A homage to our parents

Silvana Layton (Silberzweig) & family

Photo of Lusia & Josef in Zakopane Poland, 1938.

It’s tting to start with our maternal grandmother, Sara Zehngut, who perished on arrival at Auschwitz in May 1944. In 1904, she had emigrated to New York, following other siblings, but returned to Krakow in 1908 homesick and thus changing our destiny.

Back in Krakow, she married Wilhem Stiller and had two children, Leonora (Lusia) born in 1912 and Lonek in 1914. She was widowed in 1918 when Wilhem contracted typhoid and died during active service with the Austrian Army. Sara was left to raise their children under extreme hardship.

Our parents Josef and Lusia courted for a couple of years and subsequently married in November 1939.

Following some advice, on 2 April 1940, Josef ed Krakow. With his beloved city under occupation by the Germans and Jewish persecution rampant, he embarked on an epic journey which took him skiing and hiking through Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Yugoslavia with imprisonment in Ljubljana. Finally, in August 1941, he ended up at Ferramonti di Tarsia Internment camp in Italy as a foreign Jew. After the overthrow of Mussolini in 1943, internees were freed. Our father made his way to Bari to join the 2nd Polish Corp of the General Anders Army attached to 8th British Division in Bari, 616 CMF Italy. We are proud that our father was a Jewish Soldier. Our father found no family after the war. His mother, Rozalia (Lippel), had died of natural causes in February 1940. His father, Judah Leib, and sisters, Felicia and Bronislawa, were rounded up by the Nazis on 10 March 1941 and never seen again.

Our mother, Lusia chose to stay with her mother in Krakow. They found themselves rst in Krakow Ghetto in August 1940, then moved to Plaszow labour camp in March 1943 and nally to Auschwitz in 1944. Our mother was later transferred to an Auschwitz sub-camp 111 Lichtenwerden in Germany. She miraculously survived her incarceration.

Her brother, Lonek, left Poland in 1936 and emigrated to Palestine, after being refused admission to the University in Krakow with the introduction of the special clause Numerus Clausus, which severely restricted Jews entering any tertiary institute.

After the war our parents, via telegrams and letters with the assistance of the Red Cross and our mother’s brother, were reunited in Prague in December 1945. They chose to live in Bari, Italy. A year later, in December 1946, our mother gave birth to us, twin daughters Rosetta and Silvana. Our father was honourably discharged from the army in January 1947 and joined the Jewish Distribution Committee (the Joint) in Bari.

In 1949, we boarded the SS Cyrenia and arrived in Melbourne in September 1949, along with many other refugees. Our family settled in Melbourne, purchased a home, and worked hard to create a new and better life. Our parents never returned to Poland.

Mum and Dad passed away too early at the age of 59 in 1972, only a matter of weeks apart. They rarely spoke of their lives in Krakow or of their very different and harrowing Holocaust experiences.

Three generations of descendants of Josef & Lusia Silberzweig, Silvana seated on left and Rosetta on right, surrounded by their families, Green, Grossman & Wise.