Having no work and running out of their small financial means, they had to sell many personal belongings, and Rywka lost many more, including her family photos, when she dropped her knapsack while crossing a river or lake by foot. Rywka and Jonas fled alone despite her misgivings about leaving her family. They refused, convinced that Jonas' worries were over-blown. Jonas, having heard what had happened in Germany under Nazi rule, was determined to leave for the east and tried to convince Rywka's family to join them. Rywka and Jonas married in 1939, only a few months before the start of World War II. She attended a Polish school and later worked at the Rechnitz metal factory. Her father Mordechai (Mordka) Welner was a merchant and her mother Pessl (nee Grossman) was a housewife. Rywka Regina Welner was born in Dabrowa Gornicza, Poland on Septemto an Orthodox Jewish family. After growing up an orphan in the Zaglebie region of Poland, Jonas went to work in a shoe factory in Katowitz. Shulem passed away shortly after Jonas' birth, so Jonas assumed the last name of his mother. Jonas Markowicz was born in Zawierce, Poland on Augto Shulem (Shalom) Grossman and Reizl Markowicz. Biography Pessia Polak is the daughter of Jonas (Yona) Markowicz and Rywka Welner.

Camp pardes chana