Rojske Kisielnicki Sadowsky

The second of three children, Rojske was born to Jewish parents living 35 miles east of Warsaw in the small predominantly Jewish town of Kaluszyn. Rojske's mother was a housewife and her father was a merchant who often traveled, by horse and wagon, to Warsaw on business. When Rojske was in her twenties, she married Welwel Sadowsky, a fruit dealer.

1933-39: After war broke out last week, German forces fought Polish troops in a battle right here in Kaluszyn. Half the town has been flattened by shelling, and many Jewish families have been forced to seek shelter in the synagogue, the community bath house, the brewery, and the tannery. Now, the occupying German forces are "resettling" here hundreds of Jews from other towns. What will happen to all of us, especially with winter approaching?

1940-42: The Germans have sealed the several-month-old ghetto, and we can no longer get food from the nearby village.Raizel Kisielnicki, the wife of my father's cousin, is working for a communal kitchen in the ghetto that provides breakfast for children and dinners for children and the elderly. But there's never enough food, and now the kitchen is only serving children. Many people are so desperate that they try sneaking out of town. So far about 50 people have been caught on the road and shot by Polish gendarmes.

In late 1942, the Germans liquidated the Kaluszyn ghetto and deported its population to an extermination camp, where Rojske and her husband, Welwel, perished.