Irenka Kwiatkowska from Warsaw. Maybe someone will recognize her smile? JHI Genealogy asks for help \ News \ Irenka Kwiatkowska from Warsaw. Maybe someone will recognize her smile? JHI Genealogy asks for help \ Żydowski Instytut Historyczny

Irenka Kwiatkowska from Warsaw. Maybe someone will recognize her smile? JHI Genealogy asks for help

Written by: JHI Genealogy

Simple DNA tests can bring unexpected results that lead to finding a family, identity lost during the war, regaining their first name, fragments of life that seemed to be lost. But not in this case. The research only confirmed that Irenka was a Jewish child. She was adopted by a beautiful family who adopted her and looked after her in later life.

Irenka Kwiatkowska – maybe someone will recognize her characteristic smile?

Irenka was left at home at 55 Sienna Street by "Aunt Róża," as Irenka herself said, probably a nurse of the hospital where Irenka, suffering from pneumonia, saved herself from the fate of the people of the Warsaw Ghetto.

"It was 1943, the first Sunday of Easter according to the Catholic faith," as Irenka's adoptive sister, who was already 20 years old, writes in her testimony after the war. Irenka was three years old (this is how her age describe by the doctor who examined her), "she was dressed in a white faux sheepskin coat, she had no shoes on her feet, only slippers."

The girl also said that her name was Irenka Kwiatkowska. Dark blonde with blue eyes. She also remembers having an older brother. And that's all.

In the photos you can see Irena at different times of her life. Maybe someone will recognize her characteristic smile?

Fragment_murów_getta_ul._Sienna_55_Adrian_Grycuk_wiki_ccbysa30.jpg

Fragment_muru_getta_przy_ul._Siennej_55_w_Warszawie_Adrian_Grycuk_Wikipedia_ccbysa30.jpg

Warsaw, backyard of the tenement house at ul. Sienna 55. Wikipedia, Adrian Grycuk, CC-BY SA 3.0.

At 55 Sienna Street there is a tenement house which before the war belonged to Isers and Borowik and was designed by Jerzy Gelbard and Roman Sigalin, two well-known Warsaw architects. In the backyard one of the few fragments of the walls of the Warsaw ghetto has survived.

Contact JHI Genealogy Department: familyheritage@jhi.pl