She was alone in the airport. No one to go with her, to sit next to her, to hold her hand as the plane took off. Sophie acquired the last of 50 seats on a plane to America, the place where money grew on trees and the streets were paved with gold. She was to fly into New York and connect with a family to live with. Sophie was on her way to America, alone and excited.

Fittingly, it was the fourth of July when she immigrated to the United States. Her plane flew into New York around mid-day. The view of Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty filled her eyes from her seat in the plane. She was there––her new home, America. The city was big, bigger than anything she had ever seen before. Coming from a humble background in Poland, Sophie had never seen anything like the city. But there was one problem. The family that she was supposed to have met never showed. So there she was, alone, in one of the biggest cities in the world, unable to speak English, with nowhere to go. Eventually she reached the agency that brought her to the US. They set her up in a hotel for a couple of days while arrangements were made to connect her with another family. The stay was nothing spectacular. She was given four dollars a day, which she spent on food from the vending machines in the hallway. Moving to America is only a portion of Sophie's story.

Sophie grew up in a small town in Poland. Her family did not have much money, and most of her time was spent doing schoolwork. She had two sisters––one older, one younger––and her parents. She didn't know much about the war that was going on around her in her country. She was young and WWII seemed far away. There were other things to worry about, homework mostly. But all of that changed one Sunday after church when she was just 16 years old.

It was around noon that Sunday, and the sun was shining. Sophie and her mother were leaving church, when Nazi soldiers surrounded everyone coming out. The soldiers began to pick the young women out one by one to go with them. Sophie was one of the unlucky chosen. Cries from families filled the air around the church. No one knew what was going on. The families of the girls were given one hour to gather things for the girls to bring with them, but the girls could not go home. Her mother went running home to pack a bag for Sophie, while she stood there in the churchyard crying. She did not want leave her family. She was only a girl and had never been away from home before.

It seemed like hours before her mother came back. The rest of the family did not come to the church to say goodbye. She had packed some food and clothes, for nobody knew where she was going or how long she would be gone. The suitcase sat on the ground next to her as they stood and looked at each other. The time had come. The soldiers were beginning to take the children away. Sophie grabbed hold of her mother one last time and squeezed as hard as possible, while the tears from both of their eyes began to flow down their faces. There was nothing left to do but say goodbye.

The Soldiers ushered all the young women into a military truck that had pulled up. The Nazi machine was cold like the November air that surrounded them. One by one the girls were pealed from their families to step up into the cold steel of the back of the truck. Slowly the military truck filled up. The girls were like sardines in a can, packed together tightly next to each other. They did not know what was going to happen. All they knew was that they were leaving home in the hands of the German invaders. They were brought to a train station that would take them to Germany. The girls were packed into a cargo train and forced to stand there with their suitcase between their legs for hours on end as the train chugged along. Sophie did not know anyone on the train with her. She stood in the middle of everybody else, quietly crying with the fear of the unknown surrounding her as the wails from the other girls filled the stock car. They never stopped for bathroom or food breaks. They never stopped for anything.

The train reached Berlin, Germany, where they stopped briefly to catch another train. This train took Sophie to her final destination, the labor camp in Hanover/Linden. After the long train ride, alone and cold, her nightmare was just beginning. Sophie and the girls were taken to a large shower room where all their heads were shaved and covered with a solution that was meant for killing any bugs that they had obtained during their journey. Next, they were stripped of their clothes and forced to shower together. The girls did what they were told. Their clothes were thrown in a pile in another room, and when done showering, the girls had to fish through the clothes to find their own. The loud crying had died down to sobs as the girls stood cold, wet, bald, and alone. Sophie was now in the middle of the harsh reality of war. She was now to work in a German Labor camp for the next three years, until the war ended in 1945.

Her main job at the labor camp was laundry, the enemy's laundry. Everyday at the crack of dawn a shrill siren would awaken her, signaling the beginning of a day spent washing the bloody uniforms and dirty linens used by the German army. It never seemed to end. Day after day, month after month she continued to do her job. Even though the laundry was somewhat disgusting by nature, it was not a terrible place to work while at the camp. The blood soaked uniforms were disgusting, but Sophie and the other girls kept their area very clean. The clean clothes always made the rooms smell good. Sophie always folded and ironed everything perfectly. She did her job because that is all there was to do.

Not one girl liked it there. They were away from home and not being treated like real human beings. Although none of the girls that were at the labor camp with Sophie were physically abused, there were other ways of mistreating them. The girls were fed every third day, and when they were fed, it was turnip soup. Sophie couldn't stand turnip soup. Everything about the soup made her sick, the smell, taste, and texture. But that's all there was.

