Wartime Rescue of Jews by the Polish Catholic Clergy

They accepted her as Irena Lewandowska, orphan from the Zamojskie [Zamość] district.

“At that time they took those children in the Zamojskie district, and she came from there. She had the certificate.” recalls Stanisław Laska. His memory of her arrival differs from Miriam’s story: “She was brought by a lady who lived in Łowicz, they had a house there, she came here and brought that little Jewish girl,” he says.

Miriam gets emotional when she remembers her stay with the Laskas: “they took me in, put me in a tub, because I had lice from that bunker and everything ... and then I went to bed, the same as Helka. They didn’t treat me as if I dropped down from Mars or another planet. They were the people ... there are no such people in the whole world ... I found a home. ... I worked because everyone worked there. I slept together with Helka.” ...

“After a while I started going to school in the village. I attended religious instruction lessons. I was a good student and the priest even praised me from the pulpit. And they [the Laskas] were very proud of me.” Irena took her First Communion: “She was keen to do it because she had a friend and they took Communion together,” says Stanisław.

The girl told about her origin only to the priest [Rev. Zenon Ziemecki] during confession. The Laskas were guessing she was Jewish but it did not matter to them.

“I had quite forgotten I was Jewish,” remembers Miriam. “... when we were sitting together in winter weaving linen, there was talk about Jews. ... they talked about my grandpa. They had known him, bought ploughs from him and other staff ... those relatives of mine, Finkielsztajn-Adler, were very well known in Łowicz ... of course, I didn’t say anything ...

They never asked me about that certificate. I told them that Germans had killed my parents ... They never asked.”

Miriam-Irena stayed with the Laskas for two years.
After being smuggled out of the Warsaw ghetto with her brother in July 1942, Ada Rems (born in 1930) and her brother where sheltered by a Polish woman in Warsaw. Ada’s brother was sent to live with the woman’s mother in the countryside. After giving himself away by wearing a hat in church, Ada’s brother was not allowed to venture out of the house. Ada’s benefactor was warned by the tenement building administrator where they lived to send Ada away because of the danger this exposed the residents to. An unidentified priest arranged for temporary lodging for Ada in Warsaw, and then placed her with a woman in Świątniki Górne near Kraków. Ada remained there from May 1943 until June 1945.²¹⁰
After the failed revolt that broke out in the Warsaw ghetto in April 1943, the Polish underground attempted to rescue the small number of Jews who managed to escape deportation and remained hidden in bunkers and cellars in the ruins of the ghetto. The Polish underground turned to Catholic priests for assistance in hiding the fugitives. (Gutman and Bender, The Encyclopedia of the Righteous Among the Nations, volume 5: Poland, Part 2, pp.806–807.)
Zdzislaw [Zdzisław] Szymczak and his wife, Jadwiga, lived in Warsaw during the war. In 1941, he began helping Jews. His brother, Jozef [Józef], also actively assisted him in this endeavor. One of the many Jews who received help from the Szymczak brothers was Mieczyslaw [Mieczysław] Karol Dubinski [Dubiński], a schoolmate of Zdzislaw’s from the Warsaw Polytechnic. They were also both involved in the Socialist Student Union group known as “Life” (OMS “Zycie” [“Życie]). They had met again at the turn of 1941, when Zdzislaw helped Dubinski find a hiding in Piaseczno (near Warsaw) for a few days. At the same time, Jehuda Leibel (later Roman Malinowski)—who was also a prewar schoolmate from the Polytechnic—approached Zdzislaw. In November 1942, the Szymczak brothers arranged the escape of Maria Malinowski from the Tarnow [Tarnów] ghetto. Maria (Rachel Markus) was Roman’s wife. The brothers brought her to Warsaw and helped her establish herself on the Aryan side. Zdzislaw also hid Beniamin Leibel (Roman’s father) in his apartment for one week. He eventually found a hiding place for Roman’s father-in-law, