Leśny zdrój – Forest Spring was the name of the lemonade that my grandfather made. The carts that brought the small bottles to the shops and pubs were pulled by cold-blooded horses that he bred himself. Sometimes my father was allowed to sit on the coachman’s seat. He was fifteen years old, his father 35, when the German Wehrmacht invaded his home town of Lódż.

He, his father, mother and brother were able to hide with a farmer for almost four years. Then they were betrayed.
My grandfather was deported to Auschwitz. On 16 January 1945, Red Army planes attacked the camp. That could have been the liberation. 31,894 people were counted at the camp roll call that day.

But the SS men guarding the camp had nothing more urgent to do, even in the face of their final defeat, than to deport most of their victims who were still alive.

My grandfather was sent to Colditz, a subcamp of Buchenwald, on 17 January 1945. That’s when his trail was lost.
When Auschwitz was finally liberated on 27 January 1945, around 8,000 people were still alive.