Janina Bauman was born in Warsaw on August 18, 1926, to an intelligentsia family that was completely assimilated and non-religious. Her father Szymon Lewinson was a urology doctor, as were many other members of her family. Janina was 13 years old when World War II broke out in September 1939. That's when her father was mobilized into the army as a reserve officer. Along with other Polish officers, he was interned by the Soviet army, spent time in a camp in Kozielsk, and then, together with his brother, was murdered in Katyn . After the establishment of the ghetto, she and her family settled in the ghetto area, where she repeatedly moved from place to place, escaping from the Germans. She escaped from the Warsaw ghetto area with her mother and her younger sister only in 1944, avoiding the so-called Great Liquidation Action and deportation to the Treblinka death camp. After escaping from the ghetto, she first hid in the Warsaw area, and then in towns near Warsaw. She changed her location many times, as she and her loved ones became victims of blackmailers several times. After the Warsaw Rising in 1944 along with other Varsovians she left Warsaw in a cattle car to a village near Krakow, where she hid on a farm, together with her mother, her sister and Aunt Mania, a Polish housekeeper who always helped her family, lived with other farmers in the same village. In April 1945, she returned to Warsaw. She finished her studies in journalism, during which she met her later husband Prof. Zygmunt Bauman. She gave birth to 3 daughters. In 1968, during the antisemitic campaign, Janina's husband was persecuted and sacked from his job at Warsaw University along with 6 other academics. Janina was suggested to dismiss from her job, which she did, and the whole family decided to leave Poland. First to Israel, where Janina's sister Zosia was already living. There the Baumans lived for 3 years, then moved to England to Leeds, where Janina worked as a school librarian, and her husband was a lecturer and dean of the sociology department at the University of Leeds. Janina became a writer and wrote several short stories based on her memories of the from the Warsaw ghetto and her post-war experiences. She died on December 29, 2009 in Leeds UK.