The author comes from Białystok. During the German occupation, her family was involved in resistance work. In July 1943 some of the members of her family were arrested for hiding an escapee from the Białystok ghetto. Nine year old Janina was put in a cell with her mother and three year old sister Eugenia. On 28 September 1943 her parents were shot at Grabówka near Białystok. The orphaned sisters were kept in prison until 6 October 1943.
Iwas born on 17 May 1934 in Białystok. On 7 November 1940 my only sister, Eugenia Mikitowicz, came into the world. Our parents, Włodzimierz and Zinaida Mikitowiczow built our home in 1936 at ul. Poleska 20. Our property bordered with that of Prochor Mikitowicz, our father’s father. Five people from my father’s family lived there. My mother’s parents, Zofia and Józef Zubrzyccy‐Domanowscy, lived two streets away at ul. Topolowa 8.
We had a quiet life until the war broke out. In 1939, I was five and had a loving family. My father’s whole family was in the resistance. From 1942 to July 1943 they hid a partisan, a Jew from the Białystok ghetto whose name I do not know who had taken part in armed clashes in Białystok. One was in the Białystoczek area of town whilst another was in the railway sidings near Wasilkowska street. Germans were killed in both of these actions.
Under the floor of the bedroom there was a hiding place which was used by the Jewish gentleman and my uncle, Mikołaj Mikitowicz.
Around 10 July 1943, in the evening, the Gestapo surrounded grandfather’s house. Uncle Mikołaj and the Jewish gentleman managed to escape towards the railway lines. The Nazis fired but they managed to escape over the fields towards the village of Leńce.
As a result, the Gestapo arrested grandfather Prochor Mikitowicz and his daughter Luba Mikitowicz who was eight months pregnant. They were taken for questioning atthe Gestapo building at ul. Sienkiewicza 15 in Białystok, then imprisoned in the jail on the southern road. They were later shot at Bacieczki near Białystok. The Jewish gentleman, who was a partisan, was killed in action near Wizna, between Jeżewo and Łomża. Mikołaj Mikitowicz was wounded and died in the village of Leńce. He was betrayed to the Germans by a local in exchange for a reward of 500 marks.
On 21 July at 11 p. m., the Gestapo broke down the door of our house. It was a few days after my grandfather and my aunt had been arrested. Three SS entered with an Alsatian dog and a translator. They searched our home, turning it inside out in the process. They took us outside. They once again surrounded grandfathers home which was now empty as though they expected to find partisans there. My family were ordered to turn around and kneel. They aimed at us as though to shoot us. My mother was carrying my younger sister. I looked death in the eye for the first time – and I was still only nine! I was terrified. For some reason they chose not to kill us. Grandfather’s house was empty. That saved us. With blows, they ordered us to get up and walk. My Mother begged them on her knees to allow my sister and me to go to my grandparents’ home which was two streets away. This was categorically refused and mummy was hit in the face with a pistol. They turned the dog on her but the dog did not harm her. The dog jumped, showed its teeth, but did not bite and was punished for this. I was terrified. Mother’s face was covered in blood from a broken eye and it stained her jacket. They took us like this along the railway lines to the bridge which led to the district of Białystoczek. Here, just beyond the bridge, on the left hand side of the road, by a tree, under which we had once played, was an open car. Piotra Kosobuk, a friend of the family whose step daughter had been a play mate of ours, was lying in the car. He had been beaten and was in handcuffs. He had fired at them when he tried to escape.
The Gestapo HQ was at ul. Sienkiewicza 15, That is why it was called the Fifteen. This is where they took us. The men were taken here, put up against the wall and that was the last anyone heard of them. We never found out what happened to them.
We three were put in a two floor building in a room with many other women. It was very dirty. It was full of insects. It was hard to breathe, the stench was awful. There were no beds. The following day m mammy was taken for interrogation. She returned beaten, without strength, she could not even cry. That went on for three days. On the fourth day we were taken to the prison in Białystok. We were taken through three horrible, heavy metal gates. I was paralysed with fear at the sight of mammy who had a swollen blue face and broken right eye. We were put in the main building on the right hand side in a cell in the women’s wing.
There were ten beds in the cell. Eight were taken by prisoners. Mother slept with my sister. I slept with them even though I had my own bed near the window. It was hell. The food was horrible. A slice of a mud like piece of black bread, soup from oak leaves with caterpillars floating in it. I vomited, I could not eat. My stomach hurt. I turned around in my sleep, I wanted to escape but there was no‐where to go, the windows were barred and the door was closed. In the morning, mammy was taken for questioning. She returned broken down, no strength left in her whatsoever. During our imprisonment our grandparents managed to get two packets of food to us with bread, garlic and lard. That was so delicious!
At the beginning the children were allowed to go out for a walk for an hour between the shelter, wash house and kitchen. There were quite a few children there. I will remember for the rest of my life every detail of how it looked there.
In August or September 1943, the deacon of Białystok was imprisoned here. We could see him during our walks. He prayed for us and blessed us from a distance. I can still remember him and his kind face today.
Another thing which will always stay with me is how the prisoner prayed. In the evening on a given signal prisoners started to sing hymns‐“Jesus, listen how your people are begging”.
It was great to sing, as it brought everyone together. Even today when I hear these songs in church I cry. I sang with mammy, my mother who was to be taken away from me and without whom I would spend the rest of my childhood, youth and life.
In August all the women were put onto the first floor in order to disinfect the cells with sulphur. This produced a cloud which reached us on the first floor. In turn this started to choke us. Cries and banging on the door did not help as the guards were not around. I do not remember much about what happened later except that we ended up in the prison hospital.
