Let's Talk Legacy
CLIP: Taken, Renamed, Survival, Forgiveness
Wed, 28 Aug
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Holocaust survivor Janet Singer Applefield shares the details of her evasion of detainment, forcing her to live under many names, how she survived to be reunited with family, and the struggle to forgive those who wronged her.Hear Janet's full interview in Episode 51 of Let's Talk Legacy.
Full Episode
The word Holocaust conjures up so many emotions for people even now, almost 80 years later. You have an incredibly unique vantage point as an actual survivor of that event.
So tell us about your perspective and share your story of how old you were when your home in Poland was invaded, how your small town was impacted, what happened to your family and how this whole thing came about for you that you're still a survivor.
Well, I was born in Krakow, Poland, and I lived with my family in a little town 50 miles south of the city of Krakow. And I had a wonderful, idyllic childhood there. first grandchild in the family. I was loved. I was pampered. September 1st, 1939, all this came to an abrupt end. At first, my family tried many, many attempts to escape. We first ran away to Russia. Then we returned.
And after so many attempts to escape, my parents ran out of options. And they made this amazing, most difficult decision of their lives, and that is to give me away. And for the several years after that, three and a half years to be exact, I was with different caregivers. I was away from my family. My identity was changed completely. several times, and I ended up on the street.
I was abandoned, and I was picked up by a righteous Christian woman. Ended up on a farm where I spent most of the time with very kind people. I always knew I was Jewish, but I was able to keep my Jewish identity a secret. I was just seven years old when I was separated from my parents. But I was able to keep that a secret. And I ended up in an orphanage after the war.
And miraculously, my dad found me. No way. But he found me. And we eventually immigrated to the United States.
So when you were reunited with your father, he had been in the slave labor camp. And when he found you, he insisted you give him all the details of the time you were separated so he could make sure it was documented. It was those handwritten pages rediscovered years later that started the new road of discovery for you. How was your father able to survive? What happened to your mother?
And what was it like rediscovering the details of your escape as an adult? What was it like?
Well, it was very, very sad and very tragic because the day that they gave me away, there was an order issued that all the people from that town and the surrounding towns had three days to report in an area outside of Krakow called Wieliczka. So they went there, although independently, because they decided to separate from each other. Their thinking was that if they were separate,
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