Zofia Karpuk was born in 1935 and her brother Janusz in 1939 in Pinsk (then Poland, now Belarus). They are the children of Jan, a road construction engineer, and Janina, a postal worker. Their father was active in the Polish resistance movement and disappeared during the war.
In March 1944, the siblings and their mother were deported in cattle cars to Bavaria, where Janina Karpuk had to work as a forced labourer on a farm in Urfar near Malching. The children did lighter jobs, such as sweeping the yard, collecting eggs and helping in the kitchen.
Janina died in January 1945. Another female Polish labourer took care of the children until the end of the war, the siblings were later sent to the International Children’s Centre Kloster Indersdorf.
At Kloster Indersdorf, the children were regularly weighed and given matching clothing, enough food and a clean bed. ”Nevertheless, there was a great inner emptiness,” Sofia recalls.
In mid-1946, Zofia and Janusz returned to Poland. They were first sent to Kędzierzyn-Koźle, where there was a repatriation point; from there they were taken to Katowice and placed in the Szopienica orphanage. Sofia graduated in chemistry and settled in Łódź. Janusz settled in Katowice and devoted himself to sport. His handball team – AZS Katowice – won the Polish championship in 1964.
After 64 years, Zofia and Janusz visited Markt Indersdorf again in May 2009, wandering through the corridors and cloisters at the place where they found refuge after the death of their mother. In 2011, the siblings donated the suitcase with which they arrived in Indersdorf in 1945 to the Heimatsverein Indersdorf association. This suitcase is now on display at the Museum of Bavarian History (Haus der Bayerischen Geschichte) in Regensburg, in an exhibition on forced labour in Bavaria.
Janusz Karpuk died on 3 September 2021 in Katowice, Poland.
1. The Karpuk family, family archive of Zofia and Janusz Karpuk
2. Last photo with his mother, family archive of Zofia and Janusz Karpuk
Last photo of Polish forced labourer Janina Karpuk with her children Zofia and Janusz on a Bavarian farm.
3. Greta Fischer with the Karpuk siblings, Vancouver Holocaust Education Center
Arrival at the DP Kloster Indersdorf International Children’s Centre. UNRRA employee Greta Fischer looked through the Karpuk siblings’ suitcase, searching for clues that may have helped locate surviving family members of the children.
4. Janusz Karpuk, US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington DC.
5. Sofia Karpuk, US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington D.C.
6. Search for relatives, United Nations Archives and Records Center, New York.
Sofia and Janusz Karpuk’s greatest dream was to find their relatives. UNRRA staff did everything to make this happen. All the information they could gather on the siblings was written down and sent to the central UNRRA search office. Unfortunately, upon their return to Poland, the children were brought up in an orphanage.
7. Handing over the suitcase, Heimatsverein Indersdorf archive
Siblings Zofia and Janusz Karpuk donated the suitcase with which they arrived at the centre in 1945 to the Heimatsverein Indersdorf association in 2011. The suitcase is now in the Museum of Bavarian History in Regensburg.