"I thought
everyone in Poland was Catholic," the now 32-year-old Daniela says. "When I
first found out I was Jewish, it was a shock. But I also found the news very
exciting. I felt like I had a very rich sea to swim in and I wanted to find out
more."
That "more"
has led to a remarkable journey for Daniela - from a pre-teen in Poland with no
Jewish knowledge and little way to research it ("we didn't have Google back
then"), to a leadership role in the Jewish community of Krakow, to her eventual
immigration to Israel, where she now lives in Tel Aviv working as a consultant
for an international organization, as a Polish translator, and as a Jewish
genealogical consultant.
Daniela's
family grew up in Belarus and were fortunate to escape the war in the far
eastern part of Russia, safe from the Nazis. When they returned, they chose to
settle in Warsaw. Daniela's mother married a Catholic man and set up a home
that was essentially "not religious," Daniela explains. "I knew we were
different but I didn't know how."
Daniela's
parents (her father knew her mother was Jewish) hid the family's Jewish
background "out of fear," Daniela says. "Although I don't think my mother
experienced any anti-Semitism after the war, she didn't feel it was safe to say
openly that you're a Jew in Poland."
After the
fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, however, Daniela's mother decided to test the
waters. When she saw that nothing happened even though they were publicly
identified as Jewish, her mother began attending Jewish events in the
community. "She reads the chumash
(the five books of Moses that comprise the Torah) translated into Polish,"
Daniela says proudly.
Meanwhile,
Daniela moved to Krakow to attend university.
To read the rest of our profile of Daniela, please click here to visit the Shavei Israel website.
