Joanna Rose was born in Warsaw, where she grew up with her parents and brother who was one year younger. They lived in the city centre at Dąbrowskiego Square. Before and after the War, her parents had communist sympathies and outlooks. At home, they did not observe Jewish traditions and did not tell their children anything about the family’s past – they did not give their daughter any sense of Jewish identity. Joanna Rose only came to know her family history from the memories of her mother who, in her old age, began to write about it. Joanna Rose’s father was an engineer and worked in the Planning Commission of the Council of Ministers. Her mother, a chemist by education, worked in the Institute of Building Technology. Following the events of March 1968, they both lost their jobs. In 1971, the whole family emigrated to Sweden and settled in Stockholm. There, Joanna Rose’s family joined the Jewish community. Joanna Rose has not done that to this day, but feels a strong need to convey an awareness of her origins to her grandchildren.
