Eve Przemyski papers

Ewa Lada was born on June 26, 1923, in Warsaw, Poland. Her father, Tadeusz, was born in 1877, and was a lawyer and civil servant in Warsaw. Her mother, Maria, was born in 1887 in Warsaw. Their marriage was the second for Tadeusz. After his retirement, Tadeusz bought the Sosenki farm near Rovno, (Rivnens ka oblast, Ukraine) in eastern Poland.
When Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939, the family left the farm and rented two rooms in Rowne, Poland (Złoty Stok, Poland). They had to give up their valuables, weapons, and radios. Fearing deportation, Tadeusz moved to a different town and Ewa’s maternal grandmother, Amelia Horoch, moved in with Ewa and Maria. After Germany invaded Russia on June 22, 1941, Tadeusz returned to Rowne. He and ten acquaintances secretly listened to the BBC news, a crime punishable by death. One participant turned the others in and on August 30, the Gestapo arrested Tadeusz. He told Ewa to be a good patriot and a good Polish girl, and said goodbye. After Amelia died in 1941, two Jewish women moved in with Maria and Ewa. One claimed she was a relative, and the other, Pela, was recommended by a family friend. In 1942, Ewa contracted diphtheria. Maria and Pela stole injections from the pharmacy where Pela worked, and saved Ewa’s life.
In May 1944, Ewa and Maria moved in with Ewa’s maternal uncle, Jozef Horoch, in Warsaw. On August 1, the Warsaw insurrection broke out as Polish resistance fighters attempted to liberate Warsaw. Ewa joined the Armia Krajowa [Home Army], known as AK, a non-Communist underground resistance group. Her pseudonym was Basia and she worked as a stretcher bearer, collecting wounded fighters and bringing them to the field hospital. Eve met Danuta Szeniawska and they became fast friends. One day they returned with wounded to find the hospital destroyed by bombs. On October 2, 1944, the Germans defeated the Polish resistance. Ewa and Denuta were among 1,000 female Polish insurgents captured. The women were packed in a cattle car and transferred to Stalag X-B prisoner of war camp in Sandbostel, Germany. The prisoners dug holes in the cars, and stuck Polish flags in them. At one point the train stopped; the women were taken off, stripped in front of German soldiers, deloused by Russian prisoners with a mixture of kerosene and tar, and rinsed off. The soldiers laughed at those who were fat. The trip resumed and they arrived at the camp. Camp conditions were tolerable; male prisoners snuck Ewa apples and hot chocolate through the fence. Ewa and Denuta cleaned offices and Ewa stole discarded paper, pencil stubs, and colored markers. Danuta sewed the papers together into a notebook that Ewa used as a diary. She wrote and drew in it at night, and hid it and her writing materials under her straw mat.
In December 1944, Ewa and Denuta were transferred to Oberlangen Strafflager VI C prison camp in Emsland, Germany. The 2 girls shared a bunk. Ewa cleaned latrines and dug peat moss and loaded it onto carts. Meals consisted of thin soup and bread. While unloading a shipment of potatoes, Ewa and Denuta stole some and hid them under their mattresses.
On April 12, 1945, Ewa heard tanks. The German guards left and the camp was liberated by the 1st Polish Armored Division of the British Army. The prisoners lined up for roll call, sang the Polish national anthem, and were relocated to Niederlangen, Germany. Ewa and Denuta adopted 2 trained German Shepherd dogs for protection. The British authorities permitted families to reunite with relatives serving in the British Army in Italy. Denuta’s stepfather was serving as a captain, and Ewa made up a relative. The girls, with their dogs, hitchhiked to Mottola, Italy. Ewa took a Morse code typing course and worked as a telegraph operator for the British Army. Denuta left for Bologna to study medicine and took Ewa’s diary with her. Ewa went to Rome where she met fellow A.K. member Ryszard Przemyski. Her mother wrote and told her not to return to Poland. The couple moved to Camp Foxley, a displaced persons camp in Hereford, England. They married and lived in a barrack with another family. Ewa worked as a field hand and Ryszard worked in a carpet factory. They had two children.
In 1954, Ewa’s relative, Malida Ray who lived in the United States arranged for the family to emigrate. They arrived on May 7, 1956, settled in Pennsylvania, and Americanized their names to Eve and Richard.
Tadeusz was not seen again and recognized by a court decision as deceased on May 9, 1946. Maria died February 10, 1967, at 87, in Poland. After graduating from medical school in Italy, Denuta and her husband emigrated to the US and established a psychiatry practice in Iowa. In 1990, she found the diary and sent it to Eve. Richard died on March 24, 1999, at age 75.