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164 Out of the Inferno In the immediate postwar period, Szandorowska was involved in hospital work. She later became a librarian, with a special interest in old books. She collaborated with Maria Bohomos in preparing a catalog of Polish collections of books printed before 1501. She is now retired. KRYSTYNA SZOMANSKA When I think about it, the German occupation was horrible. The Germans threatened us with the death penalty for so many things. Our lives were at risk all the time, but for some reason I was not afraid. My friend, Zofia Rontaler, and I both worked at the theatre in the Lazienki Palace and had a pass that protected us if we were caught in a lapanka (roundup). We were both in the Home Army. We did everything together. I remember a visit to my parents, who lived in Jasna. I limped along on my sprained ankle as snipers took potshots at passersby from rooftops. Somehow I was convinced I would be all right, just as I was convinced that nothing would happen to my parents as long as I visited them. I knew Halina Schulzinger, a Polish Jew, before the war began. She was the friend of an acquaintance of mine. I had seen her two or three times. She was married to a German Jew, Jakub Schulzinger, who lived in Leipzig. She had left Leipzig before the war with her daughter, Jola, to come to Warsaw. Her husband remained in Leipzig to settle some business matters, and he then also came to Poland. At one point my mother hid him in a sofa bed while the Germans searched the apartment. Eventually Jakub was caught in a roundup He was taken from the train between Kielce and Warsaw-not because he was Jewish, because he easily passed for a Gentile with his blond hair and blue eyes. He was seized with everyone else on that train and simply disappeared. I cannot recall how Halina and Jola got in touch with Zofia Rontaler and me, but I think they must have come to '1sit us. I had exchanged my large apartment for two studio apartments , where Zofia and I lived. 4-s far as I recall, my dealings with Halina Schulzinger and her daughter took place between 1941 and early 1943. For a long time they managed to remain outside the ghetto. We found them lodgings, 165 Krystyna Szomar'lska and sometimes we got them out to the countryside. In the end, they were taken to the ghetto. Halina was a pianist and by then used her maiden name, Neuman. In the ghetto, she supported Jola and her mother by sewing rabbit furs for German soldiers. Together with my father, I went to the ghetto. I had to climb over rooftops to see what was going on. I went there twice. As conditions in the ghetto deteriorated, Halina and I decided that we had to get Jola out. Since work parties of Jews left the ghetto during the day, we decided that it would be best to get Jola into one of these work parties, and I would snatch her away from it once she was outside the ghetto. Halina managed to get word to me that there was a work party going to Mokotow on a certain day and that Jola would be in that group. I took a cab and followed the work party, which was guarded on all sides by German soldiers. At one point, I simply walked up to the group, took Jola by the hand, put her into the cab, and took her home. Looking back on the whole episode, it seems utterly improbable. Jola lived with me until I found her a place in a boarding school run by a Polish woman, whose name I do not recall, in Lesna Podkowa. Jola lived there on false papers. My friend and I visited her there from time to time. Meanwhile, Halina Neuman got out of the ghetto on her own. She managed to bribe her way out. She also paid the cost of lola's schooling out of her own funds. After leaving the ghetto, she lived under a pseudonym near Napoleon Square with false papers provided by the Home Army. She had had all her belongings scattered among various places in Warsaw, but by this time she had gathered them all together in her lodgings. Suddenly, during her absence the Germans searched her apartment. My friend Zofia went tp the apartment, broke the...

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