Wartime Rescue of Jews by the Polish Catholic Clergy

In May 1941 we were working in a torn-down house when one of the prisoners found a crucifix. SS Storch got ahold of it and he called Father Nieweglewski.

“What is this?” he asks the priest. Father remains silent, but the guard insists until he says, “Christ on the cross.”

Then Storch jeers: “Why you fool, that’s the Jew who, thanks to the silly ideals which he preached and you fell for, got you into this camp. Don’t you understand? He’s one of the Jewish ringleaders! A Jew is a Jew and will always be a Jew! How can you believe in such an enemy?”

Father Nieweglewski is silent.

Then Storch says, “You know, if you’ll trample this Jew”—and he throws the crucifix on the sand—“I’ll get you transferred to a better job.”

When the priest refused, the SS man and the capo threw him a couple of times on the crucifix; then they beat him so badly that, shortly after, he died.
When, for some unknown reason, probably because of German provocation, an anti-Jewish disturbance broke out in Głowno near Łódź in January 1940, the local priest and some other Poles interceded and condemned the violence.⁴²
Throughout occupied Europe, the Germans instigated or organized anti-Jewish violence and riots.⁴³ In the spring of 1940, the Germans assembled gangs of unemployed young ruffians to attack Jews, and sometimes Poles, in the streets of Warsaw. These hoodlums, who were intoxicated, were paid by the Germans in what, by all descriptions, was an orchestrated and closely watched event. One Jew described the scene he witnessed during the so-called Passover pogrom. (Based on Jacob Apenszlak, ed., The Black Book of Polish Jewry [New York: Roy Publishers, 1943], pp.30–31.)
The Passover pogrom continued about eight days. It began suddenly and stopped as suddenly. The pogrom was carried out by a crowd of youths, about 1,000 of them, who arrived suddenly in the Warsaw streets. Such types have never before been seen in the Warsaw streets. Clearly these were young ruffians specially brought in from the suburbs. From the characteristic scenes of the pogrom I mention here a few: On the second day of Passover, at the corner of Wspólna and Marszałkowska Streets, about 30 or 40 broke into and looted Jewish hat shops. German soldiers stood in the streets and filmed the scenes. …

The Polish youngsters acted alone, but there have been instances when such bands attacked the Jews with the assistance of German military. The attitude of the Polish intellectuals toward the Jews was clearly a friendly one, and against the pogrom. It is a known fact that at the corner of Nowogrodzka and Marszałkowska a Catholic priest attacked the youngsters participating in the pogrom, beat them and disappeared. These younsters received two złotys daily from the Germans.

