People Profile

More about Jerry

What were the conditions of the Warsaw Ghetto?

People were starving to death and people were dying of disease. The conditions were horrendous.     

The food was scarce and food rations --still meant you were going to starve to death.

My family and I serviced by eating food smuggled in by boys who would climb the walls of the Ghetto, buy food and bring it back into the Ghetto.

I feel a guilty because even though I was the right age at that time, I never did get involved in the smuggling of food. Because I knew what the penalty was for doing it --death and because my parents never asked me to.

Why did your family decided to relocate?

The family decided to escape, because of the conditions, treatment of the Jews, food rations and starving to death.

We heard of a town not too far where Jews were living normal lifes. We were smuggled out of the Ghetto, which the price (cost and punishment if caught) was high, but to live a normal life was better.

My mother, father, brother and I relocated to a small town called Kosow in Poland where Jews were allowed to live normally.

It became very clear why this town was allowed to continue on its normal way of life. This town was an exception because it was surrounded by six Nazi death camps. We weren't going anywhere. We were a captive audience.

Explain why your family hide under a barn?

My father felt the only for our family to survivor was to offer his 60-acre farm as a reward for anyone who could find a Christian family willing to take the risk of hiding a Jewish family.

Two brothers from the town of Kosow found a family, the Gorals were willing to hide the Jews, and they, plus five other people fled to an underground bunker beneath the Goral family's barn.

The ownership of the farm turned out to be a very valuable asset to the family when it came to survival.

Describe what life was like in the bunker?

The conditions in the bunker were pretty tough, there was a total of 11 people living in a 24 foot wide by six feet high bunker.

The walls of the small bunker were lined with straw. The occupants were unable to bathe so lice and bed bugs infested the space.

The only light was provided by a kerosene lantern and second hand copies of the Gorals’ newspapers provided the only entertainment.

The newspaper became a propaganda tool for the German military, but over time through critical reading, it became obvious Germany was going to lose the war.

There was event that was difficult to live through and witness. A young pregnant woman and her mother were among the 11 people in the underground bunker.

The young woman probably didn't know she was pregnant when she entered the bunker, but she was and was showing every month that passed.

Above ground, a member of the host family was also pregnant. I remember the idea of having a baby born in that bunker was so frightening.

Goral's granddaughter was born first. There were complications with the pregnancy and the baby died.    

Days later a baby girl was born in the bunker.

She was doing what all little newborns do, she was crying and she probably had a very good reason to cry because she was being eaten alive by the lice and the bed bugs that we had in the bunker.

That little girl died too. It was hard because two newborns were gone within days of each other. It was hard to deal with the loss.

When did liberation come?

We were liberated by Soviet troops 22 months after entering the bunker.

I will never forget the look we were given by those soldiers; we were nothing beautiful to look at, we were gaunt, pale, dirty and infected with lice and bed bugs.

Three members of my extended family survived the Holocaust--two blond-haired, blue-eyed cousins and an uncle.

We thought after the liberation life would go back to normality. However, that was not the case; violence against Jews continued, so we decided to immigrate to the United States.

They arrived in the U.S. on February 1951. This country has been good to me.