Photograph of Cesha Glazer
Cesha was 17 years old when she was confined to the Warsaw Ghetto. She convinced her parents that the family’s only hope for survival was for her to escape to make money and buy food. She obtained a birth certificate from a Christian girl about her age and rented an apartment. With her light hair and fair complexion, she blended in with the population. She frequently risked her life sneaking food and money back to the Ghetto until 1942, when her family was deported to Treblinka and murdered.
Cesha rented a new apartment with two sisters who pretended to be her aunts. They created a hiding spot in the kitchen where they hid up to six people at a time. She took a job in a German laundry, where she secretly removed Nazi insignia from uniforms and smuggled them to the underground movement. This photograph was taken in front of the laundry.
In 1944, Cesha was sent to Germany with thousands of other Polish forced labourers. She returned to Warsaw after the war, maintaining her Christian facade. When she met her future husband, neither knew initially that the other was Jewish. They immigrated to Australia in 1958.
Donated by Cesha Glazer nee Esther Oryl
M2007/064:002
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