Maria Devinki

Of Blessed Memory 1920 – 2011

Maria Devinki grew up in Wodzisław, Poland. The Germans sent her father to Treblinka and forced the rest of the family into a ghetto. In 1943, after a year spent as a slave laborer in the Skarżysko complex, a Polish army officer helped Maria leave the camp and hide – along with her husband, her mother, and her brothers. After the Soviets liberated Poland, they tried to resume their lives. However, in May 1945, after her younger brother was killed by members of the Armia Krajowa, Maria and her husband made their way to Germany and from there to the United States, arriving in Kansas City in 1950.