4 British Jewesses Relate Experiences in Nazi Poland

The experiences of four Jewish women of British nationality who were trapped by the Nazi invasion of Poland are described in a report published in the Evening Star.

Three of the women were taken to Poland by their parents as babies. The four was married to a Polish Jew.

Early one morning, after the Germans had entered Cracow, the doors of their houses were rudely opened by German soldiers carrying rifles and bayonets who shouted “Jews! Jews! Are there any Jews here?”

Then the women were seized and taken to prison, where they were cramped in special cells, separated from their menfolk. “At night sleep was impossible,” they said. “Hunger and cold alone would have kept us awake, but outside, in the prison yard, all night long a firing squad was busy.”

The women were later removed to another prison, being driven through the streets in an open lorry in the middle of winter. After a week the women were terrified by the guards’ announcement that “you are going into Germany.”

Again at dawn they were driven, without coats, in an open lorry to a station and reached Nuremberg after a 17-hour railway journey during which they were given no food. But in the concentration camp there was no accommodation for them. For 24 hours they were driven about in a police car. Then they were put in prison again.

A few days later they were taken back to Cracow, then removed to a Berlin prison where they were herded together with the lowest criminals. Three weeks later they said, “soldiers armed with rifles and bayonets entered. We clung together. They took us each by the arm, shook us apart and led us out. We thought we were going to be shot. Then through the prison yard to a closed van and driven away to the station. They pushed us out into the train, drew the blinds and locked us in. It wasn’t until the last second before they locked the door that someone said: ‘You are going to England.’ We couldn’t believe it!”