Belarusian boy Gena Muraviev with Polish Halina Gruszczyński, his adoptive mother, around 1947

Belarusian boy Gena Muraviev with Polish Halina Gruszczyński, his adoptive mother, around 1947.

The outbreak of World War II found 24-year-old Zinaida, her husband Pavel and their five-month-old son Gena in the village of Novka, near Vitebsk, Belarus. The husband was mobilized, but the mother and child remained in the village. In 1943, the Nazis, hunting partisans, organized a raid and captured Zinaida and her son, both of whom were sent to Auschwitz.

From that moment on, they were deprived of names and surnames, the Nazis called them only by their tattooed numbers: Zinaida - 62105, Gena - 149850. Zinaida memorized her son's number. Soon after they were moved to different areas and lost contact.

When the Soviet troops liberated Auschwitz, only children and very sick prisoners remained there, unable to move to another camp. The Bergen-Belsen concentration camp where Zinaida was held was liberated by Anglo-Canadian troops in April. Sick and exhausted, Zinaida returned to her hometown alone.

Children liberated from Auschwitz show the numbers tattooed on their arms. The blond child on the right is Gena Muraviev. January 1945.

It was then that the search for Gena began. Zinaida wrote to various institutions, orphanages, the Red Cross? All were in vain. She thought he had died in Auschwitz.

Gena survived, was adopted by the Polish Halina Gruszczyński who became his second mother, for Gena the first as he remembered nothing of his Belarusian life. His name changed to Eugeniusz and also his surname with the new family, which made it difficult to locate him.

At times Zinaida lost all hope of finding him, but in the end she succeeded. Eugeniusz had the number she had burned into her memory, with the 8 slightly crooked. On July 20, 1965, their first meeting took place at the Minsk train station. Twenty years had passed since the end of the war.

Picture of the encounter in 1965:

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