Janina Fischgrund

This is a photo of my husband's first wife, Janina Fischgrund, nee Kunstlinger. It was taken in the 1930s in their apartment in Cracow, on Lubicz Street.

My husband, Maksymilian Fiszgrund, got married the first time in Sulkowice. His wife, Janina, nee Kunstlinger, was two years younger than him. She was born in Sulkowice. She ran the house and looked after the children. They lived in Cracow on Lubicz Street. I have a photo of hers, taken, I think, in that apartment on Lubicz. They had two daughters: Rozia was the older one, and Bronia the younger one. Rozia was two years younger than me, which means she was born in 1923. I don't know the age difference between them, I think it was two years.

When the war broke out, my husband fled to Russia. The entire Naprzod editorial team was later arrested and sent to Auschwitz. Cyrankiewicz, who was also one the Naprzod editors, was in Auschwitz too. My husband didn't manage to take his family with him, it was impossible for him to flee with them. Crossing the San wasn't a simple thing to do. It is a swift, deep river. And there in Russia, my husband knew Wanda Wasilewska, who later went by the married name of Korniejczukowa and she promised him she would help him bring his family to Russia. That never happened because in the meantime war broke out between Germany and Russia. He lost touch with Korniejczukowa. The plan was unrealistic also because, when Wasilewska was making her promise, my husband's family had already been deported from Sulkowice.

I know that first Maksymilian's wife and daughters were taken, together with my husband's father, to Myslenice. There was a sort of processing ghetto in Myslenice. From Myslenice they were taken to Skawina, and from there people were transported in batches to Belzec. But documents that my husband had, said they had all been shot in Skawina, the whole batch. 'Unerhört!' [German for unheard of], horrible. Wars are horrible as such, but that war, with its idea of annihilating people solely because they were born in the wrong bed, is something that is beyond comprehension