Biography
Gerald Kaiser (born Jurek Kaiser) is the son of Bernard and Cesia (Zaks) Kaiser. He was born January 1, 1940 in Kielce. Soon after his birth the family was forced into the ghetto. Later they fled to relatives in Chlewice to avoid deportation. After a few months the family voluntarily entered the Lipnica labor camp. There Jurek's parents made arrangements for him to be placed in the home of Stanislaw Wlodek, a Polish school principal living in the nearby village of Wegleszyn. In 1943 Jurek's father was killed in Lipnica. His mother was transferred first to the Skarzysko-Kamienna labor camp, and later to the Hasag camp in Czestochowa, where she was liberated at the end of 1944. Jurek remained with the Wlodek family in Wegleszyn, living under the assumed name of Jurek Staszewski. His rescuer, Stanislaw Wlodek, became active in the Polish underground. During an anti-partisan action in the village in the spring of 1943, the Germans arrested his wife, Jadwiga Wanda Wlodek. She was deported to Auschwitz and died in March 1944. After her arrest, Stanislaw went into hiding in the forest, while his two young, teenage sons took care of Jurek. The Wlodek boys worked as hired help on the farms of neighboring villagers in exchange for food, which they shared with Jurek. When it became known that Jurek was a Jewish child hiding with the Wlodeks, Stanislaw sent Jurek to live with his sister, Teofilia Kowalik in the village of Przylek. Jurek was warmly received by the Kowalik family. After the war, Jurek was reunited with his mother. They spent four years in the Bergen-Belsen displaced persons camp before immigrating to Israel in 1950. In 1957 they moved to the U.S.
