Objects

False identity card of Natalia Zajczyk

Five days after her escape from the ghetto, on 20 August 1942, Natalia Zajczyk took a photograph of herself (see MPOLIN-A31.3.10), which she pasted onto a kennkarte issued on 27 July 1943 in the name of Halina Kowalczyk, born on 2 June 1901 in Vilnius. The place of residence mentioned in the document - 60 A Nowogrodzka Street - is the address of a flat which Natalia bought during the war: "And after all those torments - she wrote to her aunt Czerniakow after the war - I came across the Underground Committee which helped me. I bought my own flat in Nowogrodzka Street, a room with a kitchen. I took Szymek out of the camp to our flat. A month after Szymek was taken out - his whole camp was executed. So he escaped just in time. We were unbelievably happy for a year. We helped others. Whoever was in distress came to us. We were happy to help our brothers in such distress. And there came a moment when someone pointed us out, too" (The letter from Natalia Zajczyk to Mrs Czerniakowa of 23 September 1945, MPOLIN-A31.2.2). | On 27 May 1944 Natalia, Szymon Zajczyk and "one of his very valuable friends, who was hiding with us [Henryk Słobodzki - R.P.], were arrested. Zosia was left alone in the flat, locked - they did not allow me to dress her and take her out to the neighbours. She passed the exam in one hundred percent. She did not say a word that it was her Daddy. Szymon, however, admitted right away that he was Jewish, because he was afraid of being beaten. If he hadn't confessed, I would have taken him out for sure, because I was in touch with the underground committee which gave us 75,000 zloty to buy him out. [...] As an Aryan woman, I was released from the Gestapo after 3 days and 3 nights! I received 25 gums for keeping Jews! If the Committee had not paid 20 thousand zlotys for me, they would not have let me go and I would have gone. they wouldn't have let me go and I would have gone to the camp. And so I went back to my child. My poor child was five years old at the time". (The letter from Natalia Zajczyk to Mrs Czerniakowa of 23 September 1945, MPOLIN-A31.2.2). | Subsequent addresses on the Kennkarte mark the migration of Natalia and Zosia after the Warsaw Uprising - on November 4, 1944, they registered in the municipality of Domaniewice in the Łowicz District and at the address at 18 Krasińskiego Street in Warsaw Natalia and her daughter were registered on 5 August 1945. | Renata Piątkowska

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Information about the object
Object type
official documentation
Time of creation / dating
1943-07-27
Created place
Warszawa (mazovian province)
Technique
printing
stamping
manual script
Material
paper
ink
Keywords
Copyright status
the object is not protected by copyright law
Owner
POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews
Identification number
MPOLIN-A31.1.1