Biography
Mania Gryniewicz (born Miriam Jakubowicz) was the youngest daughter of Roza and Abram Jakubowicz. Mania was born on July 26, 1914 in Wielun. Roza died in 1932 and Abram died in 1940
Mania had three brothers: Kalman; Wigdor and Juda Idel and three sisters: Hela, Ester and Pola. Ester, Pola and Wigdor emigrated to Belgium in 1930. Kalman, Hela and Idel perished during the war. Ester, her son Maurice (Moshele) and Pola survived the war in hiding in Belgium. Wigdor Victor Jakubowicz was deported to Auschwitz -Birkenau on transport XIV, which left the Mechelen transit camp on October 24, 1942. Brandla Makowka, born on May 18, 1912 in Warsaw, Poland, Wigdor's wife, was deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau on transport XI on September 26, 1942, from Mechelen. She was murdered on arrival. Wigdor Jakubowicz survived Auschwitz-Birkenau camp with a prisoner number Au. 70 448; he was transferred to the Buchenwald concentration camp (prisoner number: 118 225) and later he was transferred to the Bergen Belsen concentration camp, where he was liberated by the British Army on April 14, 1945. He was hospitalized and returned to Belgium only in December 1945. Mania and her husband Gutman Grinewize escaped from Lodz to
Bialystok in the Soviet zone of occupation and later escaped to Perm in the Ural Mountains. Their son, Adam was born in Perm on February 12, 1941. The family returned to Lodz in August 1946 and changed their name from Grinewize to Gryniewicz. Their daughter Hanna was born on January 7, 1948.
