Paul Vaderlind collection

Janeta Wulkan (nicknamed Neta or Nuśka, later Janeta Gościcki, 1912-1999) was born on 15 September 1912 in Ostrowsko, Poland to Josef and Salomea Wulkan (d. 1942). Her father Josef was from Ostrowsko and died in 1930. Janeta had one brother, Marcel (d. 1942). Janeta studied law at the Jagelonian University in Krakow. While in school she met Leopold Kolber, and they married in 1936 after graduation. They settled in Leopold’s hometown of Zakopane, Poland, where he practiced law. After the German invasion of Poland in September 1939, the couple fled Zakopane for Soviet-occupied Lvov (Lviv, Ukraine). Leopold fled east and was Janeta believed he had been killed. In 1942 Janeta acquired a false birth certificate and went into hiding under the name Janina Zając. She went to Rokietnica where she convinced a local priest she was active in the Polish underground. The priest helped her obtain an identity document (Kenkarte) in the name of Helena Kochanowicz. After she was recognized in Rokietnica Janeta went to Warsaw. She changed jobs and addresses frequently. She briefly rented a room from the Pelczynski family on 5 Pius Street. While there, she met Tadeusz Gościcki (b. 1915), a relative of the Pelczynskis. Janeta and Tadeusz married in 1943. On 9 July 1943 Tadeusz was arrested and deported to the Auschwitz concentration camp. He had prisoner number 139565. Janeta was able to correspond with her husband and send him food packages. She was pregnant and gave birth to their son in April 1944, but the child died two days after birth. She wrote a letter to Tadeusz about their son’s death, but never received a reply. He did write a letter back, but Janeta had already moved to a new location by the time it was delivered. Tadeusz was transferred to Buchenwald in November 1944. Janeta survived the Warsaw Uprising in 1944 but was deported to the Pruszków transit camp. She was then selected for transfer to Auschwitz, but she escaped the camp and remained hidden until liberation. In November 1944 Janeta wrote a letter to Auschwitz trying to locate Tadeusz, and received a response from the commandant, dated 15 January 1945, that he had been transferred to Buchenwald. She also kept in touch with Tadeusz’s father, and they were reunited after the war. Around that time, Janeta also learned that her first husband, Leopold, had also survived. Both men wished to be with Janeta, but she decided to stay with Tadeusz. Janeta and Tadeusz’s twin sons Marek and Jurek were born on 8 September 1946. Their son Wojtek (later Paul Vaderlind) was born on 19 January 1948. Janeta and Tadeusz divorced in 1950. Due to antisemetic policies enacted by the Polish government in 1969, Janeta and her sons left Poland and settled in Stockholm, Sweden. In 1992 Janeta received from the Pelczynski family the letter Tadeusz had sent her in response to the news their son had died shortly after birth in 1944.

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

The collection was donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum by Paul Vaderlind in 2002.