Biography
Henia Bugajewicz (later Marcus) is the daughter of Abramson Bugajewicz and Sarah Gottleib Bugajewicz. Henia was born in Lodz, Poland and had one younger brother, David. She also had a very large extended family. Her mother had six brothers and sisters, and her father had five siblings, all married and some with children. Sarah's family was quite affluent. All the children received higher education and were accomplished musicians. Henia's father managed the family's textile factory and served as the treasurer of the Polish National Party. At the start of World War II, Abramson, feeling doubly endangered both as a Jew and as a member of the Polish National Party, fled to Warsaw. After Warsaw surrendered two weeks later, he continued on to Lvov which was under Soviet control. Henia, her mother, and brother remained in Lodz. Nazis repeatedly visited their home to confiscate their belongings and the machines from Abramson's factory. At the end of December 1939 Henia's father sent a note asking the family to join him to Lvov. Her mother organized some money and on December 31st 1939, dressed in warm clothes and without any luggage, they left. They paid a border smuggler to bring them across the Bug River with a convoy of refugees. When they arrived on the other side of the river, Russian border guards caught them and returned them to the German side. Since Henia's mother did not have money left for a second flight attempt, she left the two children with a family in the country side and returned to Lodz to obtain more money. She returned a week later and they tried again. Once again they were caught and sent back, but the commander of the border station took pity on the mother, holding two small children, and left them at the station. After he sent everybody away he returned, identified himself as a Jew and brought them to a Jewish family who sheltered them for the night. He came back in the morning, took them to the train station and purchased tickets to Lvov for them. There they reunited with Abraham and lived in a small corner of a woman's kitchen. After a few months, a Russian soldier knocked on the door and arrested them. They were loaded onto wagons together with a large group of other Jewish refugees and deported to the Soviet interior. After traveling by train, boat and truck they arrived at a detention camp in the middle of the woods. The men worked in cutting down trees, the women collected berries in the woods and sold them to the authorities. The family lived in wooden sheds and suffered terribly from hunger and cold. When the war was declared between Germany and Russia in 1941 they were released but had no money or place to go. They went east and arrived in Turkestan. Henia's parents worked in an oil factory and their wages only sufficed to buy bread rations from the authorities. The two children wandered the streets and did not go to school; they had no clothes and no shoes and most of the time went hungry. In 1943 Henia's father died from an intestinal disease. After that, she was able to attend a school for Polish refugee children and receive some food. In 1946, a year after the end of the war, the Russian authorities allowed the Jewish deportees to return to Poland. Henia and her family traveled by cattle car. Henia, her mother and brother returned to Lodz, a journey of two months. When they arrived, they tried to find other members of their once large family only to learn that they all perished in Auschwitz. We stayed in Lodz for about 2 months and then we looked for a way to go to Palestine. Henia joined the Dror, a Zionist youth movement that helped survivors flee to the west. They illegally crossed the borders of Czechoslovakia and Germany at night. Henia's mother arrived at a refugee camp in Rosenheim. Her brother, who was little and not very healthy, went to sanatorium in Bad Wörishofen, and Henia went to the UNRRA children's home, Kloster Indersdorf. For the first time in six years Henia did not suffer from hunger. Teachers from Palestine taught the children general studies and Hebrew to prepare for eventual immigration. Henia remained in Indersdorf before leaving for France where she boarded the Exodus in July 1947. Her mother and brother also were aboard the ship though they did not have an opportunity to see one other since they were separate decks and were forbidden to move around in the ship. After arriving in the port of Haifa port, British troops greeted the ship. After disembarking the passengers were forced onto other ships and returned to Europe. When the passengers refused to disembark in France, the British took them by train to an internment camp in Emden Germany. From there they went to the Poppendorf displaced persons' camp, also in Germany. After a few months, most of the people found a way to immigrate illegally to Palestine. Henia arrived in April 1948, one month before the declaration of the State of Israel and joined a kibbutz. She married in 1953 and later had 2 children. Her brother joined an elite commando unit in the Israeli army and was killed in action in 1955, the same day Henia's daughter was born.
