6. Selma Schwarzwald
In 1941, the Germans invaded the town of Lvov, Poland, where Selma Schwarzwald and her family lived. Her father and mother Daniel Schwarzwald and Laura Litwak grew up in Lvov, and her father ran a lucrative lumber business. They were both multilingual, speaking Polish, German, Russian, and Yiddish. Daniel Schwarzwald was worried about the German invasion, and he wanted to evacuate to Britain. Laura was afraid to leave her parents behind, so they were forced to move into the ghettos.
Selma’s father was able to get false papers for his family, but he was killed by the Germans five days before Selma and her mother escaped. Selma and her mother used the false documents that Daniel was able to get for his family and escaped the ghettos in Lvov on a train, ending up in the town of Busko Zdroj. Selma and her mother changed their names and hid their identities, living in their new home as Catholics. Her mother told her never to reveal her real name or where they were from to anyone.
Selma was only five years old when this happened, so she forgot that she was Jewish. In school, she learned that Germans and Jews were the enemies: The Germans had killed Poles, and the Jews had crucified Jesus. When she asked her mother about Jewish people, her mother responded that the Jews that she knew weren’t all bad. Selma and her mother moved to England after the war.
She learned that she was Jewish in 1948, and it came as a shock to her because she had lived as a Catholic for so long and was taught in school to hate Jews. In 1963, Selma moved to the United States where she became a radiation oncologist, and she officially changed her name to Sophie Turner-Zaretsky.
Today in History: Warsaw Ghetto Uprising Ends.