Wartime Rescue of Jews by the Polish Catholic Clergy

So I went, thank God I went. It was a bandage for my soul. A soothing compress. Something wonderful.

The nuns occupied a two-storey building. There were six of them, the best nuns in the world. Conditions were the pits, but the nuns were the best in the world. One of them [Sister Alfonsa] begged for food for us, going from house to house. The Polish woman who took me out of the ghetto brought milk. She was called Kazimiera Romankiewicz. …

There were fourteen Jewish children in the nuns’ orphanage and the rest were Polish orphans, dirty, pitiful, flea-ridden, sickly, whose parents had been killed, among others, by members of Bandera’s [nationalist] Ukrainian groups. There were, for example, girls there who had had their stomachs cut open. They were no different to us, the Jewish girls. They had the same scared-looking eyes. We all looked the same. When I arrived with Mrs. Kazia, I was introduced to the Mother Superior. Later Sister Małkowska’s heart could no longer bear the life of continual tension and fear—she died. But that was later. Then the nuns introduced me to Hania, a Jewish girl who had been there for some time. I knew who she was because she was the daughter of a friend of my father’s, but I didn’t let on, as though I had never seen her before in my life. ‘Show Marysia where the toilet is,’ she said, ‘and where her bed is, introduce her to the life of the day-nursery.’

When we got down to the toilet, we hugged, kissed each other and burst into tears. Then other girls joined in too: Zosia, Basia, and others. In this secret way, a get-together took place, so that nobody would suspect that we knew each other. …

There were three circumcised boys among us. One of them was a toddler. We took great care that nobody saw us changing his nappies, that was why either the nuns or the older Jewish girls did it. …

Once the Ukrainian police, who were co-operating with the Germans, occupied the first floor of our house—we were terrified. …

I had never had anything to do with Christianity. My father was a member of the PPS, my uncle was a traditional Jew …

When I came to the convent, I didn’t know how to pray or make the sign of the cross, I knew nothing. Sister Jakuba told me to kneel down. I objected. ‘I’m Jewish,’ I said, ‘I don’t know whether life is worth changing your personality for.’ Then Sister Jakuba suggested that I kneel at the end of the chapel and just make miming movements with my mouth so that it would just seem like I was praying. I pretended like that for a month or more. But I was never punished; I never heard a bad word, or any anti-Semitic allusions.¹⁴⁹ On the contrary, it was I who asked questions; I was too clever by half. I wanted to know what God was like, why he treated us in this way.

They were patient. They were good. Whenever they had a crumb of extra food—sometimes the priest brought a piece of cake—they gave it to us. I kept hearing, ‘Marysia, open wide, I have something for you.’

The nuns took us under their protection and clasped us to their breasts. I remember them all: Sister Ligoria Grenda, Sister Bernarda, Sister Longina, Sister Jakuba and Sister Leokadia—a probationer nun who only took her vows after the war, because it was not possible during the war. And also Sister Alfonsa …

So, it is hard to say when the process of conversion began, under the influence of their personal example, their love. After a certain time, I decided that I wanted to be christened. But the nuns said, ‘No, you have parents and you’ll go back to them; faith is not some sort of pendulum.

Then Przemyśl was bombed. I knelt before the priest and kissed his hands, I begged him to christen me. The priest said, ‘If a bomb lands here, you’ll be christened.’

No bomb fell.

When the liberation came in 1944, I did not want to return to my parents. The nuns reminded me that amongst the Ten Commandments there was also this one: Honour thy father and thy mother. ‘You are sinning by not returning to your parents,’ they repeated. And of course I did not want to sin. I went back. But when I went to church for mass, my father would beat me. I went about with a swollen face. It was hell within hell, the two together. …

I was very happy in Poland, I studied, I played the piano. I was the only Jew in the class, everything was working out wonderfully, except that when there was a retreat, my parents would take me away and I couldn’t receive any of the holy sacraments. I waged war with my father for four years about the Church. But I never gave up hope.