Goldie Szachter Kalib

Growing up in Bodzentyn

Goldie Szachter was born in 1931. She was the youngest of five children. "The years of my early childhood were filled with the joy and delight that only a young child can fully experience," Goldie recalls.

Goldie’s maternal grandfather was married to the daughter of the "Bazh'tshiner Rebbe"—town rabbi of Bodzentyn. Religious life was very important to the Jewish community. In her book, Goldie describes the yearly cycle and how it was arranged around the holidays, starting in the autumn with the blowing of the shofar, a ram’s horn on Rosh Hashanah, the New Year that Yom Kippur and Sukkot followed. For every Shabbat, her mother would prepare the dough for the Challah bread, which was then baked in the oven of Goldie's paternal grandfather's bakery. It was customary to have some extra cakes and occasionally an apple cake or cheesecake.

Bodzentyn was a vibrant town in the mid-1930s with market days and stores that offered various goods. "...there were one mill, lime stores, dealers in feathers, several taverns and tavern-restaurants, and more," Goldie says. "In the two confectionaries, newspapers as well as soft drinks, chocolates and other candies, and ice cream were sold up front, while in the rear young people came to sit down and socialize."

Goldie's father co-owned the flour mill with her maternal grandfather in the Żwirki plaza, the Lower Market: "When I stood on the balcony of our house, I could look down into the center of Żwirki plaza [...] and the surrounding environs. Across the horizon, I could see the mountains rising in the distance," Goldie describes.

Fate during the Holocaust

In autumn 1939 everything changed. On September 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland, and by October 6 Poland surrendered. From then on, the German gendarmerie motored into town almost daily. From the balcony, where Goldie previously enjoyed the beautiful surroundings, she became an eyewitness of brutal horror, with random killings and torture in the streets below.

With the situation deteriorating, but before the liquidation of the ghetto took place, Goldie’s father arranged through a friend of the family for Goldie to be taken to the munitions factory—that later on became a slave-labour camp in Starachowice-Wierzbnik.

As Goldie was too young to be accepted as a worker, her father approached a Polish Christian woman to shelter Goldie. She accepted, and Goldie was brought to live with her and her family in Świętomarz, a village close by. Madame Surowiecka deemed it wise for Goldie to be called Halinka Bertosowna, the name of a niece of hers from Krakow.

Sofia Surowjecka in front of her house in Świętomarz. Find the location on Google Maps

On April 12, 2016, Yad Vashem recognized Józef and Zofia Surowiecki and Kazimierz Ben as Righteous Among the Nations.