A FAMILY REUNITES

Like many born during World War II, Jadwiga led a troubled life. As a child, she was a victim of Nazi occupation, poverty and a dysfunctional family. When she was three, her parents divorced. She remained with her mother. Half a century would elapse before she heard of her father or brothers again.

As a young adult, she was astonished when her mother confessed that she had adopted Jadwiga after her parents perished in World War II. No other details were forthcoming.

After the death of her mother, Jadwiga was determined to learn about her biological parents. She decided to visit her childhood village. Perhaps someone there would remember. Arriving in the small town, she stopped an old woman and asked about her father. The woman suggested that she seek out the local priest.

The church was closed; the priest away, but memory stirred in Jadwiga's mind. She was dumbfounded. Jadwiga recognized the block as that of her childhood home. Certain she had lived in the third house, she rushed through its gate, once much taller than she, and into the garden.

A man came out, asking what she wanted. Stammering, she explained that she had lived there long ago. The man gasped: "My God, you're not Jadwiga?!" "I am," she replied. And her brother embraced her.

He was her adoptive brother, just a bit older. He knew little but said their older brother would know more. He suggested they meet this brother, now living in Germany, but about to return to Poland. They did and, through him, Jadwiga learned that not only was she adopted -- she was Jewish. Her parents hadn't died of hunger or disease; they had been murdered in the Holocaust. Nor was her adoption by her Polish Catholic family a mere coincidence; her two fathers had been colleagues before the war. Jadwiga had been handed over to her Catholic mother as her Jewish parents' transport was pulling out.

A search of her Catholic father's papers yielded a very detailed letter to the Red Cross, dated 1985. He wanted his Jewish daughter to know the truth, but didn't know how to find her. And so, at age 54, Jadwiga discovered she was not Catholic and she was not Jadwiga. Her name was Klara; her parents were German Jews whose forebearers had come to Poland. The letter named her parents and grandparents, their hometown and occupations. Jadwiga -- or Klara -- was overwhelmed.

The second document was an empty envelope, addressed to her father and postmarked Tel Aviv, May 1967, Israel. Had someone looked for her?

Jadwiga-Klara tried to resume her normal routine, but could not long resist her curiosity. She wrote to the thirty-year-old Tel Aviv address and ... nothing happened.

Some months later, a press report appeared in a Warsaw paper about a support group for child survivors established with the help of The Ronald S. Lauder Foundation. Jadwiga contacted them and was directed to the Lauder Genealogy Project. She arrived with her story and the empty envelope with a Tel Aviv address. A phone number for the letter writer's son was soon obtained and a phone call placed, but the daughter-in-law who took the call knew nothing.

They decided to try again. The Project wrote in Hebrew to the 1967 address. This time, a woman named Sonia, responded: "Please call at once. I know everything about Klara."

Sonia explained that her mother had searched for Klara in 1967, but, when no response followed, she gave up. Sonia's mother had known that Klara was handed off the transport to Catholic friends, because Sonia's mother and Klara's were sisters, together on that transport; Jadwiga and Sonia are first cousins.

Thanks to Jadwiga's persistence and The Ronald S. Lauder Foundation's assistance, the cousins will soon meet. A desperate mother's final message, whispered in a boxcar enroute to hell, has finally been received. In the New Year of 5759, Klara will gain knowledge of her past and embrace her true family.

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