She was known to the Sanacja police as “Bloody Franka.” Her brother was the famous space scientist Ary Sternfeld. 

Hania's beloved nanny was Zofia Libich, who came from a poor Polish family with partial German roots, which had disowned her. Before she came to the Osterns, she worked in one of the factories in Łódź. Her two children died shortly after birth. She transferred all her love to little Hania.

The war

THE RIGHTEOUS ZOFIA LIBICH

At the beginning of 1940, deportations to the ghetto began. The tenement house on Lipowa Street was surrounded by a cordon, and both gates were closed. The residents were herded into the courtyard. The nanny hid Hania in her attic. She introduced herself as Zofia Liebich, a German woman who was happy that Łódź was finally being freed from Jews. They did not even think to search her apartment. 

Her parents managed to escape from the transport, made their way to Dębica, and hid at their grandparents' house. At their request, Zosia brought the girl to them. When a ghetto was established in Dębica, the nanny crossed the border again and took Hania back to Łódź. 

When Zosia was arrested by the Gestapo, little Hana went to live with her father (her mother died in Bergen-Belsen), who hid his daughter in a camp for men. After her release from prison, Zosia came to their rescue again. The three of them left Dębica with false documents. Jakub convinced Zosia to take Hana to Łódź, while he would continue on alone. He died. Hana and Zosia survived the war in the attic at 31 Lipowa Street.

After the war

DEPARTURE TO ISRAEL

Russians liberated Łódź. Zosia and Hania went to welcome them, along with many other residents of Łódź. Zosia took in the orphaned Hania, who from then on was called Anna Teresa Libich. Hania-Ania became a devout Catholic. Upon Zosia's encouragement, she joined the Girl Scouts. She had no contact with the Jewish community. 

Ada, Hania's biological mother's sister, and her husband Michał Kalecki wanted to adopt her, but Hana did not agree. She did not want to leave Zosia. When she was in her senior year of high school, Zosia fell ill and died at the age of 49. Hana had the following inscription engraved on her grave: “You died, but you live on in me! To my beloved mother – Nulka.”

While studying at the Łódź University of Technology, Hana met Marek Świrski. They got married and had a daughter. Marek's parents, who had survived the Vilnius ghetto with him, persuaded the young couple to emigrate to Israel together. Hania and Marek learned the language and became teachers. In 2008, Hana applied for Zofia Libich to be awarded the title of Righteous Among the Nations.

Before the war

TENEMENT HOUSE ON KOŚCIUSZKI STREET

Rachela Grynglas (b. 1925) came from a fairly affluent family, who owned an apartment and a shop in the Old Market Square and co-owned a tenement house on Kościuszki Street. Her grandfather was the owner of a bakery. 

Her father Adam planned to emigrate to Palestine, but Hela, Rachel’s mom, wanted their children to finish schools before their departure. As she recalled, she had a happy childhood not due to her family’s wealth, but thanks to the care and love their parents showed her and her siblings.

Eliezer (b. 1923) grew up close to Rachela, on Nowomiejska Street. He considered himself a Polish patriot. In recognition of his educational achievements he was selected to carry a school’s flag during city’s celebrations. Unfortunately just before they started he was pelted with stones.

Lolek (as he was affectionately called) was brought up by his mother Chaja Hela and his grandparents. His parents got divorced when he was a few months old, and his father Awram started another family.

The war

GHETTO ADMINISTRATION

The Grynglas family's apartment in the Old Market Square was located within the ghetto. It was one of the few buildings to have gas, so their family shop was converted into a place for cooking and heating food. 

Although the whole family worked, for safety reasons during the Great Szpera, Adam locked his wife and two children on the landing inside the building. He did not protect his family from their later deportation to Auschwitz, though. 

In the ghetto, Lolek worked as a hospital messenger, among other things. As a hospital employee, he was one of the closest witnesses to the tragedy of the Great Szpera. 

His later work for Jakubowski saved him from deportation to Auschwitz – along with his mother, he was selected for a group of prisoners who remained in the ghetto. In October 1944, he was transported to the Sachsenhausen-Oranienburg camp. In March 1945, he escaped with two other prisoners and was hiding in Germany.

After the war

JEWISH COOPERATIVES

After returning to Łódź, Rachela asked the pre-war co-owner of the tenement house on Kościuszki Street for help. She was well received – she was given a large apartment in the building, from which she was evicted a few months later by communist activists. She moved to an annexe at the same address. After the war, she worked in a children's home for Jewish children who had been hiding with Polish families during the war. 

After the war ended, Lolek also came back to Łódź. Upon his return, he found out that his mom had also survived the war. 

In March 1946, Eliezer and Rachela got married. They fell in love at first sight. Two children were born in Poland: Adam and Hela. From 1945, they planned to emigrate to Palestine, but their permits were suspended. In Łódź, Lolek obtained his master's license and opened a thriving leather workshop with a friend. They left in 1956. In Israel, they became engaged in commemorating the Jewish community of Łódź. Once it became possible to visit Poland again, they became frequent guests to Ciechocinek and, of course, Łódź.

