my babci—that is, my polish paternal grandmother—married an american soldier (of polish descent) in germany after wwii had ended and he brought her home to the usa on a ship.
the story of her experience that i’d grown up knowing was that her father had to choose a household member to do forced labor in a camp to remain in compliance with nazi occupiers and he sent babci, who was about 15 or so at the time. they lived in kielce, poland. i think the real story is far darker and my cousin and i suspect her father was a sympathizer; we remember her saying something about having to sew nazi uniforms with other polish teens and preteen girls.
she had no contact with her father, stepmother or brother from then on, and by the time she got out of the camp her hair was stark white at the age of 18. she was so indescribably grateful to be in the usa and for my grandfather, hated hitler and nazis— leading up to her death in 2006, she suffered from dementia and regularly expressed heartbreaking, gut wrenching trauma from that time.
when my dad died, i got babci’s papers. can anybody help me decipher them and help inform what they mean? and if there is any context as to whether her father was a polish nazi sympathizer?
I am not sure if this is allowed on the sub, but here is my quick translation:
The first is her worker ID from the company.
Fur model house Körper Department Fabrication Munich, Ritter-von-Epp-Platz 21
COMPANY ID NUMBER: 0127 Name: Stefania Slowinska is employed as assistant worker in furrier's workshop in company Ritter-von-Epp-Platz 21
ID card is to be returned after end of employment
[signatures]
The second is her government ID.
Family name: Slowinska
First name: Stefania
Maiden name for women: -
born 23rd of May 1925 in Lisow.
Nationality: Stateless (Poland)
Ethnicity: Polish
Country of Origin: Generalgovernement [occupied Poland]
Place of Origin: Kielce District: Lisow
Address: _
Employed as: Fur-seamstress
Emploment-book-Number: A 306/30367 I4 d
Place of Employment: Körper Pelze München, Ritter-von-Epp-Platz 21
Tgl. (?) Number: 879 In the country since: 14th of November 1942
Issued: 05th of january 1944
(Coat of arms/seal) Office of Employment Munich
to be given to the foreign enployee
The third is a "labour card" with her fingerprints, but I can read nothing except "Generalgovernement", which is, again, the Nazi name for occupied Poland.
There is no reference to any labour camp, but then again the company may have used the camp for cheap labour. Note that there is no actual address where she might have lived, which also points to a camp.
A quick google search found no Information about the company.
I hope this helps.
A source you might wish to consult is the Arolsen Archives (formerly known as the International Tracing Service), which collects records on people who were deported to concentration camps or forced labor by Nazi Germany. I'm not sure if they'd have any information beyond what you already have, but it could be helpful. It's a research tool that I've used a good bit in my own work on various topics (labor camps, POW camps, etc.) to provide additional context to whatever factual information I already had. The digital archive is probably easier to use than searching through the website, but it's not publicly accessible outside of certain repositories (e.g. the Holocaust Museum or National Archives [I think]).
Hi,
I'm a Polish historian, I work for the Polish History Museum (MHP) in Warsaw; I'd be happy to help you with the papers. Please e-mail me: wojciech.stanislawski@muzhp.pl