
Judy and Velvul, reunited in Italy in 1947
By: Tasha Ackerman
Growing up, Jack Borowski was part of a unique community in Melbourne, where the shared experience of Holocaust survival shaped the bonds between families. Within his social circle, everyone’s parents had survived the Holocaust, each with their own story of resilience. Some had endured the horrors of the camps, while others – like Jack’s parents, Judy and Velvul Borowski – escaped ghettos and joined the partisans in the forest. Despite this common history, it was a largely unspoken aspect of their daily lives.
Jack’s childhood was filled with love, and his parents instilled in him and his sister a positive outlook on life. However, subtle reminders of what their parents had endured occasionally surfaced in their daily lives. Jack recalls that none of his friends had grandparents, a symbol of the loss of family members that everyone had experienced during the war. This lack of extended family created a unique bond among the survivors and the next generation, who came to rely on each other as if they were one large family. At home, certain rules reflected the lingering trauma of their parents’ experiences. For instance, his father, who had been attacked by a dog during the war, forbade the family from having one. While these reminders were not burdensome, they served to show how the seeds of trauma experienced during the war remained rooted for years beyond liberation.
Hearing stories about the Holocaust was not common for Jack as he was growing up, however when Judy and Velvul’s grandchildren entered school and began learning about Jewish history, they came to their grandparents to ask questions. They were commonly tasked with “roots” projects and became curious about their grandparents’ experiences. By then, time had distanced Judy and Velvul from the trauma and they had embraced their experience as part of their legacy. It seemed that they were in some ways more able to open up to this generation about their experiences than they had been with their own children.
Jack’s parents, Judy and Velvul Borowski were married in 1940 in Novogrudok, six months before the German invasion. Judy was originally from Karelich, a small village near Novogrudok and Velvul was from Zelechov, a Polish shtetl between Warsaw and Lublin. Judy grew up in what she described as a happy home with seven siblings. She belonged to Hashomer Hatzair, a Zionist youth movement and began working as a dressmaker after her father passed away to help support her mother and her siblings. This led her to move to Novogrudok and live with an aunt since it was a larger town with more economic opportunities. Velvul moved to Novogrudok for job opportunities at age fifteen with his brother, Aron, and Aron’s wife. Velvul had begun his craft as a tailor at age 10 when he began working as an apprentice in order to support his family financially. Even with the rise in antisemitism before the war, the newlyweds were hopeful to start their lives together in Novogrudok. Karelich and Novogrudok, once villages in Poland, became part of Soviet Belarus after Hitler and Stalin divided Poland in 1939. In 1941, when the Nazis broke their pact with the Soviets and invaded, the region fell under German occupation, and the Einsatzgruppen, the paramilitary death squads of Nazi Germany, began their brutal mission to exterminate Jews.
- Velvul Borowski, March 1943
- Judy Borowski, 1947
After the Nazi invasion, Judy and Velvul were forcibly moved to the ghetto established in Novogrudok that housed over 10,000 Jews from the surrounding areas. In the ghetto, Velvul worked making lambskin gloves for the Germans. He was paid with a portion of bread and soup. When work was not completed in time, the workers were beaten. Decades later, Velvul would note the scar he still had on his forehead when recounting his time there to his son Jack. Judy, meanwhile, worked in the ghetto market, doing a variety of tasks including physical labour.
In the ghetto, the threat of mass executions loomed. Judy and Velvul had already lost family members in the first months after the Nazis invaded. Velvul’s brother-in-law, Shtasek Botakovich, was shot alongside 51 other Jewish men in the centre of Novogrudok by the Nazis while an orchestra played. Afterwards, Vevul’s sister, Chana, cleaned up the murder site. Over 5,500 Jews were killed during the ghettos’ second massacre, including Velvul’s mother, brother, sister, nieces, nephews and inlaws, and Judy’s mother, three sisters, and nephew.
Over four months later, on 22 December 1942, the couple made their first escape attempt. Judy managed to escape, while Velvul froze in fear and did not manage to escape at that time. Judy escaped with a group of seventeen people. As Judy made her way to the Bielski partisans in the forest, the weather conditions were harsh, with freezing temperatures. t times they had to trudge through waist-deep snow. Traumatised from the experience in the ghetto, Judy told partisan leader Tuvia Bielski upon meeting him of the daily schittas. Shitta is a Yiddish term derived from the Hebrew word “shechita,” traditionally used to refer to the ritual slaughter of animals to keep the laws of kashrut. During the Holocaust, the term was often used as a euphemism to describe the mass executions, since Jews were put through a “selection” to determine if they would be chosen for execution. Tuvia comforted Judy by putting his arm around her and telling her not to worry. Two of Judy’s brothers and two sisters had also escaped, and they were reunited in the forest.
Meanwhile, in the ghetto, Velvul remained not knowing whether Judy’s escape was successful or what condition she was in. Almost five months later on May 7th 1943, the Nazis orchestrated the third massacre in the Novogrudok ghetto, leaving only 300 surviving Jews. Berl Yoselevich organised the construction of a 250-metre-long tunnel that would be used for a mass escape attempt. The tunnel construction was a complex operation, which included a trolley system to remove the dirt. The prisoners even managed to wire the tunnel so that it had lighting in spite of having limited means to do so. Many people risked their lives just obtaining the necessary tools to dig, since anyone caught stealing equipment from the workshop would be immediately executed. The construction of the tunnel took over five months to complete, and they chose 26th September 1943 for the escape date. After the diggers, a lottery was set to determine the order of escapees. Velvul’s number was 174. He escaped through the tunnel, along with his brother Aron and sister Shandel.
In the forest, Velvul was reunited with Judy. He described this reunion as the first miracle, and the second miracle as the restoration of dignity and hope he received by becoming part of the Jewish partisan group. Despite the hard conditions of living in the Naliboki forest, they were able to live freely. In the forest, Velvul worked as a tailor and earned extra food as a form of payment. When they were liberated by the Russians on 16 June 1944, Judy and Velvul left the forest along with Judy’s two brothers and two sisters, and Velvul’s surviving brother and two sisters. Velvul noted in his testimony that the 1,230 Jews who left the forest that day owed their lives to the Bielskis.
Yet soon after liberation, Velvul and Judy were separated once again when Velvul was conscripted into the Russian army. After Velvul was released in 1946, he underwent significant risks to be reunited once again with Judy, who he had heard was at a displaced persons camp in Italy. Velvul travelled through Germany and Austria, and smuggled himself across the Alps into Italy, reuniting with Judy at a displaced persons camp outside of Turin. They lived there for almost three years under difficult conditions.
- Judy and Velvul, reunited in Italy in 1947
- Judy and Velvul together in Melbourne around 1995.
- Four generations in 2009. From left to right – Adam, Velvul, Jarrah, Jack, and David. Velvul had other great-grandchildren before Jarrah, but he was the first Borowksi of the next generation.
After their daughter Annette was born in 1947, Velvul and Judy began considering the next steps for their family. Several of their family members had already relocated around the world, to Israel, Rhodesia, Brazil, and the United States. Velvul and Judy emigrated to Australia, where they joined Velvul’s cousin, who had settled in Melbourne before the war. Their life in Melbourne felt like a promising new beginning, and they adopted a positive outlook that they carried with them through the rest of their lives. They began working and Judy gave birth to their second child, Jack in 1950.
In Melbourne, Velvul and Judy connected with other survivors from Zelechov, the shtetl where Vevul grew up before he moved at age fifteen, forming a strong bond and supportive community. This way, the parents of most of Jack’s close family friends had survived the Holocaust, though with varying experiences. Both the first generation and second generation shared a bond. Jack still remains close with his childhood friends and they support each other in their reflection on their experiences and that of their parents.
Jack recounts having a positive childhood and explains that while his parents spoke about their experiences somewhat, they didn’t really start opening up about more specific details and relationships until their grandchildren started asking. Growing up, Jack’s family would attend Holocaust memorial events and sing partisan songs. At home, they spoke English and Yiddish. Jack had known that he had family displaced around the world, who he would eventually meet in his twenties. To this day, the younger generation still keeps in touch across continents.
Jack is grateful that his parents shared their stories and that it has become part of their legacy. Amongst Jack’s friends whose parents were also survivors, many struggle not knowing their parents’ stories since they were unable to ever speak to their children about what they experienced. Jack has recorded interviews of his parents’ testimony, and in 2020 during COVID-19 lockdowns, transcribed and edited their testimonies into a book entitled: True Survivors: The Story of Judy and Velvul Borowski. Jack printed 300 copies of the book that were distributed to the family as well as people in Jack’s community, sharing it with whoever was interested such as patients he had over the years through his career as a dentist. Jack recognizes that it is the personal story that helps people connect to and understand history.
Jack has witnessed the power of human relationships and stories to contextualise history and build empathy. After the arson terror attack on the Adass Israel Synagogue of Melbourne, a former dental patient called Jack to let him know he was thinking of him. Jack shared that the moments as small as speaking, just calling to check in, have meant the world to him since the October 7th attacks and the rise of antisemitism he has experienced in Australia.
Jack’s parents took the approach that it was necessary to get on with life and had an inspiring outlook despite the horrors they had endured. This outlook not only shaped Jack and Annette’s childhoods, but is also something Jack is passing on to future generations. Jack began volunteering with Courage to Care, which is a programme aimed at educating youth about racism, antisemitism, and discrimination. The programme teaches the importance of becoming upstanders and about bystander behaviour. The organisation provides workshops for youth and educators, where volunteers share their survival stories, demonstrating how ordinary people have the power to save lives through courageous actions. Jack stresses through these talks how his family members were saved through such actions. Oftentimes, for the person offering a hand, it might seem like nothing, but to the receiver, it can mean the world.
Growing up, Jack explains he and his parents never experienced antisemitism in Melbourne, but since October 7th, Australian Jews have felt a new consciousness of being Jewish. Jack notices now his children and grandchildren are becoming more outspoken about being Jewish, feeling the necessity to take a stand against violence and hateful rhetoric.
This renewed sense of identity ties back to the legacy of resilience and optimism that Velvul and Judy Borowski left for their family and community. Jack believes that through sharing their story, it will continue to have a positive ripple effect on future generations, allowing them to remember the history, resist antisemitism in the present, and give hope for the future.
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