Eve Przemyski papers

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum 

Eve Przemyski papers 

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The Eve Przemyski papers include biographical materials, a handcrafted clandestine diary, and photographs documenting Eve’s prewar life in Równe, Poland (now Rivne, Ukraine), her internment in prisoner of war camps at Sandbostel and Oberlangen following the Warsaw Uprising, her service in the Polish armed forces at the end of the war, and her relocation to England and immigration to the United States with her husband, Richard Przemyski, after the war. Her handmade diary includes rich descriptions and illustrations documenting her internment in two POW camps in 1944 and 1945. 

The Eve Przemyski papers are arranged as three series: I. Biographical materials, 1927-1964, II. Diary, 1944-1945, III. Photographs, approximately 1925-1956 

Eve Przemyski (Ewa Łada) was born in 1923 in Warsaw, Poland to lawyer and civil servant Tadeusz Łada (1877-1941?) and Maria Horoch Łada (1887-1967). Following Tadeusz’s retirement, the family lived on a working farm in Sosenski, Poland, near Równe (now Rivne, Ukraine). Eve and Maria moved to Równe following the Soviet invasion of eastern Poland in September 1939, and Tadeusz rejoined them in June 1941, after the German invasion of the Soviet Union. He was arrested in August 1941 for illegally listening to the BBC news and is presumed to have been executed. Maria and Eve moved to Warsaw in May 1944 and lived with Eve’s maternal uncle, Jozef Horoch, at 12 Mokotowska Street. When the Warsaw Uprising began in August 1944, Eve joined the Armia Krajowa (Home Army), became a stretcher bearer, and met Danuta Szeniawska (1922-2007). The Polish forces capitulated in October, and Eve and Danuta were among 1,000 Polish young women insurgents taken to the Sandbostel POW camp (Stalag X-B). Eve worked cleaning offices and fashioned a handmade diary from German payroll documents and pencil stubs she pilfered. She and Danuta were transferred to the Oberlangen POW camp (Stalag VI-C) in December 1944, where Eve worked digging peat moss. They were liberated by Polish troops in the First Armored Division of the British Army in April 1945 and moved to nearby Niederlangen. When the British authorities announced that they would permit family unifications with Polish soldiers serving with the Polish Second Corps (Anders’ Army) in Italy, Danuta decided to join her step father, Captain Rozwidzki, and Eve accompanied her, having invented an uncle in Italy. Eve took a Morse typing course in Mottola and worked as a Morse code telegraph operator for the British Army. Eve moved to Rome and met her future husband, Ryszard Przemyski (1924-1999). Richard had also fought in the Warsaw Uprising, survived the Luckenwalde POW camp (Stalag III-A), and joined the Polish Second Corps in Italy. The young couple was transferred to England, married in 1946, settled in Herefordshire, and had two children. In 1956 a distant relative in America arranged for the Przemyski family to immigrate to the United States, and they settled in Pennsylvania and Americanized their names to Eve and Richard.