Falls resident Nadja Graca, Holocaust survivor, turning 99 on Sunday

May 18—In the house at 520 81st St., Nadja Helen Bohug Graca is content knitting and watching television.

Beset by bad knees, she lives with her friend and caretaker Shelley Collins. She relies on Collins for most of her everyday tasks and uses a walker to get around.

Graca turns 99 years old on Sunday, with friends, Collins' family and some PACE workers coming out to celebrate.

"I never thought I would live to this time," Nadja said. "I feel good."

This life is a far cry from what Nadja experienced in her youth when she was taken from her rural Eastern European village to one of the most infamous concentration camps during World War II.

"She told me she wants me to write a book about her," Collins said, remarking that Nadja's deceased husband Ted Graca was originally going to do it.

Life on the farm

Born in 1925 to a Polish Catholic family with seven brothers and sisters, Nadja Bohug grew up on a farm in the town of Lenin, in what is now southern Belarus. Since that area was part of the Soviet Union, the family spoke Russian. The family lived in a one-room farmhouse her father built with a rock fireplace. It was the biggest room in the town, with the community holding dances there.

"As a young girl, everyone worked on the farm," Collins said. They lived off their farm growing potatoes, carrots, cabbage, beets, onions, tomatoes, cucumbers, peanuts, wheat, apples and peaches. The family well would dry up often, so when there was no water to drink, they would drink tree sap instead.

For winter, her father Pavil made a winter sleigh that two horses could pull the family around and ice skates out of wood and wire. The family was too poor to buy new clothes, so Nadja would trade milk and sew buttons for a Jewish woman in trading for clothes

Of her siblings, Olga drowned at age 10 and Regina died at age 2 from scarlet fever.

Nadja only went to school up until the fourth grade where she also learned dance. It was when on a trip to Pinsk to dance she heard war broke out between the Russians and Germans. They were driven home during the night wearing gas masks, her mother frantic as she returned.

The war begins

At the beginning of World War II, Russian soldiers came through the region defending it from the Germans. They took Pavil and her sister Natalia away, Pavil was killed and Natalia ended up in Siberia with her husband as part of mass deportations. Her brothers were taken into the Russian military.

When the Germans finally took over Lenin in 1941, they rounded up all of the Jewish residents, dug a hole near the Bohug farm, and told them to lie down in it. The SS soldiers told Nadja to lie on the floor when they entered the Bohug home.

"All the Jewish people lay and they started shooting," Nadja said. "You could hear the gunshots."

Her father's brother was also killed, with his hands tied up, and marched back and forth before he was shot into the hole too. The hole was soon filled in and lye was put over it, but Nadja said that blood would ooze from it.

The Nazis then went after the Polish people in Lenin. With her mother, sister Calonja, her husband, her child, and two bundles of clothes and blankets, the 14-year-old Nadja was in a line with other Poles in the village. The people were divided right at Nadja, as her family and others were taken into a building.

She then heard a bomb go off in that building. She just stood by herself with her possessions as everyone behind her fled.

"I didn't know what to do," Nadja said, deciding to walk 15 miles south to the town of Mikashevichy, where a cousin lived. Three generations of a family lived in a one-bedroom apartment, and she was not welcome at first.

After a few months of living there, now at age 15, Nadja was offered a maid job at a German police officer's house, which she accepted. The officer had her do menial labor tasks while his wife lay in bed. Nadja only worked for him for two days.

"I said, 'I would kill myself than work for you,' " Nadja said, going back to her cousin's house. The officer soon returned with German soldiers, saying they were going to take her someplace, Dachau.

The Dachau concentration camp was the first such camp opened after the Nazis took control of Germany in 1933. Around 10 miles northwest of Munich, the camp was first used for the Nazi's political opponents and criminals before other groups were held there during World War II.

Prisoners like Nadja did forced labor in factories for the German war effort. According to the Holocaust Encyclopedia published by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, more than 200,000 prisoners were kept at Dachau between 1933 and 1945 with at least 40,000 dying there.

Prison laborers had to be 16 years old, so the cousin lied about her age. Thinking it would be better than being homeless, Nadja was put in a cattle car with the two bundles from her house and was headed to Germany.

The train stopped in the middle of the woods with Nadja and others leaving to relieve themselves. It started moving again as she was still off it, so she ran after the cattle cars until someone grabbed her hand and pulled her up.

As the prisoners arrived during the winter, they were separated by men and women for their bunks. The bundle with blankets Nadja brought was too heavy by this point, so she left that behind. All she had besides clothes was a pair of wooden shoes.

The life of a prisoner

For Nadja, a typical day there would start at 4 a.m. with breakfast of black coffee and a boiled potato, only enough food to stay alive. After walking a mile to the factory, she and there other prisoners would work from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., with lunch and dinner consisting of a bowl of soup. They all returned to their barracks by 8 p.m. with the guards making sure everyone was asleep by 12 a.m.

