Krystina’s parents were well to do, her father owned several sugar refineries and apartment buildings.  After the Germans invaded Poland, they went to southeastern Poland to cross over to Russia, near Lviv (Lvov).  The Russians however came into Polish territory, capturing many who were trying to flee from the Nazis.  There was an agreement between Russia and Germany to return Poles fleeing from Poland to Russia, to send them back to Poland.  They saw people being deported to the East, to Siberia or Kazakhstan.  They decided to return to Warsaw.  Their apartment building was one of the most prominent art deco buildings in Warsaw.  However, their building was taken over by the Germans.  They had no place to live so they went to her mother’s sister’s apartment which was in the Ghetto, Nowolipie St #13, Apt #6.  

 

In 1942, Krystina’s father died of starvation and disease.  Her mother worked in a shop, “Oshman’s,” which importantly provided work documents which hopefully would prevent immediate deportation to Treblinka.  The ghetto was marked by overcrowding, starvation, and disease.

 

Krystina’s mother, Janina, worked textile shop and her aunt, Stefania, worked repairing German army uniforms for the Wehrmacht.  

 

In July 1942, an Aktion took place, a Nazi operation that involved the rounding up, deportation, and murder of Jews took place, similar to the depiction in the film, The Pianist.  Krystina and her mother were taken to the Umschlagplatz and then to be taken by train to Treblinka.  Apparently, twice they were taken and twice managed to escape.  Similarly, Edward Malinowski and his maternal grandfather’s names were called, and they were taken to the Umschlagplatz.  Someone notified Ed’s father, he ran to the Umschlagplatz where he bribed a Jewish policeman that he knew and was able to get them out of there.  They faked that Ed had typhus and took him to a so-called hospital.  At that time, the families decided it was time to try to leave the ghetto. 

 

Krystina and Stefania were somehow able to escape the Warsaw Ghetto.  The two sisters, Janina and Stefania split up to avoid all being caught.  Janina, being well to do, knew a lot of people in Warsaw who had previously worked for them.  They couldn’t stay long where they were being hidden, the people that were hiding them became fearful that neighbors would say that they were hiding Jews.  If someone was caught hiding Jews, they would lose their lives.  In desperation, Janina and Krystina knew where Stefania, her husband Marek, and Ed were hiding and went to stay with them.  However, the apartment was marked with tragedy.  Two days after Stefania, Marek, and Ed arrived at the apartment, Marek asked the owner of the apartment, how he could find the Underground Army to fight the Germans.  The owner thought she knew how to contact the underground.  Two men came and took Marek with them.  A few days later, the two men returned and said that Marek needed his winter coat, they were all hiding in the woods.  As they left with his coat, they said to the landlady that he was not alive, they had taken him to the Gestapo, not to the underground.

 

When Stefania and Krystina came to the apartment, the owner of the apartment said that since Krystina looked very Jewish; that there was no way that they could stay there; they would all be found out.  Stefania used blackmail and said that since they were all going to die anyway, that she would go ahead and tell the Germans that owner has been hiding Jews.  So, the owner of the apartment said okay, that they could all stay but that Krystina could not leave the apartment.  For a year and a half, Krystina did not take one step outside the apartment.  From that time on, the families were always together, even after the war and when they left for America. 

 

To get food, Stefania and Janina would go out to buy baked goods that they could resell.  Someone recognized Stefania as a Jew and threatened to tell the Germans unless she gave him, her winter coat.  So, she did and was fortunate that the man did not inform the Germans.  A later time, Stefania again went out in public to buy food.  A man approached her; she ran.  He recognized her as being Jewish and said he was from the underground, Zegota.  He was able to get them money, food, and importantly, fake documents showing that they were Poles not Jews.  

 

In August 1944, the Polish underground started an uprising in Warsaw.  Apparently because the Germans were fighting on two fronts, one in Russia and the other in the Western Europe, they began to be short of regular army troops.  They apparently used surrogates of Russian criminals that they captured from Russian jails to suppress the Warsaw uprising.  This SS brigade was called Rona.  They came to Stefania’s apartment building, people from the apartment fled to the basement to escape from them.  Soldiers of Rona threw hand grenades killing people hiding in the basement.  Fortunately, Krystina’s family, her mother Janina, her aunt Stefania, and her cousin Ed survived because they were hiding in a part of the basement that was not hit by the grenades.

 

The family left the basement and ran to a vegetable garden.  Later on, they were discovered by a German soldier.  He gave them some carrots and promised to help them get out of there.  Shortly however, they were discovered by armed Rona soldiers.  They were taken to the front of the building and were presented to a Rona officer there.  He saw that Krystina looked Jewish and shouted Jude and ordered them to be shot.  Krystina and Ed started saying Polish prayers to try to convince them that they were Poles not Jews; they had discussed doing this in advance should this occur.  They were about to be shot when German soldiers who were playing with a ball, nearby and saw what was about to happen, and shouted out “No more killing!”  This occurred August 5 or 6, 1944.  

 

They then went to a transit camp, then to another.  The second one was not well guarded, and they were able to escape.  From August 1944 till January 1945, they would go to different people’s houses for help, for hiding.  In one hiding place, it was very bad, rats were running over them. 

 

They were in the textile town of Zyrardow outside of Warsaw. 

 

Once they were traveling on a train to sell some goods to people in Czestochowa, Poland.  A German soldier, who identified himself as being originally from Silesia, Poland, recognized that they were Jewish.  He told them to run away, that they would be recognized as Jews and would be killed.

 

When the Russians liberated Warsaw, they were free, they would not to be hunted to be shot like animals. In 1968, Poland coerced its remaining Jews to leave Poland.  Both Krystina and Ed had become medical doctors in Poland.  They left for the United States in 1969.  They first went to Vienna and then to Rome.  They did not have any citizenship papers; they were considered to be stateless.  The Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS) apparently sponsored them to come to United States and then sent them to Detroit.