The Next Chapter Project: Irma Broclawski
Irma’s Story
By Amber Pearson
Berkeley High School
Irma Broclawski, nee Ferber, was born on January 26, 1925, in the picturesque town of Wisnicz near the city of Krakow, Poland. Her father, David Ferber, although raised in a Jewish Orthodox family, did not consider himself very religious. He attended high holidays, but the family remained largely assimilated. He was a respected attorney and had his own office before the war. Irma’s mother, Josephine, was born in Vienna. Irma had two older brothers, Arthur and Edward.
Irma attended a gymnasium, an equivalent of high school, when the war broke out in 1939. During this time, laws were passed forbidding Jews from running or owning businesses. The German Reich spread quickly, and anti-Semitism was on the rise. Irma’s mother was arrested by the Gestapo (German Secret Police during the Nazi regime) for uttering slander against Hitler. Her father came to her rescue, and, though Josephine was released, David was assaulted by the Gestapo. Unfortunately, on his return home, he suffered a heart attack and died.
Josephine was suddenly alone with Irma and struggled to support the family with no income. Irma’s brothers were away at university, so the women had to fend for themselves. The situation became very difficult, but Irma’s mother was resourceful and talented. She gardened, sewed, and took in whatever handiwork that was available to earn money for both of them to live on.
Escape to the Unknown
Not long after David’s death, a few of the family’s Jewish acquaintances were shot by the Gestapo. Frightened, Josephine decided that it was too dangerous for them to remain in town, and she and Irma left for the forest, not knowing what would happen. Along the way, they coincidently met a peasant, a former client of David’s. He extended an offer to hide them in his home, where Irma and Josephine remained for three weeks. The peasant’s wife had an emotionally unstable cousin living with them, and the women were constantly worried about being found out.
One day, they heard the dogs the Nazis used to find the Jews, and Josephine knew that it was time to run again. She and Irma proceeded toward Krakow, but there were many people who were too scared to lend them help. They were temporarily in the Krakow Ghetto, but then, while on the street, they ran into a family friend, a Pole, who also knew David and their family. He was able to help them get out of the ghetto and provide them with false identity papers.
At this time during the war, it was very helpful for Jews to have false identities. If they were found out to be Jewish, their lives would be threatened. Nevertheless, having a new identity was extremely difficult; it was a constant struggle to hide who they were. People forced to use false identities were likely to internalize hatred toward their individual identity.
Assuming a False Identity
At this point, Josephine persuaded Irma that they had to separate in order to survive and not be found out by the Gestapo. Josephine was a native German speaker; Irma spoke German as well, and they went their own ways.
Irma’s new identity was Bronislawa Jalowiecka, a woman eight years older than Irma’s age of 15 and a half. Bronislawa was a Catholic, Irma a Jew; however, she quickly became the other and assumed the false name for the duration of the war. Nevertheless, Irma never knew when she would see her mother again. And she was faced with being totally alone as she entered into womanhood—very dangerous at times. Everything had been taken from her, including her identity, and she was forced to shed her old life and hunt for survival. Fortunately, Irma was well practiced in the Catholic rituals, since she was friends with many Polish girls and their families and had absorbed a lot of their Catholic religious rituals and knowledge of the Bible. And so—to her advantage—her new identity was less of a struggle, and she could pass.
Times were so hard that her face was worn with the stress, which made her look her false identity’s age.
One day, while out on the street after curfew, Irma was caught in the street roundup. Along with other Poles, she was taken to work at the AEG fabric factory in Berlin. The Poles were regarded as slave laborers by the Germans. They were taken out of their homes and cities and shipped to work in the factories for the German war industry. AEG produced silk for the parachutes used by the paratroopers. Irma felt like a wild animal; her sense of fear and adrenaline pushed her forward in dangerous circumstances. One time, she injured her finger. When her captors put her under anesthesia, she kept repeating silently to herself the words that kept her alive, “I must not reveal myself, I must not reveal myself…” The fact that her life depended on her identity made it extremely stressful and horrifying.