Archbishop Stanisław Gall, the administrator of the Warsaw archdiocese who died in September 1942, was greatly troubled by these events and urged the clergy to join in condemning these outrages.⁴⁴ Similar appeals, in all likelihood at the behest of the church hierarchy, were made in Warsaw churches later that year. (Friedman, Their Brothers’ Keepers, p.125.)
Emanuel Ringelblum notes in his diaries dated December 31, 1940, that priests in all of Warsaw’s churches exhorted their parishioners to bury their prejudice against Jews and beware of the poison of Jew-hatred preached by the common enemy, the Germans.
Public interventions by the clergy on behalf of Jews, though invariably futile and often suicidal, were known to occur from time to time. The following example is recalled by Zofia Kossak, co-founder of the wartime Council for Aid to Jews. (Teresa Prekerowa, Konspiracyjna Rada Pomocy Żydom w Warszawie 1942–1945 [Warsaw: Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, 1982], p.200.)
On Nowy Świat Street a German officer grabbed an emaciated Jewish boy, no more than six years old. Holding him by the scruff of the neck like a pup, he raised the cover of a sewer with his other hand and pushed the child in. The passers-by looked with horror. A priest who had witnessed this started to beg for mercy for the child. The officer glared at him in wonder and stated officiously, “Jude.” He slammed down the hatch and calmly walked away.
In the summer of 1940, the Main Welfare Council (Rada Główna Opiekuńca—RGO, the Central Welfare Council, a legally functioning welfare agency for Poles), together with Adam Sapieha, the archbishop of Kraków (Cracow), appealed to Hans Frank, the Governor of the Generalgouvernement, to suspend the mass resettlement of Jews from Kraków. Not only did this not bring about the desired effect, but the three rabbis who had requested the Central Welfare Council and Archbishop Sapieha to intervene, namely, Smelkes Kornitzer, the chief rabbi of Kraków, Szabse Rappaport and Majer Friedrich, were arrested and deported to Auschwitz where they perished. The Jewish community did not approach Catholic Church leaders again to intervene on their behalf with the German authorities as this was an unproductive path. Archbishop Sapieha’s courageous, but ultimately disastrous intervention is described by Aleksander Bieberstein, a Jewish community leader, in his chronicle of the wartime fate of the Jews of Kraków.⁴⁵ In March and December 1941, Archbishop Sapieha wrote two letters to the German authorities protesting the treatment of Jewish converts. In November 1942, Archbishop Sapieha sent a letter to Governor Hans Frank protesting the use by the Germans of young Polish men conscripted into the Baudienst labour battalion to assist in the liquidation of the Tarnów ghetto, after plying them with alcohol, and the mistreatment of Jews. Archbishop Sapieha also informed the Vatican twice of the German extermination of Jews in Poland. Despite the lack of success of these interventions, Archbishop Sapieha continued his relief work on behalf of Jews clandestinely. In his homilies and pastoral letters he appealed to his flock to help everyone, regardless of their religion. Through the intermediary of Rev. Ferdynand Machay, the pastor of the Most Holy Redeemer parish and coordinator of the archdiocese’s rescue activities, Archbishop Sapieha furnished false baptismal certificates to Jews. Among the recipients were eleven members of the Kleinmann family, who were sheltered in the suburb of Prądnik Czerwony. Archbishop Sapieha permitted priests to baptize Jews secretly and forge baptismal certifiates, and refused to hand over the relevant church records to the Germans. The latter activity was widespread, since 220 such petitions involving 351 Jews were approved between 1939 and 1942. The following priest submitted the most petitions: Rev. Władysław Kulczycki of St. Michael’s parish; Rev. Józef Niemczyński, the pastor of St. Joseph’s parish; the Jesuit priest Fr. Jan Bieda, who served in Kraków and Nowy Targ; the Jesuit priest Fr. Wojciech Trubak; Rev. Julian Grzegorz Łaniewski of the Nowa Wieś district of Kraków; the Capuchin priest Fr. Eugeniusz Grzegorz Świstek; Rev. Szczepan Samerek of St. Mary’s parish; Rev. Roman Stawinoga of Rakowice; Rev. Czesław Skarbek of St. Stephen’s parish; Rev. Jan Masny of St. Anne’s parish; the Reformed Franciscan priest Fr. Brunon Jagła of Bronowice Wielkie; Rev. Franciszek Grabiszewski of Corpus Christi parish; Rev. Jan Szymeczko; Rev. Władysław Mól of Prądnik Czerwony; the Capuchin priest Fr. Ernest Łanucha; Rev. Władysław Miś of All Saints parish; Rev. Władysław Mączyński of Borek Fałęcki; the Franciscan priest Fr. Joachim Bar; Rev. Stanisław Proszak of Biały Kościół; Rev. Jan Mayer; the Capuchin priest Fr. Zygmunt Nestorowski; Rev. Stanisław Czartoryski of Maków Podhalański; the Reformed Franciscan priest Fr. Alfred Eugeniusz Bury; Rev. Stanisław Mizia of Niepołomice; Rev. Wojciech Bartosik of Wawrzeńczyce; as well as 42 other priests. Even after the Germans banned this practice on October 1942, clandestine baptisms continued. Rev. Feliks Zachuta was arrested for this reason towards the end of 1943 and was executed in the Płaszów concentration camp in May 1944. Some of these priests, as well as Rev. Edmund Nowak, the chaplain of St. Lazarus Hospital in Kraków, Rev. Eugeniusz Śmietana, and Rev. Władysław Bajer, the prefect of schools, also provided other documents, found shelters for Jews, and assisted them in other ways. When most of St. Joseph’s parish, located in the Podgórze district, was incorporated into the ghetto, its pastor, Rev. Józef Niemczyński, with the support of the bishop’s curia, protested the appalling living conditions of the Jews.⁴⁶
Early in the war, Archbishop Sapieha, who headed the Catholic Church within Poland after the Primate’s departure, asked Pope Pius XII for a forceful statement in support of Poland against the Nazis. However, the futility of making a public statement in Poland along those lines soon became all too apparent. When, in 1942, the Pope had such a letter smuggled into Poland to be read from the pulpits, Archbishop Sapieha burned it, fearing it would have no lasting positive impact and bring about severe repercussions. The Pope’s messenger, Monsignor Quirino Paganuzzi reported the following about his mission (Rychlak, Righteous Gentiles, p.153):
As always, Msgr. Sapieha’s welcome was most affectionate. … However, he didn’t waste much time in conventionalities. He opened the packets [from Pius XII, with statements condemning Nazi German], read them, and commented on them in his pleasant voice. Then he opened the door or the large stove against the wall, started a fire, and threw the papers on to it. All the rest of the material shared the same fate. On seeing my astonished face, he said in explanation: “I’m most grateful to the Holy Father … no one is more grateful than we Poles for the Pope’s interest in us … but we have no need of any outward show of the Pope’s loving concern for our misfortunes, when it only serves to augment them. … But he doesn’t know that if I give publicity to these things, and if they are found in my house, the head of every Pole wouldn’t be enough for the reprisals Gauleiter Frank will order.
In July 1940, the Germans expelled the Jews from the town of Konin, in western Poland, an area incorporated into the Reich, to the surrounding villages. The following year, they were deported to the General Government. A wartime report, authored by a Jew, describes their expulsion and their reception by Polish villagers, among them a priest, as follows (Magdalena Siek, ed., Archiwum Ringelbluma: Konspiracyjne Archiwum Getta Warszawskiego, volume 9: Tereny wcielone do Rzeszy: Kraj Warty [Warsaw: Żydowski Instytut Historyczny im. Emanuela Ringelbluma, 2012], p.78):
From there, after marching all night, they were all taken to three villages: Grodziec, Zagórów and Rzgów … One must admit that the attitude of the Polish inhabitants of these villages toward us was more than sincere … they provided the expellees with bread and potatoes, and refused to take payment. The priest from Grodziec, who told [his paishioners] to bring bread and milk to the expellees and later called out from the pulpit to “help our Jewish brothers,” was put in the concentration camp in Dachau.
Another wartime account states (Ibid., p.85):
The attitude of the peasants [in Zagórów] toward the expelled Jews was on the whole very favourable. They allowed them use of empty rooms and barns, and they provided unused tables and commodes. The expelles began to come to terms with their fate. The charges for the dwellings and food products were relatively low. … The expellees spent more than half a year in this village entirely peacefully. One day, [German] gendarme units appeared in the village.
Francesca Bram (née Grochowska) provides the following testimony regarding the activities of Rev. Franciszek Jaworski, the pastor of Grodziec, in the Konin Memorial Book, published in Israel in 1968, and reproduced in Theo Richmond, Konin: A Quest (London: Jonathan Cape, 1995), at page 163.
One ought to emphasize the help we received from the priest of Grodziec, who occupied himself with handing out coffee and tea to us, and distributing milk to the children. Until late into the night there were warm kettles in the square. Bread was also given out. Besides that, the priest went around appealing to the peasants to give accommodation to the deportees, and help to the homeless. … The Germans sought an opportunity to arrest him and this happened after he helped the Jews in Grodziec. Soon afterwards came news of his death.
Rev. Jaworski was arrested by the Germans on August 26, 1940 and deported to Sachsenhausen. Afterwards he was transferred to Dachau. Fortunately, he managed to survive the war.⁴⁷
On “Bloody Wednesday,” July 31, 1940, the Germans staged a massive assault on the civilian population of Olkusz, in retaliation for the shooting of a German police officer earlier that month. (Twenty Poles were executed immediately after that incident.) Hundreds of men between the ages of 15 and 55, both Poles and Jews, were forced to assemble in public places and were abused and mistreated. When Rev. Piotr Mączka, the pastor of the Church of St. Andrew the Apostle, tried to intervene, he was beaten savagely, and died ten days later. Jacob Schwarzfitter, a Jew from Olkusz, recalled those events which he had lived through, in an interview given in 1946. (Voices of the Holocaust, A Documentary Project by Illinois Institute of Technology, Internet: .)
I had come to my (little) town Olkusz. That’s my place of birth. There I remained until the evacuation (depopulation) of the town. Before speaking about the depopulation, I shall narrate, report one incident. On the 31st of July 1940, there took place a punitive expedition against my town. On an early morning at four o'clock, at daybreak, on a Wednesday, the whole town was aroused from sleep and put on its feet. And all men without distinction, Jews, from sixteen to fifty years of age, were taken out to various squares. They were taken out by the Gestapo. A few thousand Gestapo men arrived, in a town which had a population of only about fifteen thousand, and they started punitive expedition.