This continued through the end of the war as Nadja had the same meal every day and worked six days a week. Once a week, the prisoners were given 30 grams of bread and a piece of sausage to last the week.

There was only one Jewish girl in Nadja's friend group, meaning she had to wear a yellow star on her uniform rather than a regular yellow patch. As such, she was treated much worse by the guards than Nadja's other friends. When she did not show up to work one time, a guard sent their dog and it bit her heel.

There was an instance where Nadja's right hand got caught in some machinery, dragging her up into the air and tearing her hand open.

Despite the deaths happening at the camp, Nadja was isolated from those areas, just sticking to her one-mile route to and from work every day. One day, she and her friend Alexandria snuck out to go to a nearby church. As police spotted them without their designated patches, they told the officer they just wanted to go to church.

"They must have believed them," Collins said, as they were only kept in cell for one day.

Liberation

As American forces were bombing the Dachau factories in April 1945, Nadja escaped from one factory that caught fire, throwing off a coat she had that caught fire while doing so. As she made it back to the camp, all the camp workers were fleeing, leaving the prisoners behind.

"We didn't have anything to eat for three days," Nadja said, then at age 19, with American soldiers and Red Cross workers soon arriving.

"We were dancing nicely," Nadja said. "I was happy."

It was during the liberation that Nadja met a soldier named Theodore Graca, who took a liking to her.

Originally from Poland, Ted and his family left the country in 1939 as it became clear Germany was going to war. They settled in Niagara Falls and Ted enlisted in the U.S. Army, eventually part of the Dachau liberation forces.

While Graca kept his last name as he immigrated, other family members decided to change their last name to Grace because of prejudice. Collins said there are still people in the area with the last name Grace who are part of that family.

With nowhere to go, Nadja stayed around Dachau as the Red Cross took care of her, as most survivors went back to their homes. Ted started courting her for a year, later asking her to marry him.

They rode a military jeep to St. Jakob Catholic Church in Dachau in May 1946, with soldiers and other camp prisoners in attendance. Ted still had to complete his tour of service, so Nadja was put on a military ship in France with other war brides for the United States. As she arrived, Ted's brothers picked her up and took her to Niagara Falls.

Life in the United States

When they reunited, Nadja and Ted lived in an apartment on Cudaback Avenue above a neighborhood bar, which Ted and his brother Walt would buy after the owner John Soho retired, calling the place Walt & Ted's Bar. Nadja would cook and clean there as Ted continued his education. He went on to be a science teacher at LaSalle High School, despite initially wanting to be a dentist.

Around 1950, Nadja and Ted bought out Walt for control of the bar, with Nadja renaming the place Nadja's and running it. She operated it for 18 years before selling it.

Despite their happy marriage, which included building a house in Lewiston, the two would never have children because Nadja was forcibly sterilized while in Dachau.

Ted died in 1960 from kidney failure at the age of 46. Nadja would date other men but never remarry.

After selling the bar and Lewiston house, Nadja then worked as a waitress at the former Niagara Falls Convention Center. She also sang in a church choir for 30 years and was part of the Polish Singers Alliance.

She later moved into the St. Isaac Jogues apartments on Williams Road, where she lived for 22 years and first became friends with Collins.

A family reunion

One day in 1960, Nadja received a letter from Poland from someone named Natalie, addressing her as if she knew her. She realized it came from her sister who was sent to Siberia. She had survived with a son, Zygmunt.

"Nadja thought she had died," Collins said, as Natalie's husband and daughter died from starvation. "Both thought the other died."

Natalie was taking a bus tour in Poland and happened to sit next to Alexandra, Nadja's friend from Dachau. As they both started talking, they both realized they knew the same Nadja.

"Her mother would send bread to Siberia," Collins said. "She told Nadja they survived on that bread."

The two would meet up again as Nadja traveled to Poland. She would continue to visit that country even after Natalie died two years after they reconnected.

A quiet life

As Nadja considered going to a nursing home a year and a half ago, Collins instead offered to move in with her. She accepted after initial reluctance and has been there ever since.

"Now I have it good," Nadja said. "I went from good to bad to good to bad to good."

Due to her bad knees, PACE had to install a ramp on the front porch for Nadja to get in and out. Still, she hardly gets sick.

"She has a great immune system," Collins said, thinking she could live to 120. "She doesn't take much medication. She is a very healthy woman."

Collins wrote to Nadja's relatives back in Poland about her turning 99, though she has not heard on whether they are coming.

The party is going from 2 to 5 p.m. on Sunday. Anyone who wants to give a gift can bring yarn or Lambrusco wine.