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"My Nanny Was With Me Throughout the War"

Barbara Biran

Barbara spent most of her early childhood with her nanny, Stanislawa Klapa. "As it was a Polish household," recalls Barbara, "I barely participated in meals or things that involved adults, because children ate separately and I ate with my nanny."

Barbara still has three books from that period – children’s poetry books by the Polish Jewish poet Julian Tuwim. One of the poems praises Warsaw, Barbara’s birthplace.

How big Warsaw is!
So many houses! So many people!
How much happiness
The capital city awakens in our hearts!

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Barbara with her nanny Stanislawa

Barbara with her nanny Stanislawa

Barbara with her nanny Stanislawa

The poem Warsaw in Barbara’s copy of Julian Tuwim’s book of Polish children’s verse, Zosia Samosia

The poem Warsaw in Barbara’s copy of Julian Tuwim’s book of Polish children’s verse, Zosia Samosia

The poem Warsaw in Barbara’s copy of Julian Tuwim’s book of Polish children’s verse, Zosia Samosia

The poem Warsaw in Barbara’s copy of Julian Tuwim’s book of Polish children’s verse, Zosia Samosia

The poem Warsaw in Barbara’s copy of Julian Tuwim’s book of Polish children’s verse, Zosia Samosia

The poem Warsaw in Barbara’s copy of Julian Tuwim’s book of Polish children’s verse, Zosia Samosia

Lazar Krynski

Maria (Miriam) Krynski

Maria (Miriam) Krynski

Maria (Miriam) Krynski

Barbara as a child

Barbara as a child

Barbara as a child

Barbara with her mother

Barbara with her mother

Barbara with her mother

Barbara’s dolls and children’s books

Barbara’s dolls and children’s books

Barbara’s dolls and children’s books

Barbara with her nanny Stanislawa

Barbara with her nanny Stanislawa

The poem Warsaw in Barbara’s copy of Julian Tuwim’s book of Polish children’s verse, Zosia Samosia

The poem Warsaw in Barbara’s copy of Julian Tuwim’s book of Polish children’s verse, Zosia Samosia

The poem Warsaw in Barbara’s copy of Julian Tuwim’s book of Polish children’s verse, Zosia Samosia

The poem Warsaw in Barbara’s copy of Julian Tuwim’s book of Polish children’s verse, Zosia Samosia

Lazar Krynski

Lazar Krynski

Maria (Miriam) Krynski

Maria (Miriam) Krynski

Barbara as a child

Barbara as a child

Barbara with her mother

Barbara with her mother

Barbara’s dolls and children’s books

Barbara’s dolls and children’s books

Barbara was four years old when the war broke out. Her parents Maria (Miriam) and Lazar Krynski decided to leave Warsaw and to join Lazar’s family in Vilna. The nanny, Stanislawa, remained in Warsaw to watch over the family home.

Shortly after the occupation of Vilna by the Germans in June 1941, Lazar was taken to the Lukiszki prison in Vilna. Barbara remembers standing with her mother under an umbrella at the entrance to the prison. She remembers her mother trying to plead with the guard, and the two of them returning home as they had come. They never saw Lazar again.

Barbara’s next memory is from the ghetto. She primarily remembers the overcrowding. Following the first Aktion in the ghetto, her mother managed to smuggle both of them out. They stayed in a hiding place in Vilna while they waited for false papers that were supposed to help them to hide in a village. Several days after they arrived at the hiding place, Stanislawa the nanny knocked on the door. To this day, Barbara has no idea how Stanislawa managed to locate them. She had travelled all the way from Warsaw to Vilna, with the intention of returning Barbara and her mother to Warsaw. Stanislawa convinced Barbara’s mother that their chances of survival were greater in Warsaw, and they returned there following many upheavals along the way. Her experiences thus far did not prepare Barbara for the horrific scenes that confronted her in the Warsaw ghetto, especially the sight of people dying of hunger in the streets. Stanislawa managed to smuggle Barbara and her mother out of the ghetto using forged Aryan identity documents. They hid in the village of Zalesia, Stanislawa acquiring food for them in exchange for the family’s remaining belongings that she would sell in the surrounding villages.

After the war Miriam, Barbara and Stanislawa moved to Lodz.

In November 1949, Barbara immigrated to Israel with her uncle Naum Krynski, her father’s surviving brother. Her mother arrived a year later and in 1962 the Jewish Agency arranged for Stanislawa, the devoted nanny to join them; by then she was 70 years old.

Barbara donated the three childhood books by Julian Tuwim that Stanislawa had kept throughout the war, to Yad Vashem.

Stanislawa Klapa was recognized as Righteous Among the Nations on 2 April 2013.

Fragments of Childhood Righteous Among the Nations