The punitive expedition took place because sixty kilometers from the city were murdered by bandits two gendarmes. But they felt it useful to make of it a political incident. And it was ordered to make responsible for it the peaceful (civilian) population. We were led out at daybreak, with our hands up, they jabbed us with bayonets and we were compelled to run. When we arrived at the square, we had to pass a cordon. On both sides stood SS men, with (metal) rods, belts, rubber truncheons, clubs, and they beat us. Every one had to go through. People went through the cordon, and emerged covered with blood. …

Women were not taken, that time, only men. Then afterwards each had to show his fingerprint. After giving his fingerprint (it is possible that they had to surrender their identification cards which bore a single fingerprint) each one was tripped from the front over a leg and thrown down to the ground. We were made to lie on the stomach, the face deeply pressed to the earth, with the hands on the back. So we remained lying until twelve o’clock. And the SS men were passing back and fro, and when it pleased him he trampeled (the person). I personally was hit several times with the boot on the head. At twelve o’clock they came …

Twelve o’clock noon, after lying for eight hours we were ordered to get up. Everyone was pale and black. We all looked like dead men. So there spoke to us a Gestapo man, while another explained (interpreted) in the Polish language. That we are being treated most humanely, because they are still able to prove who is against God and against humanity. I and those others present, could of course, not understand that people could be treated still, worse, but that we have learned in the future.

Afterwards he explained to us the reason for the event. It was because two gendarmes were murdered. Among those present was a Polish ‘prister’ (the word was not clear, and caused a question).