Waiting for Mama

By Bozenna Urbanowicz Gilbride

This book is about a womans survival of the Holocaust and the loss of her children. Returning to Poland, now Communist ruled, she begins her search. In 1948, she finds them living in America and, in desperation, finds a very dangerous way to get there. She joins a secret underground organization in hopes of escaping to Sweden and from there to America. But it would not be that simple. She is caught by the border patrol and imprisoned. Her family in America is unaware of her tragedy. Years go by before she is reunited with her children and husband.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Aug 18, 2017
• ISBN: 9781532028892

Bozenna Urbanowicz Gilbride

Following the success of her first book “Children of Terror”, Bozenna Urbanowicz Gilbride brings her own story of war, family separation, and the struggles for family reunification to “Waiting for Mama”. Bozenna has been married to Richard Gilbride since 1957 and they raised their four children in New York. Bozenna’s reflections on her personal history as a Polish Catholic holocaust survivor through World War II, and the struggles following the war has always captivated her son Stephen. In this, second edition of “Waiting for Mama”, Stephen has collaborated with his mother to include more details, and more historical references beyond the first edition. Bozenna’s wish is for this book to reach as many young adult readers as possible to enlighten them on the devastations of truly difficult times and the miracles of moving past them.

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Copyright © 2017 Bożenna Urbanowicz Gilbride.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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ISBN: 978-1-5320-2888-5 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5320-2889-2 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017911818

iUniverse rev. date: 08/17/2017

A Child’s Lament

Why did you leave me, Mama?

I waited for you to come back

I am all alone and looking for you

I am so scared to be alone

Why did you leave me, Mama?

Am I now an orphan?

Or you just can’t find me?

I’ll be waiting for you, Mama

Until you find me again and

Tell me you always loved me

And stay with me forever

By Bożenna Urbanowicz, age 10

CONTENTS

Dedication

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Waiting for Mama

The Gestapo first came for my father

The Gestapo then came for Mama

Becoming Little Mama

Spring, 1945, Liberation

Life in America

Phone call from Poland

Mama"s Story

The Revier

A front is approaching

The Soviets arrive

Secret Underground

Escape at night

The lawyers

Wedding day

A family reunited?

At the Airport

Home at last

Mama’s final wish

Epilogue

Honors, Awards and Accomplishments

DEDICATION

I DEDICATE THIS book to my children, Richard T., Timothy J., Stephen G., Christine K., and my grandchildren Gregory, Trevor and Richard J. My wish for them and all the children and their mothers is to have peace on earth, good will to all and an overabundance of love.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

MY DEEP APPRECIATION goes to the Polish government for their search of my mother’s prison record of 1948, while Poland was Communist occupied.

I want to thank the Ravensbruck Memorial Site Foundation, Strasse der Nationen for their quick response to my request as to my mother’s imprisonment there in 1944-1945. They informed me that 60% of the prison records were destroyed by the retreating Nazi’s so what little information there was available is in this book.

My thank you also goes to the US Holocaust Memorial Museum for finding my mother’s archival footsteps, including my father’s and us four children.

Much thanks go to Blaine Phelps and Kathryn Burton for their patience, understanding and encouragement. They were the wind beneath my wings. Without their belief in me, this book would still be laying in the bottom of the drawer, waiting to someday be published. Thank you Blaine, for the patient proof reading when I was ready to quit and leave it all in the drawer. Thank you Kathryn for all you did for me. Your generosity of spirit will never be forgotten.

And to my husband Richard, as always, who took over the kitchen duties, including cooking and washing dishes, to allow me as much time as I needed to write this book.

I also wish to thank Anthony LaBruna of Madison Lohrius copy and blueprint Centers in Hampton Bays, NY for helping me with pictures for this book.

My final Thank you goes to the teachers and students who never stopped asking When are you going to write your mother’s story? Since the publication of my personal story in Children of Terror in 2009 with my friend Inge Auerbacher, and traveling to schools across the country and Europe, telling my story of survival that question was consistently asked of me. So, here it is, I hope you will continue to learn about hate, what it did, does and will do, unless we change.

INTRODUCTION

IN MY ALMOST 30 years of speaking as a Polish Catholic Holocaust survivor, I have encountered a tremendous lack of education in our schools on the fate of others, as we are often referred to, who were imprisoned and/or murdered by the Nazi’s which total over 5 million human beings. Unfortunately, a large percentage of those 5 million were Poles and little is given to recognize their fate and sacrifice during World War II and how they also were part of the 11 million victims of the Holocaust (as per the United States Holocaust Museum).

After the publication of my first book Children of Terror in 2009, written with my friend, Inge Auerbacher, a German Jewish Holocaust survivor, teachers and students started asking about the fate of my mother. The book, Children of Terror, did not go into detail about my mothers’ fate but instead was about my experience, before, during, and after the war. But my mothers’ story of how she survived several Concentration Camps in Germany, death marches, starvation, sickness, feelings of abandonment, sterilization, and separation from her children had to be told – even after the end of World War II and her arrest by the Communist government in Poland in 1948. I wanted to tell everything; all of it needed to be told to not only answer the teachers and students, but also to insure my mothers’ story and that of millions of other mother’s was written down so history would never forget them.

These stories were told to me by my mother, who I call Mama, during her last ten years of life. During those ten years I kept a journal of Mama’s talks with me – taken when we were alone, when I was watching my children (and being interrupted