"Contrary to appearances, it is a very optimistic book. After all, this is a book about victory. About the victory of seven brave women against Adolf Hitler and the entire Third Reich. ”Says Anna Herbich about“ Girls of the Survivors ”. In an interview with Curiosities of History, the author tells about moving conversations, life stories caught up in a great story and the heroic struggle for survival that the characters of her latest book had to fight.
There were, among others, "Girls from the Uprising", "Girls from Solidarity" or "Just Girls" ... At what point did you feel that a book should also be written about women of Jewish origin who managed to survive World War II?
The idea for the book was born while working on "Righteous Girls" - my previous book. Listening to the stories about the women who hid Jews during the Second World War, I thought it was worth showing this drama from the other side as well. See the Holocaust through the eyes of Jewish women. Show the ordeal they went through. Sentenced to death by Hitler, they had to hide in attics, cellars and barns, and went through the hell of camps and ghettos. Without presenting their fate, my series of books on women's experiences during the Second World War would not be complete.
Anna Herbich is the author of the book Survivor Girls which has just been released on the market
In the introduction to "Survivor Girls" you write:"The book you are holding in your hands is to commemorate the tragic fate of seven of them. Seven brave women who survived in occupied Poland. " Do you feel your mission while writing your books? Thanks to your works, the reader has a chance to learn about personal, individual stories, and not just textbook facts - to look at history from a broader perspective.
The history of a nation is made up of millions of individual stories. Looking at history through the eyes of witnesses is completely different - and in my opinion more interesting - than reading thick volumes written by professional historians. In the stories of eyewitnesses we find what is most fascinating in history:human drama, emotions, feelings. Passionate biographies of people caught up in great history.
I get a lot of emails and comments on social networks from young people. They write that when they got to know the fate of the protagonists of my books, they often put themselves in their shoes. And they asked themselves:what would I do if I was in this situation? Would I pass my humanity test? How would I handle it?
How did your meetings with the book's heroes look like?
These are often not easy conversations. After all, we are talking about great life tragedies, crises, great dangers and great tragedies. Despite the decades that have passed since those events, the heroes of my book have a very emotional approach to them. They often find it difficult to come back to them. Let's take a new book - Survivors Girls. After all, most of her heroines lost all members of their families. Parents, siblings, grandparents. Their relatives were killed in the gas chambers of Auschwitz, they starved to death in ghettos and labor camps. Only they survived. So it is not surprising that during our conversations I cried with my protagonists. We often had to pause the conversation to catch our breath. But on the other hand, there were of course also very nice moments, in which memories evoked a smile, emotion, and affection. For example, the last pre-war holidays spent with the whole family, or a childish mischief that has passed into family anecdotes. The characters in my books tell about their whole lives. About his lights and shadows, triumphs and failures, tragedies and joys.
In your book you show that the end of the war did not mean peace for the protagonists of the book. Agata Bołdok (née Irena Likierman) said that although she was "attracted to the Jews," on the other hand, she felt a threat when she heard the Yiddish language, because she associated it with war and the denial of her roots. In turn, Aleksandra Leliwa-Kopystyńska's mother hid her origin from her daughter almost until the end of her days, believing that the truth would put her in danger. World War II is only one of the elements of their biographies, though determining…
The catastrophe that fell on the characters of my book during the Second World War, and their dramatic experiences, could not but exert a profound impact on their psyche. These were great traumas that these women struggled with for many years after the war. Or perhaps they are still struggling with them today. Despite the lack of a threat from the Germans, the fear remained. He caused the fear of revealing their Jewish identity to the rest of the society.
This fear caused the Jews to run away from each other, obliterate their origins, and did not tell their children about it. They changed their names, tried to blend in with the surroundings at all costs. They often treated their Jewishness as a stigma.
Anna Herbich is the author of the book Survivor Girls which has just been released on the market
Another heroine of my book, which you have not mentioned - Inka Sobolewska - found out about her Jewish origin when she turned eighteen. Her parents adopted her when she was three. She was smuggled through the sewers from the ghetto to the Aryan side. The entire immediate family perished in the Holocaust. There are many such biographies.
Survivor Girls shows that there was also life after life. For example:Danuta Lis tells about life in Israel and the moment when she "merged" with her new homeland - the enthusiasm of society after winning the Six-Day War.
The lives of all the protagonists of "Survivor Girls" were shattered during the war. Broken into tiny poppies. After the war, nothing was the same anymore. The heroines had to start all over again. Poland was within different borders, the enormous Polish Jewish community no longer existed. The world they knew just evaporated. However, they had to find themselves in this new reality, they had to live. Most of them stayed in Poland, started families and tried to make their own lives here. Ms Danuta Lis did indeed go to Israel and in 1967 she began to identify with this country. However, she never stopped missing Poland, the homeland of her youth. As a result, he now divides his time between Israel and Poland, and plans to return to Warsaw permanently. All the protagonists of "Survivor Girls" - despite the fact that they have experienced such terrible things here - treat Poland as their home, as their homeland. They show that you can be both Polish and Jewish at the same time. That these two identities do not have to be mutually exclusive - on the contrary, they can complement each other.
Aleksandra Leliwa-Kopystyńska, one of the heroines of your book, ends her story with the following words:“When I think back to those terrible times, I realize how many occasions I had to die. But each time from the next dangers I came out unscathed. In spite of everything - I live to this day. " What did you learn from your characters?
Indeed, all the ladies with whom they talked survived by a miracle. On their way they encountered so many obstacles and dangers that it is hard to believe that they came out of all these situations unscathed. They were hunted down by the Gestapo, sent to camps such as Auschwitz or Majdanek, suffered from hunger in ghettos, and were blackmailed by blackmailers. All this happened to them when they were young girls or even children. And yet, even for a moment, they did not lose their will to live and their zeal to fight. Fighting for Survival. Despite the fact that they suffered from other misfortunes, such as the death of their parents, they never gave up. I would like to have at least a particle of the spiritual strength that they showed. I would like to believe that in my hour of trial, I would have done what they did. One more important thing. After all, all the daily worries and troubles we face today are nothing compared to what they have been through. Despite the shocking descriptions of human dramas, the book "Survivors Girls" is, contrary to appearances, a very optimistic book. After all, this is a book about victory. About the victory of seven brave women against Adolf Hitler and the entire Third Reich. This victory was based on the fact that although the Germans sentenced them to death, they survived. And they are still alive today. Their children and grandchildren are alive. So the National Socialists' satanic plan to wipe out the entire nation failed.
Anna Herbich is the author of the book Survivor Girls which has just been released on the market
In recent times, herstory research, i.e. a story described with particular emphasis on the role of women, has been gaining popularity. Do you feel that you belong to this trend?
My books do not belong to any current, and have nothing to do with any ideology. I am simply trying to reach out to women who were involved in dramatic events during the Second World War. They've seen a lot, experienced a lot, and can tell a lot. My goal is to convey their stories to a wide range of readers and thus save them from oblivion. This is the secret of my books.
If you were to recommend one historical prince, what would it be?
"On the Edge of the Empire" by Mieczysław Jałowiecki. Passionate memories of a Polish aristocrat! Full of anecdotes, famous characters and great history. Whenever I have a choice of a contemporary historical monograph or memories - I choose the latter.