Before the war

ZIONISM

Róża was born in 1918 into a Hasidic family. Her parents were Szmul Dawid Grossman and Hanna Grossman. She was their first child born in Łódź, where the family had moved in search of better opportunities. Róża's oldest sister, Ruta, left for the United States right after World War I. Her older brother was Mendel Grossman, who as early as the 1930s tried his hand at photography, working with the Jewish theatre in Łódź.

Mojżesz ( b. 1923) from an early age was involved in the Zionist movement Hanoar Hazioni. As one of the leaders of youth groups, he took part in the organization's training camp in Trakai, near Vilnius. He managed to become an electrician before the war. His parents, Abram and Estera Zylbersztajn, owned a shoe store on Limanowskiego Street. 

The war

FARM IN MARYSIN

After the establishment of the ghetto Róża became engaged in working in vegetable gardens in Marysin, run with the consent of Chaim Rumkowski. They were set up in empty spaces in this sparsely developed part of the ghetto in an attempt to deal with hunger in every possible way. The farms were used by Zionist groups preparing ghetto youth for life and work in kibbutzim in Palestine. 

Mojżesz also got involved in the work on the farm that Róża was part of. He coupled his training activities with work in a sewing workshop. In August 1944, Mojżesz, his father, and two sisters were deported to Auschwitz.

Mendel, Róża's brother, was employed in the Statistics Department, where he took photographs on behalf of the Jewish and German ghetto administration. Taking advantage of his work, he also took many unofficial photographs of the closed district, documenting its reality. 

Very few people from the immediate families of Różka and Mosze survived the war. Różka's brother, Mendel, did not survive the death march. 

After the war

BRICHA AND PALESTINE

After the liberation of the camp, Moshe and his father returned to Łódź after a week-long train journey. Moshe became active again in the Zionist movement, where he found friends from the wartime, including Różka Grossman, with whom he became a couple.

Różka and her brother's surviving friends managed to find the negatives he had hidden. Mosze worked for the Bricha organization, helping Holocaust survivors get to Palestine.

In the summer of 1946, Moshe and Różka left Poland, carrying a suitcase with all of Mendel's recovered negatives and prints. They arrived in Palestine in January 1948. They settled in Haifa, where they lived for the rest of their lives, close to their children and grandchildren. Moshe was drafted into the Israeli Navy. He was an electrical engineering specialist.

The Zilbers became active members of the community of Survivors from Łódź in Israel and around the world. They played a key role in honouring Mendel Grossman's work. Their children continue their parents' work today.

 

Before the war

FAMILY FROM KAMIENNA STREET

Leon, also called Lolek, was the youngest of five siblings and the only son. He lost his father when he was barely over a year old. To support the family, his mother opened a small laundry at 2 Kamienna Street. Today where once was a window of their house is a bas-relief illustrating Agnieszka Osiecka's song “Lovers from Kamienna Street.” 

The premises had two rooms housing a laundry room and an apartment for six people. At night, the tables behind the partitions became beds for the sisters. At the exit to the courtyard, there was a built-in cauldron with a furnace for boiling linens, a large tub with a washing machine, and drying rails on the ceiling. Behind the cupboard were the beds of the mother and Lolek. 

School was an oasis for Leon. He was a diligent student. He completed six grades of elementary school with good grades and was accepted to middle school. Before he started his education there, the war broke out. He liked trips to the park in Helenów and vacations at his aunt's house in Warta, where they solemnly celebrated Shabbat. He loved the cinema. Memories of films helped him later in the worst moments.

The war

ESCAPE FROM AUSCHWITZ

In the ghetto, Leon continued his school education. Later, he worked as a tinsmith and electrician. 

His sister Lola watched over the discipline of food rationing in the family. She meticulously divided the food into small, equal portions. Thanks to this, the whole family managed to survive until 1944. 

During the roundups conducted at the time of the ghetto's liquidation, the whole family hid in a nook behind a wardrobe. To make the apartment look abandoned, they left the front door open and food scraps on the table. Eventually, the Germans discovered their hiding place. However, they did not notice that one of Leon's sisters, Róża, had remained behind the wardrobe. She had decided to hide in Łódź and wait for liberation. She was the only one of the siblings who did not survive the war.  

A lucky coincidence allowed Leon to escape from Auschwitz. While passing a group of naked prisoners in the camp, he took advantage of the absence of a guard and joined their group. He managed to mix in with the crowd. It turned out that these were people selected to work in the Dörnhau camp, which was being used for the Riese project. 

After the war

EMIGRATION 1968

Leon hitchhiked for five days and nights to meet his sisters at the Bergen-Belsen camp for DPs. Once there, a distant relative recognized him and exclaimed, “You're alive!” The joy was indescribable. 

Leon was accepted to his dream medical studies in Göttingen, within the framework of places allocated to Survivors. He married Katja Hof, a Slavicist. They came to Poland with a young child in the early 1950s. Leon began working at a maternity clinic in Warsaw. After completing his doctorate, he became a head physician at a hospital in Otwock. Katja worked as a translator, translating, among others, the works of Janusz Korczak. They had more sons. As a result of the anti-Semitic campaign of 1968, Leon lost his job. After a year of emigration in Sweden, Katja died. Leon worked as an obstetrician in Stockholm until his retirement. He remarried and they have a daughter. 

He has been dedicated to Holocaust remembrance for many years. He meets with young people in Sweden, Germany, and Poland. He often visits Łódź. He says he is an incurable optimist.