During her working life in Poland Paula Gruber-Herszkopf was an inspector at the Polish Radio and, because of her knowledge of foreign languages responsible for broadcastings abroad. In Holland she was a collaborator at Publishing House Read Elsevier until her retirement in 1984. At that time she started what she always wanted to do but never managed by lack of money or time: going to university. In 1990 she finished her Masters in contemporary history. During her study, she was especially interested in the subjects Poland in the Interbellum, the Jewish presence in Poland until the Shoah in which over 90% of 3.5 million Polish Jews were killed, and the origins of Polish anti-Semitism. She frequently published articles about these subjects in Dutch newspapers and magazines and gave interviews and lectures about these subjects.
After finishing her studies, she decided to write a book about her life. Her goal was to reach as many people as possible to take cognizance of the terrible experiences the Jews including herself had gone through, and as a warning to humanity what mad ideas about anti-Semitism and racism could lead to. Not in the least, she wants to remind us of the almost forgotten history of the last Jews in post-war Poland, for whom “the war was not over after the war” and where anti-Semitism was alive and kicking even with the tiny numbers of Jews left.
In 2001 the book was completed in Dutch and published in the Netherlands. After that, she translated the Dutch manuscript herself into Polish, which was published in 2007 at the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw. Finally, an English translation of the book was brought out in 2014.
Paula’s husband Szymon passed away in 1991. Paula died on January 14, 2016 at the age of 91.