Bula (Katz-Przedborska) Polański

Biography

Bula (or Bella) was the mother of film director, Roman Polanski.

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Katz-Przedborska-1

Bula (Katz-Przedborska) Polański died as a result of persecution during the Holocaust.

Bula was born in Russia. She was of half-Jewish ancestry but was raised Catholic. She was married twice. By her first husband she had a daughter, Annette. Her second husband was Ryszard Polanski (born Liebling), a painter and manufacturer of sculptures. They were the parents of film director Roman Polanski.

After living for some time in Paris, the family moved back to Kraków in 1936. After the invasion of Poland, they were forced into the ghetto of Kraków. When the ghetto was liquidated between June 1942 and March 1943, Bula was sent to Auschwitz where she was murdered[1].

https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Pola%C5%84ski#CITEREFWerner2013 retrieved 4 November 2024

He [Roman Polanski] was born on August 18, 1933 in Paris as Raymond Thierry Liebling [9] . He was the son of Moses Liebling (1903–1983 [10] ) and Bella (Bula) Katz-Przedborska (1900–1943). The father of the later director was a Pole of Jewish origin. He was born in Kraków , and in the late 1920s he moved to Paris to become a painter. Bella's parents came from Russia – her father was Jewish and her mother Catholic. Bella's family was well-off. Bella lived initially in Poland and later in Paris, where she married and where Raymond's half-sister – Annette – was born. Bella divorced her first husband after she began an affair with Moses Liebling, with whom she had a civil wedding in the autumn of 1932. Moses and Bella Liebling were not religious people [11] [12].

At the beginning of 1937, the Lieblings moved to Kraków [12] [13] . This was to protect them from the growing anti-Semitic sentiments in France [11] . They lived in a tenement house at 9 Bolesława Komorowskiego Street [14] [13] . Moses Liebling, who had not achieved success as a painter and was involved, among other things, in the production of plastic ashtrays, was a rude man towards his son and Annette [15] . Romek (as the boy was called in Poland [16] ) was a difficult and irritable child, often sulking and exploding with anger [12] . The first film he remembers is Zakochani , which he went to the cinema to see with his sister [17] .

After the outbreak of World War II, the family's situation deteriorated significantly – Moses Liebling remained in Kraków, and sent his wife, son and stepdaughter to Warsaw [16] . Soon, however, they all moved in with Maria Liebling (Romek's grandmother) in Kazimierz , and Romek [Roman] started school [18] . There, he was most interested in the epidiascope and how this mechanism worked [17] [19] . After a few weeks, he stopped attending classes, after the occupation authorities forbade Jewish children from attending school [a] . The Lieblings were sent to the Kraków ghetto established in Podgórze and lived on the corner of Parkowa and Rękawki streets [20] , sharing an apartment with other families. Romek's mother worked as a cleaner at Wawel , which had been transformed into the seat of Governor General Hans Frank. In February 1943, Bella and Maria Liebling were transported to Auschwitz-Birkenau, where they died. [21]

Moses Liebling, who was sent to the concentration camp in Mauthausen-Gusen, survived the war [29] . On December 21, 1946, he married Wanda Zajączkowska, and under her influence he changed his surname and from then on was known as Ryszard Polański – Roman also changed his surname to Polański, but for some time after the war he still used the surname Wilk. Annette also survived the war, having returned from the Auschwitz camp and left for Paris [30].

Yad Vashem testimony; (document attached)

First name: Bula
Maiden name: Katz
Family name: Liebling
Previous/other family: Prezedborska
Approx. age at death: 40
Date of birth: Approx. 1902
Nationality: Polish
Country: Poland
Place of birth: Russia
Victim's father's name: unknown
Victim's mother mother - maiden name: unknown
Victim's wife's husband: No. of children: 1 First name: Maurycy deceased
Residence before deportation: Krakow
Date of death: Approx 1942
Place of death: Oscwiecim (Auschwitz)
Circumstances of death: unknown
Signed by: Roman Polanski
Relationship to victim: son
Date: 29 January 2003
Place: Paris

Comment: Death date of approx. 1942 is incorrect. "On 13th March 1943, the future director witnessed the liquidation of the ghetto. Bella [his mother] and Maria [his grandmother] Liebling were transported to Auschwitz-Birkenau, where they perished shortly thereafter."

References

1. Wikipedia contributors, "Roman Polanski," Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Roman_Polanski&oldid=908... (accessed August 3, 2019).
   1. 13. "Roman Polański i Emmanuelle Seigner". Znane Pary. 26 December 2012. Archived from the original on 10 December 2013. Retrieved 6 December 2013. https://web.archive.org/web/20131210222848/http://znanepary.pl/roma...
2. https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Pola%C5%84ski
3. "How Roman Polański hid during the Holocaust - the Story of Jan and Stefania Buchaław" Stories of Rescue. < link > Recognized as the Righteous Among the Nations: 3 September 2019: Jan Buchała; Stefania Buchała née Putek. Only Righteous ceremony conducted in Poland during the COVID-19 pandemic. "... wrote Roman Polański in his memoirs, published in the 1980s. "I have vivid memories of my mother and, at the same time, somewhat hazy. I remember the sound of her voice, her elegance and her precision [...]. Later, many people told me that she was strikingly beautiful. As she showed during the war, she was also a resourceful and proud woman. I often think that I inherited my stubbornness and perseverance from her”.
4. Polanski, Roman. 1984. Roman. New York: Morrow. < Amazon >
5. Polanski, Roman. "Roman" (French) (2016) search for "Annette"
6. Reviews of "Roman by Polanski" at Goodreads
7. "Roman Polański in Munich: between fame and infamy" < link > Caught unawares by the invasion of Poland by the German Wehrmacht, in 1941 the family ended up living in the Kraków Ghetto under miserable conditions. Roman went into hiding with a Catholic peasant family. As a result he was the only member of the family to escape the dissolution of the ghetto in Kraków in 1943 and the deportation to an extermination camp. His pregnant mother was murdered in Auschwitz. His half-sister Annette survived the extermination camp and joined her biological father in Paris at the end of the war. After the war Roman stayed in Poland with his father Mojżesz, who had returned from the Mauthausen concentration camp as a broken man and changed the family name to Polański.
8. https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/LRJ3-99R