Wednesday, January 27, 2016

"Unaccompanied child refugee" and "Aunt Sabina Rozental - the only one in my family with own grave"

The picture taken in Warsaw sees Marysia Ikelberg, born Goldstein (left) and Sabina Rozental, my aunt (right). 

My aunt Sabina Wójcikieiwcz b. Rozental - the only one in my family with own grave
Some personal writings on the occasion of Holocaust Remembrance Day.

I was an
"Unaccompanied child refugee"
and
"Aunt Sabina Rozental - the only one in my family with own grave"

In 1967, I came to Sweden as an "Unaccompanied refugee". Only few people knew that I would stay in Sweden, among them an police inspector. I feared that Polish authorities would go on and harass my parents in Warsaw.

My first stop was the family Ikelberg in Djursholm. Why Ikelberg?
My mother knew Maria (Marysia) Ikelberg who was a friend of my aunt Sabina. The picture taken in Warsaw sees Marysia Ikelberg, born Goldstein (left) and Sabina Rozental, my aunt (right). Marysia (born 1917) came to Sweden before just before WWII started (1939) and married Bernhard Ikelberg. Their home on 20 Anundsvägen was my first home in Sweden för almost 1 month in 1967. Marysia had a fur shop on Runnebergsgatan, Östermalm.

My aunt Sabina is the only person from my mother's and father's families that has a single grave. All other do have graves called Treblinka, which they share with 950 000 other Jews or a mass graves at Posienicze and at Dobra Wola in present Belarus area. Both execution sites and mass graves are located 4 km outside the town of Pinsk. Places, where all members of my father's family are buried, among 18,000 other Jews who were murdered in the two "actions" in 1941, 1942.