Holocaust Testimony: Kitty Hart-Moxon

I was born Kitty Felix in a town called Bielsko in Poland, which in 1939 was very close to the German and Czechoslovakian frontiers. My brother Robert was five years older. We had a wonderful and most interesting childhood. Because our town lay at the foot of a mountain range, we had numerous sports facilities and most of the inhabitants spent their leisure time in the mountains. In winter there was skiing, tobogganing, and ice skating. In summer everyone went hiking and climbing. And we also had swimming, athletic and gymnastic clubs.

I was 12 years old at the outbreak of the war in 1939. The German armies invaded Poland very close to our town. Because we were so close to the frontier, most of the population started to flee days before the invasion.

My father decided to head for the centre of the country to a town called Lublin. I was quite unable to grasp what was happening. But as the Germans brought the war ever closer and the town was bombed daily, I began to suspect that there was something terribly serious happening.

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