By coincidence, while on the street, Irma met a friend of her brother Arthur. The friend helped her escape with him and took her to the POW camp where Arthur was kept. He worked in the munitions factory, also as a slave laborer. Though no one knew Irma’s real identity or that Arthur was her brother, Arthur was able to arrange for Irma to work in the same factory in Cologne, Germany. The work was hard and dangerous, especially with no protective clothing. Irma’s body was badly burned by the boiling aluminum because she only had a summer dress with her.
Escape to Vienna
One day, the news spread that there was going to be a transport out of Cologne to Bonn. Arthur was a risk taker; under the cloak of night, he sneaked into the main office where papers for transport were issued and forged their travel destination from Bonn to Vien (Vienna). They thought that Vienna was a less dangerous place, where they could survive by either hiding or finding work. Although a very risky move, they succeeded in taking the train to Vienna and registering for work.
Initially, Irma worked in a day-care facility, where she and another young woman took care of 40 babies. (Arthur found work at the munitions factory.) The infants Irma took care of were born in captivity to slaves, and the work was grueling! After some time, Irma applied to work as a maid to a blind woman whose husband was an engineer and only came home on the weekends. Irma was utterly unprepared for that type of work, for her family was well-off and she had never had to do housework before. Moreover, her days were long, and she took care of the house and a little baby, Bibi. Her day started at 5:00 am and ended at 11:00 pm. Arthur and Irma met from time to time, and Arthur was aggrieved that his only sister had to become amaid to survive. They both left their jobs shortly before the news of the liberation arrived in Vienna.
More Danger After Liberation
When the Soviet forces liberated Vienna on April 5, 1945, Irma was assaulted by the army’s soldiers. This was a tough blow and emotionally affected her for the rest of her life. She felt like a hunted animal where she was left with nothing—not even human respect. It was particularly tough, given all she had been through: the privations, hiding, and survival. She decided to travel back to Poland in search of her mother, Josephine. Again, the arduous journey took her through Hungary and other parts of bombed-out Europe, and devastation was everywhere. It was dangerous for a young woman to travel alone; she and Arthur lost each other through this time. And it took her two months of traveling to arrive in Poland.
She hoped to find Josephine, but a family friend told her that they had news of her mother’s capture and death on the street. Josephine was recognized by someone, pointed at, and shot on the spot. This occurred one month before war’s end! Irma was emotionally devastated. She had been alone and escaping death for four and a half years and did not know where to turn next. Who was going to take care of her?
She had an uncle in Krakow and stumbled on his old address. He was no longer living there, but a neighbor told her where he was living. She lived with her Uncle Joseph and his wife, Elizabeth, for several years. They were a childless couple, and he was an intellectual and a photographer. Nevertheless, he did not know how to deal with his devastated niece. Life in his home was not easy.
A Future in America
Four years after the war, Irma met her husband, Benjamin/Bernard. They married, moved from Krakow to Lodz, and started a family. They had one child, daughter Joanna, and when she was 17 and Poland once again struggled with another wave of anti-Semitism and political strife, Irma forced the issue of emigration. The family left as political refugees, and, after some time in Vienna and Rome, they settled in Chicago. Joanna studied art history and music. Benjamin/Bernard was a CPA (he had a master’s degree in economics and math) in Chicago. He passed away at the age of 90 in 2007.
Being a survivor of the Holocaust is something no one will ever understand to this day; nevertheless, the importance of studying our past is extremely important, because as the human race continues to push forward, we continue to make horrendous mistakes like genocides to this day. Nothing will ever be like the Holocaust, but similar genocides and mass murder because of disagreements over people’s beliefs and identities continue today. Therefore, if we do not study our past and bring awareness to this problem of suffering, then we will continue to be inhumane to others.
Bibliography
Irma Broclawski nee Ferber, interviewed by Amber Pearson, San Francisco, February 21, 2011.
Joram Kagan. Poland’s Jewish Heritage: Glossary of Polish Jewry. New York: Hippocrene Books, 1992.
Jewish Heritage in Poland, Jewish Family and Children’s Services (2011):
51-62.
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, “Invasion of Poland, Fall 1939.” Online exhibition: www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005070
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, “Krakow (Cracow)” Online exhibition: www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005169
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