back...A meeting with Ms Barbara Paciorkiewicz – a victim of Germanisation 

On 19 January 2024, to celebrate the 79th anniversary of the closing of the German occupation in Łódź, at the Museum of Polish Children – Victims of Totalitarianism, there was a meeting with a witness of history, Mrs Barbara Paciorkiewicz, who, as a Polish child during WWII, was subject to Germanisation.

Mrs Paciorkiewicz was raised by a German family. In 1948, she came back to Poland and, for many years, tried to find the answer to the question: who am I?

- Bärbel from a German family in the town of Lemgo in Germany is actually four-year-old Basia, a Polish girl Germanised together with 200 thousand other victims – Polish children taken away during World War II – informed the Director of the Museum of Polish Children – Victims of Totalitarianism.

The many participants who attended the meeting had an opportunity to learn about the fate of Mrs Paciorkiewicz, among other things. How did she get back to Poland? What did she find here and how did she manage to re-establish her life anew? Who does she feel herself to be – a Pole or a German?

The lecture and meeting with Ms Barbara Paciorkiewicz were followed by a lively discussion concerning the abduction of Polish children in 1939–1945.