Through My Eyes

Her name, Zofia Koryl, she was my grandmother and she gently slipped away from this life last Tuesday.

The story of my grandmother is a tale that needs to be told. Her whole life she believed that she was better then her circumstances, she was made for finer things and yes, her genetic makeup proved her right.

One story my grandmother told me was that her father was the illegitimate child of royalty, which in her mind made her a royal too. She did not have to use too many powers of persuasions to convince me.

My grandmother was a beautiful woman in her time. Tall and slim with bright blue eyes and beautiful blond hair, which she rolled onto toilet paper curlers each night, she was always perfectly attired and coiffed.

Her stories of her 'Noble' father were fascinating. She told me that her father's studio was in a basement of some store and that his window was in line with the street level and that when he was making shoes he would sing like a nightingale. People would stand around the window to listen to his music. She also told me that the shoes he made were the finest in the whole county.

You see, in those days in Poland you had to be 'somebody' to be taught a trade. Illiteracy was rampant and very few people could do more than menial labour, never mind actually having a profession. My grandmother believed that it was her father's Noble family that set him up in life and gave him this fabulous craft.

My grandmother was less impressed with her mother, in fact very little was said about my great grandmother besides the fact that she only bothered to breastfeed my grandmother for a measly seven months, probably why my grandmother suffered hectic rheumatism in adulthood that prematurely landed her on her back, unable to walk and in great pain.

I guess my favourite stories that my granny ever told me were of the war. Right at the start of WWII my grandfather was taken to a labour camp in Germany where he worked for Singer, making army uniforms for the Nazis. My grandmother was left alone with my father and expecting her second child.

Times were bleak, the hunger was intense and her resilience grew. She had these precious lives to take care of. She sweetly boasted about how her 'Arian Noble' looks allowed her to survive. She never had to sit at the back of the bus with the rest of the Poles, she was allowed up front. She had the same luck with getting food.

The bombing knew nothing about her imperial status and after a bomb landed on her home she was left with nothing and had to flee on foot to her family home just on the outskirts of Auschwitz. In the snow, with a baby in the pram and my father at just four years old my granny made the trek.

Its beyond me to comprehend the suffering she went through just to survive. When I got to know her, she was deeply religious and ready to meet her Maker. Surrounded by the images of her relics with the rosary wrapped around her fingers she prayed to go to heaven. She would often say "Don't worry, you are also on my prayer list." And as I bend down to kiss her she would make the sign of the cross on my forehead and say, "God is with you."

I had no doubt of that. As I have no doubt that my granny is with the angels right now as I am typing these words. Rest in peace Babciu.

Obituary - Zofia Koryl

The bravest woman I know passed away this week. She was my Babcia, Zofia Koryl. She was born in 1918. She lived through the biggest genocide this world has ever seen, in the darkest place on the planet. In the chaos and turmoil she gave birth to the most amazing man I know, my father. As we all mourn her passing, we remember the woman who survived when most perished and lived to share her tales with us.