My father should have been able to stay in Dzialoszyn with his wife and sons, his sisters, their mother. He should have been a successful tailor and his 2 small sons should have grown up and learned trades or professions, along with their unborn siblings.
My father in law should have been able to live comfortably in Sosnowitz along with his parents and siblings. He should have married a nice Jewish girl from Sosnowitz and settled down to raise a family, who would then raise theirs in turn.
Maybe some of them could have gone to Israel - which would have been established anyway and where Jews lived even before it was declared an independent state- to live a Zionist dream. But if not, they would have probably stayed in Poland. Or maybe gone to America to seek their fortunes.
My father's and father in law's parents should have died in ripe old age surrounded by their loving families.
Instead, my father followed 2 of his sisters to Australia, May 1939, as the situation for the Jews was not good. He kissed his wife and little sons goodbye and he hugged his mother and other sisters and promised to get papers for them to join him.
He tried but he ran out of time. They all perished in the Holocaust.
My father in law and one brother were the only survivors of their family. Parents, siblings, cousins- all murdered. After a 4 year convalescence in Davos, recovering from the unspeakable horrors of the camps, he went to Australia. He married another refugee from Russia and they raised a beautiful family.
My father married a spirited Jewish Australian girl and had two more sons, and me.
I married my husband, children of survivors and refugees together. We have children and grandchildren. We are blessed.
But we shouldn't exist.
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