Philip Lazowski (PL): I was 11 years old in 1941 when the Germans burned most of our town. 

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KK: That’s Philip Lazowski… 

Remembering his childhood in Poland during WWII. 

He and his family were forced out of the town of Bielica, and into a nearby Jewish ghetto.

PL: They took all seven of us and they put us in one room without any beds. 

KK: Not long after they got there, Nazis started rounding people up to be executed…

He and his family made a hiding place… they dug a sort of cave under the house… and covered it with a wooden panel that had to be closed from the outside. 

PL: And as the first-born son, I offered to close the cave. And I said to the family, I will hide someplace else. 

I ran into the marketplace and I saw thousands and thousands of people surrounded by the Nazis. And I realized that I don’t know anybody.

There was a soldier on a podium standing with his finger pointing right or left. I noticed that all the elderly and the children were sent in one direction, and the doctors, nurses, cobblers, tailors or people that were strong, were sent to the place for living.

A thought came to my mind: How can I survive here?  

PL: And then I saw a woman standing with two girls and she was a nurse. So I went over to her and I asked her, ‘Would you be kind enough to take me as your son.’ She looked at me with a charitable face, and she said, ‘If they let me live with two children, maybe they’ll let me live with three. Hold on to my dress.’

We went over to this soldier with the finger and he took a look at the certificate, she’s a  nurse and we survived. Even though I saw her only for 15, 20 minutes, I never forgot her face. 

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KK: In that split second, Philip made a decision that saved him.

And that’s what this season is all about… 

The moments in history that become a turning point in someone’s life. 

What choices do people make in those moments? And what ripples do they create?

Welcome to a new season of the StoryCorps Podcast from NPR. I’m Kamilah Kashanie.

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KK: Philip’s story spans two continents and more than 80 years… But let’s go back to that day when he survived in the marketplace. 

The next thing he did was run back to his family, who came out of hiding. 

But soon people were being rounded up again… and this time, the strong wouldn’t be spared.… 

PL: The next massacre was Judenrein, which means, everybody dies, no matter who you are…

So again, we went into the hiding place, for five days and five nights. On the sixth day we were found.

Mother said to us, ‘Children, this is the end of us. Try to save yourself.’

PL: My brother, Abraham, he started to run and the Nazis shoot him in the back. 

KK: Philip, his mother and two of his siblings were captured and brought to an abandoned movie theater. They waited without food or water.

PL: On the third day, they came with the trucks they take the people to be shot. So mother took a chair on the second floor and the window was boarded up with some wood. She hit the window and the wood fell down, and she said, ‘I want you to jump.

I said, ‘I’m not going without you.’ She says, ‘I cannot jump from the second floor holding the babies.’ 

The youngest was five years old, and the other one was six years old. 

She told me three things: ‘I want you to survive. I want you to tell [you] what we went through, and I want you to be somebody.’ 

And she pushed me out of the window and I fell down on the floor. And I looked at her and I said, ’Come.’ And she said, ’No.’

KK: That was the last time Philip ever saw his mother and younger siblings. 

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But somehow… he found his only surviving brother…. Who had escaped by hiding in an outhouse… and then, they found their father… who survived by hiding in the nearby woods. 

PL: We lived in a forest next to our town, where we knew the people… Especially the fishermen, you know, because my father was a fisherman. And they helped us to give us potatoes and bread in order to be able to survive this kind of ordeal. Otherwise, we would starve to death. 

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We lived in the woods for two years.

People died of typhus. We could not keep clean; lice ate us up. During the wintertime, we used to live in a cave. Sixteen people in one cave.

So it was a very, very hard time, especially during the winter time. Eighty five percent of the people [who] went into the woods did not survive… 50 below zero — you freeze to death within a half an hour. And your body does not belong to you when you freeze. The only thing that works is your mind.

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Ruth Lazowski (RL): My father used to say, we have to sleep one on top of the other so our feet won’t freeze. So I slept next to my sister, you know, trying to keep warm.

KK: Not far from where Philip was hiding… Seven year old Ruth Rabinowitz was also living with her family in the woods….

RL: My father was in the lumber business, so he knew the forests of the place. And he had many gentile friends who used to help us out. They used to bring us food, they used to tell us the Germans were this part of the woods, so we knew when to move. 

