At the age of 7, most kids are busy making friends, sharing toys with siblings, and playing outside from dawn until dusk. Stasia was an average 7-year-old on her family’s farm in Poland—until the roar of military trucks and the shouts of German Nazi soldiers changed her life forever.

That day in 1942 started like any other, with Stasia and her cousin playing out in the fields. Until, that is, the soldiers arrived. In the sudden chaos and fear, Stasia ran toward her house. “They were running after me, thinking that the children would run toward their father or mother to hide,” recounts Stasia. Thankfully, her father was nowhere to be found, as the Gestapo barged through their door, yelling at her mother and three siblings to get out.

By the time night fell, Stasia, along with her mother and siblings, were cold, wet, and hungry, marching barefoot with the other women and children from their village to one of three concentration camps Hitler had constructed in Poland. “And all night, I remember it raining. It was raining so bad. With bare feet, because we didn’t have any shoes. All night, they were marching us to that Majdanek concentration camp, in the outskirts of Lublin,” said Stasia.

After a month in the concentration camp, Stasia and her family were uprooted once again by the rough hands of the Gestapo. They were shoved into cattle cars more people than there was air to breathe and sent off to Germany for labor. Surrounded by the sounds of marching and the sights of young men with German flags hailing Hitler, they arrived in a country filled with hate. Hitler’s followers despised the Polish, Jewish, and the rest of Europe. Her reunited family was sent to farmland owned by monks. There her parents were forced to work the land while she and her siblings collected apples to store in the cellars. Stasia credits the need for labor as “what saved us.”

The days brought grueling working conditions, surrounded by people who despised them, and night brought sirens and bombings. All hours brought fear. As the night raids began and American planes flew overhead, the lights would go off and the sirens would go on, indicating it was time to run to the cellars and hide. “You got so used to it,” Stasia recalls. “One time, I was still out playing when the sirens went off. I guess I was a little late because the bombs were already coming down. The pressure just pushed me on my face right into the German cellar.” For two years, night after night, she remembered the sky lighting up and the earth trembling as the American planes roared over Germany dropping bombs.

But Stasia and her family persisted. After World War II ended in 1945, she remembers spending the years 1946–1949 in a displaced persons camp in Germany waiting to relocate. Her family and many others struggling with the reality of what had happened to their friends, neighbors, and homeland. “I remember I either got shoes two sizes too big or two sizes too small. I’m surprised my toes are still there,” Stasia said with a smile. They had to work with what they were provided in these camps, but it was better than the alternative, and for that, they were grateful. The American sponsorship of these camps profoundly impacted Stasia and her family. After the war, when they had the option to go back to Poland, stay in Germany, or move to one of the multiple countries that had opened its borders, they chose the United States.

At 13, Stasia made the dangerous voyage to America with her family, which now included a newborn baby brother. For 10 days, the ship bounced them across the Atlantic Ocean, until they reached New York Harbor and arrived at Ellis Island. “My father went on his knees and kissed the American soil. Crying from the concentration camp, ready to die, and here we are in America,” recounts Stasia.

This journey inexplicably changed Stasia’s life; even after all these years, she still feels the lasting impact. “Sometimes I have fear when the lights go off because there were no lights in Germany. It was dark,” said Stasia. Even with the fears lingering, Stasia has a beautiful outlook. “I am just appreciative for the life I have and being able to have this life.” Stasia said. “I would not have wanted to live any place else on Earth except America. You’ve got so much you can achieve with hard work.”

Now, at 88, Stasia remembers her childhood cut short by the hate and greed of Hitler to own the world. Despite the memories of pain and fear, she remarks, “I’ve had a good life. A very happy life.”

During this Holocaust Remembrance Month, let us honor Stasia and reflect on the beautiful, positive life that can come from intense darkness and pain. Gratitude for what goes right can make all the difference.