Maria Rose memoir

Maria Rozengarten Rose was born in 1910 in Warsaw, Poland, to Matias Rozengarten (1877-1942, originally of Siedlce) and to Golda Keis (1875-1941, originally of Warsaw). Maria had an older sister, Ruta, and a brother, Marek, who was the middle child. Marek completed trade school and opened a haberdashery in Warsaw. He married Maryla Wahl, and had a son, Czesio, born in 1934. In 1935, Ruta married Adam Buki, a fellow bookkeeper, and gave birth to daughter Mira in 1936. Maria was an excellent student, and in 1927, began studying mathematics at Warsaw University, where she joined a Communist youth organization. She left the university and got a job doing courier and office work for the organization. She later enrolled in the Warsaw Technical University and studied chemical engineering, though she continued to associate with the Communist student groups. In March 1938, Maria and her future husband, Herc (Hercek) Dawidson, a fellow communist, moved together to an apartment in Warsaw. In June 1938, Maria was denounced as a Communist and briefly arrested. She was arrested again in February 1939 and taken to Serbia prison in Warsaw, where she remained until July 31, 1939. Soon after her release from prison, Germany invaded Poland, and Maria and Hercek fled east. Hercek was briefly captured by German forces in Otwock, and Maria returned to Warsaw for a month before hearing that he had been released. She joined him in Bialystok, where they lived together for two years until Hercek was captured and killed by the German invading forces. In September 1941, Maria was forced into the Bialystok ghetto, where she joined the resistance. In early 1942, Maria heard from her father in Warsaw, who informed her that in September 1941, her mother Golda had passed away from typhus, complicated by diabetes. Maria remained in the Bialystok ghetto until August 1942, when she procured Aryan papers and escaped outside the ghetto. In January 1943, Maria’s brother Marek hired a messenger to bring Maria to Warsaw. Soon after arriving in Warsaw, she narrowly avoided arrest when the owner of the apartment where she was stayingwas seen denouncing Jewish couriers and Maria decided to enter the Warsaw ghetto. There, she reunited with her siblings and their families, but her father, Matias, had been killed in a roundup in the ghetto in July 1942. The family was captured soon after the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising began and separated. Maria was sent to Majdanek where she remained until June 1943, when she was transferred to Auschwitz and given the prisoner number 47115. She joined the resistance movement and was assigned to work transporting building materials, and later, in the Canada section of the camp. On September 30, 1944, she was transferred to the subcamp of Rajsko. In January 1945, she was sent on a forced march to Ravensbrück, then transferred to Malchow and subsequently to Buchenwald. She was liberated after escaping from a forced march from Buchenwald in April 1945. After liberation, she traveled with a group of other survivors to Dresden. While there, one of Maria’s friends recognized a female guard from Birkenau. The survivor denounced the guard, who in turn confessed and denounced two other guards: the three women were tried and executed for their crimes. In 1947, Maria left Dresden, spent some time in Moscow, and ultimately returned to Warsaw. She was unable to determine the fates of her brother and sister and their families. She began a romantic relationship with Zamek Rozenberg, who she had known from her pre-war studies at the Warsaw Technical University. They lived in Łódź, where in January 1949, Maria completed her degree in Chemistry. In May 1949, Maria gave birth to daughter Joanna (Joasia). They moved to Warsaw, where Zamek worked for the State Committee for Economic Planning. In 1950, son Julian (Julek) was born. In May 1971, the family emigrated to Sweden as a result of an antisemitic campaign in Poland in the late 1960s, where Zamek and Maria began jobs with the National Institute of Standards. Zamek passed away in January 1985.

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of Julian Rose

Dr. Julian Rose donated a copy of his mother's memoirs to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2013.