Message
“No more war and bad politics where there is hatred towards other people with different views.”
Zdzisława Włodarczyk, maiden name Bogdaszewska, was born on August 21, 1933 in Kamieniec. Her family moved to Warsaw where her father was a clerk at the post office and her mother took care of raising three children. After the German invasion of Poland in September 1939, the family fled to the east of Poland and reached the village of Kovel in Volhynia (now Ukraine). During the mass arrests after the outbreak of the Warsaw Uprising, on August 1st , 1944, Zdzislawa together with her parents and younger brother, were deported to Auschwitz.
It was the first transport of civilians from Warsaw from the transit camp for Poles in Pruszków. It arrived in KL Auschwitz on August 12th , 1944. In the camp, Zdzisława was marked with the camp number 85282. The family was separated there. First, their father from his wife and children and then Zdzisława and her brother from their mother. The children were taken to the children’s barracks in Auschwitz-Birkenau. When her mother left in the “March of Death” to Ravensbrück, she and her brother remained in Auschwitz-Birkenau, where on January 27th , 1945 they were liberated by the Soviet army.
After the liberation, they first ended up in in an orphanage but were soon taken from there to Jarocin by their grandmother. Her mother also returned from the camp in Ravensbrück, but her health was very poor. During the war. Zdzislawa’s father died in Hersbruck, the second largest sub-camp of Flossenbürg concentration camp. After the war, Zdzisława Włodarczyk worked in the town hall in Jarocin. She was married in Chrzanów where she lives until today.