The handbag

The small rectangular bag in the colour of écru is made with a crochet knitting technique. The bag has a rectangular flap fastened with a plastic button in the same colour (imitating mother of pearl). In the upper part of the flap there is a handle in the form of a wire formed in a circle and covered with a cord in the same colour.In Marceli Łoziński's film Tonia i jej dzieci [Tonia and Her Children] (2011), Wera and Marcel Lechtman also read aloud their mother's memories. It is only years later that the siblings recall the moment of their mother's arrest and find out what emotions accompanied their mother during her detention. The woman, not wanting to worry her children, told Marcel that she would be back soon. In her memoirs she wrote:They arrested me on 26 July and Marcel saw them take me away. And I will never forget the look in his eyes. He was 9 years old. I remember his eyes - a grown up concerned man. I said 'go to bed. I'll be back soon and came back after 5.5 years. His gaze haunted me for years.

When, after leaving prison, Tonia Lechtman phoned the boarding school where her son was living at the time, the son threw the phone down shouting that his mother was dead. In Łoziński's film Marcel Lechtman recalled that when he saw his sister together with his mother at the railway station in Wrocław, after Tonia Lechtman had been released from prison, he did not recognise his mother.

Marta Frączkiewicz