RL: I felt a little scared, but I’m a very optimistic person. My youngest sister said, ‘No matter what we’re going to do, we’re never going to survive. And I used to say, ‘Mama, don’t listen to her, we’ll survive.’

KK: And They did. In 1944 they were liberated by the Russian Army. 

RL: My parents found out they had relatives that lived in Hartford, Connecticut. And they said, ‘We want you to come to the United States.’

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PL: My family was able to come back home to Bielica. But. We decided that this place is full of blood… The land itself… And we should leave the country of Poland.

My father had two sisters and a brother living in the United States. They found out that we are alive. They send us visas. And I was able to come in 1947. I was 17 years old.

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KK: They both started their new lives in the US…and tried to move on…

But Philip always remembered that nurse with the two kids… the one who saved him in the Ghetto that day. He wondered…what happened to her?  

… We’ll find out … after the break.

Stay with us…

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KK: When Philip landed in Brooklyn, New York….He was a teenager.  He didn’t speak the language and he was behind in his education. 

PL: I worked from three o’clock at night till three o’clock [the] next day loading frozen eggs into a truck and delivering it to the bakeries. And after I finish work, I used to go to study high school in Brooklyn.

I kept my word to my mommy to be somebody. So I went to Brooklyn College and the Yeshiva University.

Six years later, a fellow got married, and I didn’t want to go to the wedding. I didn’t have fancy clothes. Also, I don’t dance… What am I gonna do there? But they insisted I should go.

 

So I went.

And I was sitting at the table and a lady was sitting next to me and she tells me she’s a survivor too. And then, she asks me, where do you come from? 

And I said, ‘I come from the town of Bielica.’ She says, ‘You know, a girlfriend told me a story, they saved a boy from Bielica. And we don’t know if he’s alive.’

When she finished telling me the story, I realized that I am the boy. 

PL: I says, ‘Where do they live?’ So I went downstairs. And I called the lady that saved me. She picked up and I promised to come to visit her.

PL: The woman was standing on the porch, and I recognized her. They embraced me and I embraced them. 

And while there, I noticed the two girls, that these girls were no more girls, they were 18, 19 years old and grown up.

RL: [Chuckles] That was me. I was that girl. 

I remember that I was holding on to my mother and my sister next to me, and I remember a little boy coming over and asked my mother if she would take him as her son.

PL: [Laughs] Yes. Your mother saved my life. 

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KK: We haven’t said her name yet…but Ruth’s mother was Miriam Rabinowitz… When they reunited, she was in her mid forties… 

KK: Philip’s three siblings and his own mother were murdered during the war, so reconnecting with Ruth’s family gave him comfort and resolution. And something else…

PL: During the summertime I used to work as a waiter in the Catskills. And there you used to come to visit me. And little by little, we got much closer.

I then married you and that’s how our family began.

RL: Can you describe our life after that?

PL: We have been together as husband and wife for 66 years. We had three children, seven grandchildren. 

I want to tell you that you were a wonderful mother, a good wife. So all in all, I am very thankful to be alive.

RL: You know, we went through the same thing. So I never have to tell you about what we went through. I love you, and I hope we’re going to live to be 100.

And that’s it.

PL: Well, I thank you [Laughs]. God was good to us. 

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That was 93-year-old Rabbi Philip Lazowski with his wife, 88-year-old Ruth Lazowski in West Hartford, Connecticut.

Ruth’s mother, Miriam, lived out the rest of her days in New Hampshire… and died in 1981 at the age of seventy three… with her husband, Morris, by her side… 

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KK: That’s all for this episode of the StoryCorps podcast. It was produced by Jo Corona and edited by Eleanor Vassili, who is our Senior Producer. Max Jungreis is our Associate Producer. Our technical director is Jarrett Floyd. Our fact-checker is Erica Anderson. Our story consultant is Jasmyn Morris. Michael Garofalo is our Executive Producer. Special thanks to Franchesca Peña, Kevin Alarcon, and Eunice Cho.

To see what music we used in the episode… go to StoryCorps – dot – org… where you can also check out original artwork created by artist Lyne Lucien.

For the StoryCorps podcast, I’m Kamilah Kashanie. Catch you next week.