Adam Gicz collection

Amalia Malka Schwimmer (later Maria) was born on August 10, 1914 in Jazłowiec, near Buczacz, in Poland. She was the second daughter of Natan Karp Schwimmer, who owned a foundry and a metal works shop and Chana Finkelman Schwimmer. Amalia had three siblings: Rosa (b. 1913), Josef (b. 1916), and Feliks (b. 1926). Amalia attended a Jewish trade school for girls, which she graduated as a licensed dressmaker. Rosa and Josef immigrated to Palestine in the late 1930s. During that time Amalia met and befriended Michał Gicz.

In September 1939, after the Soviet Union annexed the Stanisławów region, Natan’s shop was confiscated and Amalia started to work as a clerk in the Margolis leather factory. Her father acquired an apartment with a street entrance, which was supposed to serve as a dressmaker shop for Amalia. At the end of July 1941, the Germans took over the administration of the city from the Hungarian Army and immediately started the repressions against the Jews. At that time there were some 40,000 Jews in Stanisławów. Natan, Chana, and Amalia were forced into a ghetto established by the Germans in December 1941.

Feliks, the youngest sibling, perished during the Soviet Army retreat in June 1941 in unknown circumstances. Before the war, Natan rented a store for Amalia to open a dressmaking shop there. Shortly before the final liquidation of the Stanisławów ghetto, in January 1943, Amalia hid in this store and Michał Gicz was made responsible for her safety. Michał took care of Amalia until the liberation in July 1944. He built a false wall, which enabled her to hide if a stranger entered the room, but most of the year and a half she spent hiding and alone. Natan was shot in the street of the ghetto and his wife, Chana, committed suicide during the liquidation of the ghetto.

On January 27, 1945 Amalia married Michał and the young couple left Stanisławów, which became Ivano Frankovsk under the new Soviet administration. Amalia and Michał settled in Bytom, Poland, where their son, Adam Jan, was born on November 21, 1945. The Gicz family left Poland and spent two years in a DP camp in Salzburg, Austria and in November 1948 they immigrated to Israel. Their second son, Saul, was born in Hadera, Israel on November 13, 1950. In 1959 the Gicz family immigrated to the United States. Michał died in 1974.