Overview
- Brief Narrative
- Holy card acquired by 6 year old Selma Scharzwald in May 1943 when she was living in hiding with her mother as a Polish Catholic under the name Zofia Tymejko. She received the card during a trip to Czestochowa, Poland, when she visited the church at Jasna Góra (Klasztor Paulinów). The trip was organized by her mother's employer, the Regional Agricultural Cooperative in Busko Zdroj. Zofia and her mother, Laura, escaped from the ghetto in German occupied Lvov, Poland (Lviv, Ukraine) after her father was shot by the Gestapo in 1942. They adopted false identities as Catholics and lived briefly in Krakow, then moved to Busko Zdroj. Selma attended Catholic school and had her First Communion after the city was liberated by the Soviet Army in January 1945. They emigrated to England in 1948 after there were violent anti-Jewish riots in the area. That was when Zofia learned that she was Jewish; news that shocked her after her upbringing in an antisemitic environment where she had been taught to hate Jews.
- Date
-
received:
1943 May
- Credit Line
- United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of Sophie Turner-Zaretsky
- Contributor
-
Subject:
Sophie Turner-Zaretsky
- Biography
-
Selma Schwarzwald was born on September 2, 1937, in Lvov, Poland (Lviv, Ukraine), to Daniel and Laura Litwak Schwarzwald. Her father had a successful timber export business. Her mother had studied economics at the Lvov Academy of Commerce before her marriage. Lvov was in eastern Poland which was occupied by the Soviet Union in September 1939. It was then occupied by Germany following their invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941.
Daniel obtained a job as a guard in a hostel for Organization Todt construction workers, a Nazi civil and military engineering group. His work permit provided a little protection for the family, but in November 1941, they were forced into the Lvov ghetto, along with Laura's parents, Josef and Mina Litwak, and three of her siblings, Emanuel, Adela, and Fryda. Her brother, Edek, had emigrated in the early 1930s to Palestine, where he died of typhus in 1935. In March 1942, the Germans began to deport ghetto residents to the Belzec killing center. Laura watched the deportations from their apartment and one day, a Polish landlady suggested that Laura and Selma should flee and seek refuge in a nearby Polish resort town. She supplied them with a Christian Bible and prayer book to give them cover.
In August, Selma’s grandparents were deported to Belzec. By this time, the ghetto was nearly empty. Daniel worked to secure false documents for then, but with the deportations so frequent, a hiding place was arranged for Laura and Selma. They hid in a platform under the roof of an adjacent house. Laura had to throw Sophie across an airshaft to someone who would catch her on the other side; then Laura would jump across. Daniel obtained a birth certificate for Selma and a marriage document for Laura. He also obtained false papers for Adela and Fryda. On September 1, Daniel went to the Judenrat [Jewish Council] to make different living arrangements. But while he was there, the Gestapo arrived to arrest the entire membership of the Council in reprisal of the death of a German soldier. Daniel tried to escape by jumping out the window, but he was shot and killed. The Judenrat members were rounded up and hanged. The three Litwak siblings decided that Laura and Selma would be the first to escape and they left on September 6. With the assistance of a Pole, who subsequently stole their luggage, Laura and Selma boarded a train for Krakow. Adela and Fryda managed to reach Krakow soon afterwards, but Emanuel was arrested at the Lvov train station and later executed.
Laura and Selma were living under the aliases of Bronislawa and Zofia Tymejko. Zofia had blue eyes and blonde hair, so people were not likely to think that she was Jewish. They moved constantly as Laura was afraid the SS would find them. While her mother looked for work, Selma (Zofia) had to stay with an old woman who made her pick up cigarette stubs in the street. Her mother taught five year old Selma to tell people that her father had been taken by the Russian Army. Laura managed to get a job in a German bank, but she and Selma soon left for the resort town of Busko Zdroj. In a resort town people were used to seeing strangers and it was more common for people to come there in search of work. Laura was hired by an SS officer named Leming to be a bookkeeper at the Regional Agricultural Mercantile Cooperative; she also worked for him as a translator and housekeeper. Later, she tutored Polish children in German and Latin, though this was illegal. She and Selma lived in a small rented room with a kitchen. Laura's sister, Adela, joined them in December 1944, after working for two years as a governess in Krakow. Her other sister, Fryda, had volunteered for forced labor in Germany, after briefly working in a pharmacy in Bochnia.