There was one guard who was especially hated. He was a Pole, called Jarząbek, a really nasty piece of work. He walked around with a large number of keys and he hit people with them if they got in his way. He especially hated the children, that’s why he beat them often. My grandparents told me that he was imprisoned and punished after the war.
Some prisoners managed to escape in either August or September. A Ukrainian guard helped them. One of the escapees was Stanisław Kosobuk who was involved in the resistance like my parents. Two prisoners got out but Stanisław Kosobuk was captured and was sent to Auschwitz. Nonetheless he survived and returned to Białystok after the war.
The day after the escape, at dawn, something bad happened in the courtyard. A gallows was set up. We had to watch the execution of the Ukrainian who had helped in the escape. He was brought there in handcuffs. They put him on a stool which was kicked away by the SS. The victim hung by the rope and struggled, his tongue even reached his chin. For me, a nine year old, it was a shock. I saw with my own eyes how life could be taken away. I was shaking with fear. I remember it exactly even though it was so many years ago.
Beyond the main building, on the other side of the high wall, there was a vegetable garden. During the night handicapped people and those with psychiatric problems were murdered there. So many years later and I can still hear their groans and cries for help. They howled like animals.
One night a married couple was brought to the prison. They shot them at night after torturing them behind the main doors of the women’s block. During the early morning walk I saw a pool of blood, lightly covered in sand. It was a frightening sight, especially as we had heard during the night what had happened. I became increasingly afraid day by day. My intuition told me that something horrible was going to happen to us. I felt it approaching. I was terrified of death, I wanted to live so much as I was only nine and my sister three.
At two in the morning of 28 September 1943 something bad was in the air. The prisoners knew what was going to happen. It was a selection for death.
The cell door opened and the SS and a translator came in. They read a list of the names of the people who would be shot and took them out into the corridor. I do not remember how many there were from our cell. The first was a Russian lady with a boy aged around eight or nine who was hiding under the bed. When the mother was in the corridor, the killers realised that the boy was missing. They violently pulled him out from under the bed and took him away. The next one on the list was my mother. My heart died. She started to cry and to pull at her hair and hit her head against the walls of the cell. I understood that this was the end. Then the translator said that this was only mummy and that the daughters would stay. Mummy was crying, not knowing what they wanted to do with us. How would we be killed? I do not know what happened and why they did not kill us all together.
I will never forget how we left mummy. For the last time, I saw her through the barred window of the cell. She walked first with her head held high with her black hair tied, in a blue and white skirt, without shoes and in white socks. She knew that they were going to kill her. What was going on in her mother’s heart? They loaded the condemned into a lorry on the other side of the gate like animals and thirty minutes later they were at Grabówka. They were forced out of the lorry and taken to an open trench and machine gunned in cold blood. The locals from Grabówka later said that they could hear the cries of the wounded who were still alive. The Germans covered the bodies with lime and earth. The earth was still moving. Then they drove vehicles over the grave several times. My mother was 33 and my father 35 when they were murdered.
After my mother’s death we were alone in the prison. I became the mother to my three year old sister. Other prisoners helped me. My sister did not understand what had happened. She just wanted her mother. I do not remember anything else about what happened in the prison. I did not know what the Nazis would do to us. I waited with fear for the day they would take us out and kill us.
On 6 October 1943 in the morning we were taken out of the cell and I thought that that was the end. I was not even crying. We were taken through the three metal prison gates and I did not have a clue what was going on. Amazed, I saw my grandparents. I thought it was a vision, that they had come to see us before we died. However we had been released. We had survived! Nonetheless I cried thinking of our parents and in particular my mother. I realised that I would never see them again. My childhood world had caved in. At such an early age I had been through something that would terrify an adult. Our grandparents took good care of us. They had also experienced a tragedy‐ they had lost their daughter, son and son in law.
Once we had been released, the Gestapo did not leave us in peace. Every few days the Germans turned up at my grandparent’s house in order to check that we were still there. We were still their hostages. We could not leave my grandparents’ house. That was the condition of our survival.
I had various problems relating to this experience which caused my grandparents a lot of worry. I had nightmares, I shouted in my sleep, I tried to escape. Apart from this, after having been beaten in the prison, my body was covered in boils. They hurt me a lot, I had to lie on my stomach. I howled like a dog through pain. The doctors did not know what to do and my grandparents found a specialist but she also could not help. Even today I still have the scars from the boils .
I later learned why the Nazis had spared our lives. This was thanks to the intervention of our grandparents, Józef and Zofia Zubrzyccy‐Domanowscy. They did everything they could to save us and our parents. Unfortunately they only managed to save us children. Leonia Makarewicz, who lived near my grandparents, helped. She collaborated with the Germans but at the same time she helped the Poles. She knew people who assisted saving children‐me and my sister, but parents had to pay with their lives for opposing the Third Reich. The Nazis of course got something out of it. My grandparents had to give everything they had worked for all their lives. The Germans were parasites, they suck out the last drop of blood. They took everything they could.
There was a mass grave at Grabówka near Białystok. In 1946 or 1947 my grandparents were present when the corpses were exhumed. They did not take me to the graves. In that way I did not have to see what they saw.
We know in which grave my mother was buried. My grandfather knew a farmer from Grabówka who knew the date of the murder. He marked the tree nearest the grave.
We often went to the scene of the crime with our grandparents by bike. When I go there I am very upset and feel that there is nothing I can do – tears always tear my heart.
On the 55th anniversary of the death of my parents we were in Białystok. We went to the grave. We took many photographs. I also received permission to visit the cell in which we had been imprisoned with our mother. Those terrible memories came back, with the fear and I cried. That was the place where I last saw my mother.