Zofia Odrobna (1917–1960): the mother to “lost” children

She was liberated by the British army in Libur when the war ended in May 1945. Subsequently the occupying forces brought her to a DP camp in the Cologne suburb of Mühlheim, where she stayed until August 1946. She was then transferred to the DP camp in Knechtsteden, but was again moved by the occupying forces in October 1946 to the camp in Lippstadt, where she remained until June 1948. In June 1950 she was initially moved to the DP camp in Höxter, which she was allowed to leave for a new home in a suburb specially built for refugees in Velbert.

Zofia Ogonowska met her late husband, Kazimierz Odrobny, in the Mülheim camp in 1946. They became increasingly attached to one another whilst Zofia was being admired on all sides. Kazimierz Odrobny even proposed to her in 1946 but he had to wait another three years before she consented. She wrote to her family: 

“My marriage to Mr O. is irrevocable and there is nothing I can do to get out of it unless you write to me that I must definitely return. Although I am continually ill and always lack something, he tells me that nothing can make him change a decision that he has made a long time ago and what he has been telling me for a long time, as far back as Muhlheim [sic!] (…)”.

Zofia and Kazimierz shared a passion for teaching the very young. Both of them campaigned to set up a Polish grammar school for the DPs in Lippstadt in the British occupying zone. Zofia decided to abandon the studies that had been interrupted by the war. She discovered her interest in working as a teacher and gave lessons in foreign languages and piano playing in the Polish DP camp schools in Mülheim, Knechtsteden and later too also in Lippstadt; all this time she worked in surroundings nearby to Kazimierz Odrobny. As a teacher she concentrated mostly on the youngest generation of Polish DPs. She prepared girls for their first Communion, and acted as a godmother for the very young. In this respect she also participated in a programme initially instituted by the Polish Red Cross (Polski Czerwony Krzyż), and subsequently taken over by the Society for Supporting the Poles in Germany (Towarzystwo Pomocy Polakom w Niemczech) and the Polish Association in Germany (Zjednoczenie Polskie w Niemczech), to find families prepared to adopt children who had remained in occupied Germany after the war. Her commitment in looking for future parents for young Polish DPs also resulted in her finding a huge number of substitute families in the USA, Great Britain, Australia and Canada. She devoted all her energies as an educator and teacher of Polish children, in addition to her work supporting Polish refugees in Germany. Even when it is difficult to document her welfare work for Polish DPs in Germany must surely be regarded as extremely difficult and complicated.