Selma-Sophie completely adopted her Polish Catholic identity. She attended church and, after liberation by Soviet troops in January 1945, celebrated her First Communion. When the war ended in May 1945, they remained in Busko Zdroj. They learned that Fryda had been killed in the summer of 1944, when her forced labor group in Gelsenkirchen was hit during an Allied bombing raid.
After there was a violent anti-Jewish riot [pogrom] in the area, Laura decided that they must leave Poland. She contacted Rosa and Emil Honig, her aunt and uncle in London, who helped to arrange their move to England. It was not until they arrived in London in 1948 that Laura revealed to Selma Sophie her true identity as a Jew. The news shocked her; in the antisemitic environment of her Catholic school and neighborhood where she had grown up, she had been taught to hate Jews. Soon after settling in England, Laura took the last name of Turner, and Selma became Sophie Turner. Sophie finished high school and continued on to college and medical school in England. In 1963, she immigrated to the US, where she completed her medical residency and began a career as a radiation oncologist in New York. In 1970, she married David Zaretsky. After several years in England, Laura moved to Canada to be with her sister Adela, now Ann Rozycki; she then went to the US to be with Sophie. Laura died in New York on January 16, 2002.
Physical Details
- Language
- Polish
- Classification
-
Christian Art and Symbolism
- Category
-
Devotional objects
- Object Type
-
Holy cards (lcsh)
- Materials
- overall : paper, ink
Rights & Restrictions
- Conditions on Access
- No restrictions on access
- Conditions on Use
- No restrictions on use
Keywords & Subjects
Administrative Notes
- Legal Status
- Permanent Collection
- Provenance
- The holy card was donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2002 by Dr. Sophie Turner-Zaretsky.
- Record last modified:
- 2023-04-06 09:13:05
- This page:
- http://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn520817
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Also in Sophie Turner-Zaretsky collection
The collection consists of objects, letters, documents, and publications relating to the experiences of Laura and Selma (Zofia) Schwarzwald in Lvov and other areas of Poland where they lived in hiding under assumed indentites as Catholics during and after the Holocaust. Some of these materials may be combined into a single collection in the future.
Date: 1901-1950
Our Lady of Czestochowa holy card received by a young Jewish girl living in hiding as a Catholic in Poland
Object
Holy card acquired by 6 year old Selma Scharzwald in May 1943 when she was living in hiding with her mother as a Polish Catholic under the name Zofia Tymejko. She received the card during a trip to Czestochowa, Poland, when she visited the church at Jasna Góra (Klasztor Paulinów). The trip was organized by her mother's employer, the Regional Agricultural Cooperative in Busko Zdroj. Zofia and her mother, Laura, escaped from the ghetto in German occupied Lvov, Poland (Lviv, Ukraine) after her father was shot by the Gestapo in 1942. They adopted false identities as Catholics and lived briefly in Krakow, then moved to Busko Zdroj. Selma attended Catholic school and had her First Communion after the city was liberated by the Soviet Army in January 1945. They emigrated to England in 1948 after there were violent anti-Jewish riots in the area. That was when Zofia learned that she was Jewish; news that shocked her after her upbringing in an antisemitic environment where she had been taught to hate Jews.