There were some German girls who worked at the camp along side the Polish girls, but they were paid in full wages. Sophie and the other Polish girls were also paid, but only a pittance. But it mattered little anyway because their money was no good. Sophie would work six days a week with Sundays off, when she got a chance to go out to the store to buy what she could. Every Polish girl who worked at the camp had to wear a patch on her arm. The patch showed everyone in town just where the girls were from: similar to the Jews, who had to wear the star of David on their arms. Because the girls were not treated well at the camp, they would try to by food and clothes at the German shops in town. But the patch got in the way. It allowed German storekeepers to keep them from buying anything of value––like food. Pretty much all they could buy was toothpaste and soap.

Over time, Sophie made friends with one of the German girls who worked there and who lived in town. Liza Lotta was a very pretty German girl. She was slim and tall with blue eyes and blonde hair, the stereotypical German girl. Every other Sunday, Liza would take Sophie to her house for a big Sunday dinner. Liza saw what Sophie had to go through, and she felt it was the least she could do.

For Sophie, the war ended in quite a surprising fashion. During work one day, Sophie and the girls realized that their German bosses were not present. At that point the girls decided to go outside and see what was going on. She couldn't believe her eyes. A British soldier came up to her and said that she could go home now, everything is going to be okay. For three years Sophie had been stuck doing Nazi laundry and eating turnip soup, and now the war was over for her. The allied soldiers were walking all over the streets, and the people of her camp were running and cheering in the streets for sheer joy. The war was over! Some were not only celebrating in the streets, but they were also robbing all the local stores of everything they had. Sophie saw girls breaking windows and stealing jewelry. The first thing Sophie and a couple of her friends did was go directly to the butcher shop to take as much food as their arms could hold. And they ate, and ate, and ate. They all ate so much that they got sick. Their bodies were not used to eating so much.

Now that the war was over, the girls were free to go home if they so desired. But Sophie was not sure what she wanted to do. She did not have a lot of economic security back in Poland and thought that there was more opportunity in Germany to make some money. She was now nineteen years old. She still lived in a camp but not a labor camp. It was a place where all the Polish people stayed who chose not to go home or didn't have the money to get themselves home.

Sophie got herself a job while living in Germany teaching Kindergarten. But she was not paid with money––she was paid with cigarettes. Seeing that she did not smoke she ended up selling them for money. It was through this job that she met her future husband. Every day after school, Sophie would walk one of her students home. He lived in the same camp she did, Camp K. After doing this for a while, Sophie began to know the mother of the child very well, and they became friends. Her student's mother told her about a friend, Frank Zolud, whom she should get to know. Over the next couple of years, they grew very close and were very happy, but fate would step in again and take Sophie away from her home once more.

The Church had always played a strong role in Sophie's journey from Poland to Germany. She was taken from her church in November of 1942. Every fourth Sunday while at the labor camp, she and the other girls were allowed to attend mass, which she always attended. And now, living in Camp K, she had become quite close to the priest who resided there, Father Alex Shyman. Fr. Shyman was a very good man who cared about the people of his small parish. He was responsible for bringing many Polish people from Germany to the U.S.

Father Shyman knew of an agency that helped Polish people move to the United States and meet families to live with and get started financially. Sophie had been talking to Fr. Shyman, and he mentioned getting her over to the U.S. She was all for it. She had become quite close to Frank, but the chance to go to the United States was something that could not be passed up. After months of waiting, the chance finally came when an extra seat on a plane to New York was available. Sophie had left home in 1942, spent three years in a German labor camp, and the following five years teaching children and falling in love with a wonderful man. She was now to take the next step in her life.

Caritits, the agency that gave her the plane ticket to New York where she was stranded for four days, found her another family to live with in New Jersey. She had left Frank behind, but they still kept in touch and talked very seriously about getting married. It was either Sophie return to Poland, or Frank come to the United States. Sophie did not want to go back to Germany. She was living with an Italian family in New Jersey, and she was learning a lot. She had come from Germany, not knowing how to speak English. While working as a nanny for the family in Jersey, she quickly picked up words from the children and learned to speak English through them. Still, she was without the man she loved. But that would change when the same priest and the same agency helped Frank catch a plane to the U.S. The only problem was that he was in Lawrence, Massachusetts. Upon hearing that Frank had come to the States, Sophie and Frank got together in Lowell, Massachusetts, where they married and raised a family of their own.

Sophie Zolud's life has been nothing short of extra-ordinary. She left her home at the tender age of 16 into the harsh hand of war and didn't return back to Poland for nearly 30 years. She has lived through some of the worst times the twentieth century had known and survived to make a family of her own. She still stays in touch with two of the girls that shared the terrible experience of the labor camp. One lives in Buffalo, and the other lives in Philadelphia. Throughout her life the church has been there for Sophie through and through. It was there to keep her strong through the tough years and ended up bringing her to a whole new life. Mrs. Sophie Zolud is an amazing woman, who has lived through amazing times.