RealtioNet ES AD 33 SO PO

RealtioNet ES AD 33 SO

Esther Adler

Holocaust Project Katzanelson High School

Kfar-Saba, Israel

Mail: relationet2014@gmail.com

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First Name: Esther 

last Name: Adler 

Year of birth: 1933 

City of birth: Sokolow Podlaski
Country of birth: Poland

Sokolow Podlaski

 Sokolow Podlaski is a town in Poland, in Masovian Voivodeship, about 80 kilometers east of Warsaw.  The beginning of the settlement in this area dates back to 6th century AD.

In the past, feudal fights among Polish and Russian states, the Teutonic Knights, Yotvingians and Lithuanians took place in an area where Sokolow Podlask was a part of.  Archaeologists found evidence of settlements in the area dated from 6th and 7th centuries. Ceramics, iron fittings, buckles, beads, staples and numerous items of burial equipment testify about the culture, customs and rituals celebrated to honor the dead. 

The study confirmed that in a place a of an old Russian and Polish settlements in Cetynia river valley, a new settlement of Sokolow was established as a result of gradual colonization.

Sokolow gained its status as a town in 1424, by this time a Jewish population had already settled in the area.

The Jewish community in Sokolow, like many other towns in Poland, had its own identification marks- language, religion, literature, music and laws.
Jews were considered a highly literate group, most of whom spoke Polish as well as Yiddish.
A big part of the Jewish community in Sokolow was Chassidic.

During world war ll, Sokolow suffered heavy losses. Due to the war, 30% of residential and 7-% of official buildings were demolished and the population was significantly diminished. With the beginning of German occupation, many Jews fled. For those who left in August 1941 German authorities created a ghetto, which existed until the end of September 1942. A significant number of Jewish populations were killed in the ghetto; others were transported to the Treblinka extermination camp. The liberation of the city took place on 8.08.1944.

Today, there is neither Jewish community in Sokolow, nor Jews living in the town

Esther Adler

The first thing Esther remembers is the 1st of September, when her mother dressed her and her siblings to school and kindergarten, and then the Germans bombed the city.

They lived in Sokolow Podlaski, a big city where approximately 15000 Jews lived.

Her mother said that they would grab some food from her aunt, and then they would hide at their neighbor’s basement. When they arrived to the neighbor, the basement was already full of people, so they went to the cemetery to hide. Her mother thought that the Germans would not bomb there- “Why would they bomb dead people??”

After hiding for 4 days in the cemetery, the Germans began bombing the cemetery as well. 

Before they ran to the cemetery, her father was drafted to the Polish army, as a veterinarian.

They escaped to a village nearby, where gentile lived, hence they thought that no one would kill them there.

The gentiles welcomed them very nicely, although they knew they were very religious. They also gave them carrots and potatoes.

After staying there for 3 weeks, her father showed up. He was with them there until Passover. For almost six months they had not eaten meat, only dairy. They had milked the cow’s milk straight to their mouths.

On Passover, the Russian soldiers said that they were going to withdraw, and offered them to join them on the way back to Russia. Her mother wanted to go back home, she was with 4 young children in a foreign village.

The Russian people said that when Passover ends they would come and pick them up. When the Russian picked them up, her mother took everything they had, and they left to a labor camp in Russia. Because her parents had not taken passports, the Russians granted new passports to those who had none. All the people who brought their own passports became prisoners of the camp, and were not allowed to leave the camp. They had stayed in the camp for a year.

The family heard that the Germans were coming, so they traveled to Kazakhstan. They later found out that the Germans had not really come. On the way to Kazakhstan, traveling for 6 months on a railroad car, her youngest brother passed away from measles. On one of the stations, her father got off the train to bury her brother, but the train did not wait for him, and when he was done the train was gone. It took them 4 months to get together, when her father found them in Kazakhstan. On the way to Kazakhstan her sister got off the train to urinate. When she came down, a German plane flew over and bombed near her. She was injured and hospitalized in the military hospital for one year. When they arrived to a house in Kazakhstan they were 7 people: Esther, her siblings, her parents, her aunt and her husband. The house was not big, all of them slept together on three beds, they lived this way for a year until her father was drafted back to the army. He was not sent to fight, but to work in factories. Her mother had to support them, so she met a lady that gave her seeds to sell in the market. Only crippled people were allowed to sell seeds and saccharine for their living, but her mother was not crippled, so they had to hide from the police.
Every day Esther would get up at 5am to collect the fallen coal that the trains had dropped while riding and brought it back home for firing. After doing that she would take 5-6 kg of seeds to sell with her mother.

Esther told us that she suffered from hunger most of the day, she drank a cup of tea in the morning, and ate porridge every evening.
For almost three and a half years, they had lived this way.  

In 1945, her father suddenly returned from the army when the Russians decided that all the Polish people were allowed to go back to Poland. Her whole family got on the train and traveled to Chechnya, where they stayed for 3 months.

In 1946 a delegation from Israel appeared and sent the children to Berlin. They stayed there for almost one year in a hostel. One day, Esther’s father showed up and took her and her siblings to Munich, where they stayed together for three years.
Before going to Israel, they had been taken to France. When they arrived to Israel, they were sent to Atlit camp. A short time afterwards, Esther’s father passed away. Esther found her father’s journal and found out that her father saw the Jews that were sent to Treblinka concentration camp, and that the rest of her family had been sent there too.

The family stayed in Atlit for three months. 

Esther’s mother had a brother in Israel who worked for the Jewish agenc. Hence, they stayed in Atlit for three months, after which they moved to Netanya, where they lived in tents. After a while they lived in shacks. Esther tells that in the winter it was freezing inside, and in the summer it was unbearably hot. They lived this way for two years, until Esther’s uncle got an approval to move to Um Haled. It was an Arab village, the apartment was beautiful yet very small.

Esther married Shlomo in 1951. They established a company for spare parts for airplanes. They moved to Kfar Saba, and started a big and happy family, that includes 2 sons, 5 grandchildren, and 2 great-grandchildren.