Our Lady of Czestochowa holy card received by a young Jewish girl living in hiding as a Catholic in Poland
Object
Holy card acquired by 6 year old Zofia (Selma) Scharzwald in May 1943 when she was living in hiding with her mother as a Polish Catholic under the name Zofia Tymejko. She received the card during a trip to Czestochowa, Poland, when she visited the church at Jasna Góra (Klasztor Paulinów). The trip was organized by her mother's employer, the Regional Agricultural Cooperative in Busko Zdroj. Zofia and her mother, Laura, escaped from the ghetto in German occupied Lvov, Poland (Lviv, Ukraine) after her father was shot by the Gestapo in 1942. They adopted false identities as Catholics and lived briefly in Krakow, then moved to Busko Zdroj. Selma attended Catholic school and had her First Communion after the city was liberated by the Soviet Army in January 1945. They emigrated to England in 1948 after there were violent anti-Jewish riots in the area. That was when Zofia learned that she was Jewish; news that shocked her after her upbringing in an antisemitic environment where she had been taught to hate Jews.
Refugee, a honey brown teddy bear with a pink robe, owned by a young Jewish girl who had lived in hiding as a Catholic
Object
Small, golden teddy bear named Refugee received by eight year old Zofia (Selma) Scharzwald from her mother as a birthday or Christmas present after the war ended in May 1945. Her aunt crocheted a coat for it. Zofia named it Refugee because she thought its uneven eyes made it look " a little down and out." Zofia and her mother, Laura, escaped from the ghetto in German occupied Lvov, Poland (Lviv, Ukraine) after her father was shot by the Gestapo in 1942. They adopted false identities as Catholics and lived briefly in Krakow, then moved to Busko Zdroj. Selma attended Catholic school and had her First Communion after the city was liberated by the Soviet Army in January 1945. They emigrated to England in 1948 after there were violent anti-Jewish riots in the area. That was when Zofia learned that she was Jewish; news that shocked her after her upbringing in an antisemitic environment where she had been taught to hate Jews. In December 2006, a replica of Refugee was taken on a mission of the space Shuttle, Discovery, by Commander Mark Polansky. Each astronaut is invited to take a few items and Polansky took Refugee and a contemporary photograph of a child refugee from Darfur.
Sophie Turner-Zaretsky papers
Document
The papers consist of 47 photographs of Selma Schwarzwald (now Sophie Turner-Zaretsky, donor) and her family before and during the Holocaust, a group of school notebooks and books used by the donor in hiding, certificates issued to the donor's mother in her false name, correspondence written by the donor's mother and the donor between 1935 and 1950, correspondence written by the donor's maternal uncle who died in Palestine, an autograph album, and various other documents.
Book
Object
The book was used by the donor as a student in the fourth grade in Busko-Zdrój, Poland; dated 1946-1947.
Book
Object
The book was given to the donor as a prize for outstanding results at athe end of the school year in Busko-Zdrój, Poland; dated June 30, 1947.
Nad dalekim, cichym fiordem [Book]
Object
The book was given to the donor by her school friend, Basia Knap, in Busko-Zdrój, Poland; signed, "Zofia Tymejko" and dated Jan. 28, 1948.
Dr. Sophie Turner-Zaretsky papers
Document
Contains two postcards and three letters, all handwritten, addressed to Adela Litwak (Ksenia Osoba), the donor's maternal aunt, by two people: Fryda Litwak (Zofia Wolinska), who was in a forced labor camp in Germany; and Zosia Tymejko (the donor's name while in hiding), in Busko-Zdroj, Poland.
Diploma
Document
School diploma, printed form in black ink, with handwritten sections in blue ink, from St. John's Wood Synagogue school in London, issued to the donor.
Dr. Sophie Turner-Zaretsky papers
Document
Collection consists of documents relating to Laura Turner (the donor's mother), who attended different educational institutions to establish herself in England after surviving the Holocaust in the Lvov ghetto and later in hiding. Includes a document issued to Xenia Osoba (real name Adela Litwak; donor's maternal aunt), stating that she is a Pole and is on her way to Warsaw; dated September 5, 1942 in Lvov; in German.