Mosze Turbowicz lived in Łódź with his parents Eliasz and Rachela and his younger brother Sewek. In 1940 the German occupiers set up a ghetto in the city. The Turbowicz family had to move there in April 1940. The schools inside the ghetto were closed down in 1942, and Mosze Turbowicz could no longer continue his education. Instead, he had to perform forced labor for the occupiers. Aged 16, he joined the communist resistance group Lewica Związkowa (Trade Union Left). Its young members performed acts of sabotage and organized protests in the ghetto.
In the summer of 1944, the Turbowicz family were deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp. Mosze’s father and brother were murdered shortly later. The SS closed the camp in January 1945 and sent the prisoners on death marches. Mosze Turbowicz walked sixty kilometers to Loslau (Wodzisław Śląski). From there, he was deported to Buchenwald concentration camp. Weakened by typhus, he was liberated from the Theresienstadt ghetto.
After the war, Turbowicz returned to Poland. He changed his name to Marian Turski. Turski studied law and history and became a well-known journalist.
Mosze Turbowicz (1st row, 2nd from right) with fellow students at the Jewish high school in the Litzmannstadt ghetto, around 1941. Source: Bejt Lochamej haGeta’ot, Kibbuz Lochamej haGeta’ot, Kibbuz Lochamej haGeta’ot, 3494
Mosze Turbowicz (1st from right) in the Litzmannstadt ghetto, around 1942. Source: Bejt Lochamej haGeta’ot, Kibbuz Lochamej haGeta’ot, Kibbuz Lochamej haGeta’ot, 2136
