As the world reflects on the 80-year edition of Holocaust Memorial Day, I spoke to someone who actually experienced the unthinkable: Lizzy Dyszkiewicz, my grandma.
Lizzy, who I am proud to call my grandma, defied all odds in surviving three separate concentration camps, including Auschwitz before starting a happy and healthy life in Kingston 70 years ago.
She was born on May 11 1927, where she enjoyed a peaceful childhood in Boskovice, a town in eastern Czech Republic. She lived with her parents, Moric and Hilda Schwarz as well as her sister Kitty.
“I loved ice skating, swimming and playing in the snow as a young girl,” my grandma recounted.
But all of this changed in March 1942 where Nazi soldiers stripped the town’s Jewish population away from their homes and boarded them on to cattle trains headed to Theresienstadt, north of Prague.
My grandma said she enjoyed skating and playing in the snow before her childhood was torn apart (Image: Lizzy Dyszkiewicz) This was the first concentration camp that my grandma survived. Her mother, Hilda who was already suffering from a heart condition did not endure the same luck and passed away here.
After two years in Theresienstadt, my grandma was transported to Auschwitz.
It is estimated that around 1.1 million people were murdered in Auschwitz, and amongst that figure were Lizzy’s sister and father who were packed into gas chambers and killed.
“Auschwitz was awful,” said my grandma.
“This is where I was lucky though. Some of the trains that arrived in Auschwitz went straight to gas chambers. The Nazis said, ‘get out and have a shower’ and the shower was just a gas chamber – it was dreadful.
“You dare not say no to the Nazis because they would shoot you. If they ask you to do something and you said no, they would just shoot you.”
“This is how my sister and father died – they were on a separate train – we were not together.”
The final concentration camp that Lizzy endured was Mauthausen, in Austria where after a few months, she was liberated by American soldiers on May 5 1945.
She had survived the unimaginable and after returning to her hometown, Boskovice, she left again to live with her only remaining family member, Aunt Lily in Chiswick.
Through a Polish couple that lived above Lizzy and Lily, my grandma met my grandad: Jerzy, or George as he would always translate into English.
My grandad has his own fantastically impressive story to tell – fighting as a Polish soldier and escaping prisoner of war camp at the very same time that his wife-to-be was fighting for survival in the concentration camps.
They lived a happy life here together until my grandad sadly passed away on July 23 2016, but my grandma, still fiercely independent, continues to keep the house warm, tidy and homely even at 97 years of age.
When asked about the key to being so capable at such a grand age, my grandma said: “I have no secret ingredient – I just don’t give up and I do as much as I possibly can, staying active and independent.”
In 2019, a book about my grandparents’ incredible tales was written by historian, Ted Bailey.
My family and I spent Holocaust Memorial Day here to celebrate the launch of the book in my grandma’s mother tongue as well as trying to expand our understanding of the horrors she endured.
“I think it is important that these stories are still told – it is history!” concluded my grandma.
