Irena Agata Bołdok was born in 1932. Her parents were Henryk Likierman and Anna, née Hampel. The family lived in Warsaw at 49 Marszałkowska Street. During the Second World War, Irena, together with her parents and older sister Helena, was confined to the Warsaw Ghetto, and lived on Sienna Street where she developed meningitis. At the suggestion of an acquaintance named Wiernicka, Irena and her sister were baptised at the Church of the Holy Cross. She and her mother then escaped from the ghetto and went to live with her father's sister in Międzyrzec Podlaski. After some time, Irena's mother returned to Warsaw under a false name to get her husband and older daughter out of the ghetto, but she was captured and sent to work in Germany, later to the Ravensbrück concentration camp. Irena was in the care of her aunt in the ghetto in Międzyrzec Podlaski. She stayed there until her aunt's family was deported to the Treblinka extermination camp. During the transport, the aunt and her relatives committed suicide. Irena was rescued by a Polish railwayman and began to wander. She stayed at her mother's friend, in a religious orphanage and in a nursing home, among other places. In 1946, she managed to find her mother, who soon died. Irena Agata Bołdok worked as a proofreader in the editorial office of "Żołnierz Wolności" (Soldier of Freedom) and in the State Youth Publishing House "Iskra" (Spark). She currently lives in Warsaw and is a member of the Association of the Children of the Holocaust.
