by Dasia Black
There they were sitting around the table: my family. Looking at my five grandchildren, all moving towards young adulthood, I had a moment of acute awareness that here were the great-grandchildren of my father Szulem and mother Chana. The continuity of family made me feel as if my soul were being stroked. It brought me close to tears.
Rachel and Anna recited together our traditional prayer before lighting the Sabbath candles. They prayed that God keep far from us all manner of shame, grief, and care, and grant that peace, light and joy ever abide in our home. Then, standing together, the girls covered their eyes with their hands and said the blessing over the lit candles. We said Amen and Shabbat Shalom and then there was kissing around the table which even the boys could not escape. At dinner, there was laughter, political discussion and joking.
Dessert included the expected Nena Ester fare: strawberries with raspberry coulis, chocolate cake and a pear tart. Some chess was played later on. It was a wonderful evening, good to be there with the family.
15 January, 1949
My experiences during the Nazi Occupation
I was born in Rzeszow in 1938. In 1939 my parents and I travelled to Mikulince. From there the Germans made us go to Zbaraz. There I lived with my parents in the ghetto. It was very bad for us. We lived with other families in the same room. We had neither food nor heating. But this was not as terrible as during an aktia. During an aktia we hid in a shelter deep underground. Those terrible Germans would discover a shelter and then they would kill the Jews straight away but some were transported naked and barefoot to Belzec to be burned. Such terrible things were taking place which I cannot describe. My parents knew that the Germans would kill us, so they gave me to a Polish woman, and they themselves went to the forest to hide.
That Polish woman was very bad to me. I had to play with her little children when I was 5 years old. She did not give me food and she beat me. Often I would sit in a corner and cried for my parents. I knew they were not alive because they did not write to me.
At times I would see through the window how the Germans drove Jews to work and how they beat them. It was hard to look at that.
In the spring of 1944, I was liberated by the Soviets. The Polish woman with whom I had been took me to my auntie, with whom I am now.
Hadasa Braun
Note: This is an English translation from Polish of a Testimony by 10-year-old Dasia (Hadasa Kahane Braun), deposited at Yad Vashem by the Central Historical Committee of Liberated Jews in Munich.