Tova Gutstein
Warsaw ghetto
“I was born in Warsaw in 1933 to Malka-Mania and Zanvel Alba, the middle child of three. Since we already lived in the Jewish quarter, we didn’t need to move to the ghetto—the ghetto came to us. Our window overlooked the Umschlagplatz, the deportation square, where I witnessed the Germans rounding up groups of young men and women and executing them. This is what my childhood in the geto looked like.
From the age of six to ten, I lived as a ‘sewer girl.’ Three to four times a week, I would slip through the sewers of the ghetto and make my way to the other side of Warsaw to bring food back home. I would knock on the doors of Polish homes, and some would give me food. Others would shout at me, calling me ‘Dirty Jew,’ and threaten to report me to the Gestapo if I will ever return.
Sneaking through the sewers was extremely dangerous. The sewage was powerful, and if you weren’t strong enough, you could be swept away and never get out. It wasn’t a place for a little girl, but I knew that I would do whatever it took to bring back food to my family in the ghetto. I was determined and above all I was fearless,
One time, I came dangerously close to being caught by the Germans. I was crossing a bridge over the Vistula River with food hidden under my shirt when a German soldier approached me with a dog and a baton. He unleashed the dog and started advancing towards me. Without thinking twice, despite not knowing how to swim, I leaped into the river. The German soldier, assuming I would likely drown, moved on. I paddled furiously through the water and managed to survive.
When the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising erupted, I was outside the ghetto searching for food and saw from a distance that the ghetto was engulfed in flames. When I returned to my ravaged home, I couldn’t find my mother or brothers so I fled to the forests, where I found refuge with the Partisans.
In December 1944, I arrived in Lublin, the city where my mother’s family had lived, hoping to find her or any other relatives. Each morning, I would sit at the train station, waiting and hoping for a glimpse of my mother or brothers. One day, the station manager noticed me and asked what I was doing there. From that day on, he began bringing me food and clothes.
One day, a Polish mob arrived at the train station, searching for Jews and gypsies to attack. Seeing the danger, the station manager hurried out of his office, halted a train bound for Wałbrzych—a city already liberated by the Allies—and helped me board it to ensure my safety. I was put on a steam locomotive powered by coal, so I was pitch black when I arrived in Wałbrzych.
When I arrived at Wałbrzych train station, a young group approached me and asked in Yiddish, “Amcha?” – a question used to determine if someone was Jewish. I replied, ‘Amcha’, and they took me to a Jewish orphanage, where I stayed for a year and a half. One day, while I was in town, I came across a small doll of a chimney sweep, which was as blackened as I had been when I first arrived in Wałbrzych. I bought the doll and began to cry, as I had never had in my life toys of my own. To this day, I cherish that doll and keep it close to me.
After the war, I found my mother and brothers in the displaced persons camp in the city of Ulm and we immigrated to Israel.
People like me are usually described as Holocaust survivors which is hard for me to accept. I didn’t passively survive the Holocaust but rather actively took action every day to overcome all the hardships I suffered. I think the title of ‘Holocaust HERO’ is a better fit. At just six years old, I crawled through Warsaw’s sewage to bring food to my family. To me, that was heroism, plain and simple.”