My Mother's Holocaust Secret Changed My Life

After the Second World War, my Polish Catholic parents fled a shattered Europe for Canada to raise their family in a better tomorrow. Yesterday didn't matter. No one talked about the past. When we would visit other Polish Catholic families, our parents didn’t care what we kids did together; as long as we spoke a smidgen of Polish and remembered to pray to Jesus, that was all that mattered.

But the past is what we Polish Canadian kids had in common. The Second World War hung over us like a deadly shadow, a no-man's land where we dared not venture. Our parents knew each other from displaced persons camps in Munich, after the war. Some of our fathers had seen action; our mothers had worked at menial jobs and seen their share of Nazis and bombings. Their memories were like hair-trigger land mines, one misstep and we'd all be caught up in an explosion of swastikas, blood and ghosts. So we kept mum.

Dorota Milstein/Joanna Litniowska in Berchtesgaden, Germany ca 1943.

At social affairs, our parents would indulge us with food and love. They all had the same sweet, rustling accent, and spoke quickly but carefully. All had university degrees, so our school and music lessons were important. My mother seemed to fit right in, with her flair for Chopin's piano masterpieces. Her long fingers would glide across the keyboard with ease, and I thought she was as content as everyone else.

These Polski get-togethers caused my mother anxiety and grief. Because she was not one of them. She was a Jew.

One Easter Sunday when I was about 11 years old, we visited the Adamczewskis for dinner. My mother played a few of her favourite Chopin études and I heard Adamczewski mutter to his wife, "Only a real Pole can play Chopin." I thought it was a great compliment, but my mother looked down, cleared her throat and disappeared into the kitchen.

I didn't realize then that these Polski get-togethers caused my mother anxiety and grief. Because she was not one of them.

She was a Jew.

Quarrels

I should have known. Many outings to our Polish Catholic friends were cause for strife between my parents. How so-and-so ignored her; two others were plotting against her; there were whispers here and there, surely about her. I knew she was tightly wound and moody, the result of her war experiences and the family she'd lost. My folks quarreled often, and sometimes a conflict would drag out for days. She would accuse him of antisemitism, but I never heard him utter a word against the Jews. I was the world's biggest Barbra Streisand fan, and my father never blinked an eye.

My parents didn't hide their battles from me, and I tried, fruitlessly, to pacify their quarrels. Ultimately, I would retreat to my room, cry my eyes out, and wonder if I'd done something wrong. "I'm never getting married!" I would explode after a nasty round of hostilities.

"See what you've done," my father accused my mother.

"Me? Your friends are reptiles and you know it," she shot back.

"You are always right, dead right," he rebuffed sarcastically, and withdrew to his workshop, leaving behind a trail of pipe smoke and anguish.

In the affidavit, my mother unequivocally stated she'd been born into the Jewish faith, and even though she'd converted to Catholicism, my father continued to denigrate her origins.

No one ever struck the other, but they didn't have to. Their weapons were words that stung and slashed. No blood was shed, but the tears rained down. Eventually they would reconcile and carry on like nothing. There would be another party or dinner, where we'd feast with Polish Catholic friends who showered us with kindness and sumptuous food. How could my mother call these good people reptiles? I loved my mother, but thought she was being paranoid.

Finally, after 41 years of a stormy marriage, my parents split up. I was 34 years old, and hardly surprised. Their turbulent partnership had them sleeping in separate quarters. It was then that I found out the truth. In an affidavit delivered to my father, my mother claimed financial support. In the affidavit, my mother unequivocally stated she'd been born into the Jewish faith, and even though she'd converted to Catholicism, my father continued to denigrate her origins.

My mother

How was this possible? My mother was Jewish? This was never mentioned in all the skirmishes, the brawls. And none of the angry words uttered were antisemitic. Nothing at all was said about Jews. Most importantly, I knew that if my mother was Jewish, even if she had converted to Catholicism, that I, myself, was Jewish. As Jewish as Barbra Streisand.

You Want to be Jewish?

Finding out my mother was Jewish was a bigger surprise than my parents' divorce. It made no sense. This was Canada, where multi-culturalism reigned supreme, anyone could worship whatever and whoever they wanted.

At first, I turned to my father, who admitted my mother was Jewish but denied I could be Jewish. "You were baptized, you had First Communion," he stuttered incredulously. "Why do you want to be Jewish?"

My dear papa went on to say, "The Jews, they are all communists. They were responsible for the deaths of many of my friends. They never had real jobs, only money lenders."

My dear papa went on to say, "The Jews, they are all communists. They were responsible for the deaths of many of my friends. They never had real jobs, only money lenders."

I was shocked, and now understood why my mother was so anxious at the Polish Catholic affairs. Those friends, those "reptiles," knew she was Jewish. Antisemitism was still alive and well in Toronto's Polish community.

And my mother also refused to believe I was Jewish, for all the same reasons as my father. It took time, but I managed to convince her. Once I knew what she'd been through, I understood why she'd hidden her Judaism.

Surviving the Holocaust

She had been born Dorota Milstein in Czestochowa in Poland, and her parents were assimilated Jews. Maurycy Milstein and Bronislawa Dawidowicz raised their daughter with love, and she was surrounded by doting aunts, uncles and cousins.

Then, in September, 1939, everything changed. The Milsteins were in Lwów when the Soviets invaded. Within two years, the Nazis marched in. Maurycy and Bronislawa were murdered, and my 25-year-old mother was on her own. She escaped the Lwów ghetto on the day it was to be liquidated, using a gentile alias.

(l-r) My grandfather, Maurycy Milstein; my grandmother, Bronislawa Dawidowicz Milstein; my mother, Dorota Milstein; my great grandmother Rivka Milstein ca 1929. Only my mother, Dorota, survived.

Now a good Polish Catholic girl, Joanna Litniowska, my mother made her way to Berchtesgaden, only four kilometres from Hitler's summer headquarters, and found a job at the Hotel Schiffmeister. It was a favorite haunt of Hitler and his mistress Eva Braun. What would they have said if they'd known a Jew was just two handshakes away, working in the hotel?

Once liberated by the Allies, Joanna Litniowska once again became Dorota Milstein. She met her future husband and my father, Andrew Lagowski, in a displaced persons camp in Munich, converted to Catholicism and came to Canada.

But she never forgot what she'd been through. My mother, who I came to think of as Dorota/Joanna, had raised me with love and tenderness, despite all the horrors she'd endured. I couldn't be prouder of her.

Today, I have developed a strong Jewish consciousness. I attend high holidays, celebrate the Jewish holidays, and wear a Star of David. I've bought yarzheit plaques for my mother and her parents at the local synagogue, and entered their names into the Yad Vashem database. After tracing my genealogy, I discovered Jewish cousins only 20 minutes away from me!

With my cousins at a Bar Mitzvah, November, 2019.

Now, I know I belong to a nation of people that has survived and thrived, despite being persecuted for centuries. I've come to understand and embrace Jewish values. I like giving back to the community, standing up for Israel, and striking back vociferously at antisemitism, bigotry and racism.

Most of all, I tell my mother's story over and over again. I give talks at Hadassah groups, synagogues, Jewish events, Hebrew schools, for radio, television, podcasts, wherever I am asked. I am obsessed with the Holocaust and Polish Jewish history, attending seminars, reading books and writing for outlets around the world. My mother was a Jewish woman who could never lose her origins, even though she wanted to raise a family free of her troubled history.

Her courage, her resoluteness, brought her out of the Holocaust. She followed a beacon of hope and managed to achieve her dreams.

That her daughter would uncover her story and tell it to the world, she couldn't know. But I hope she would be proud.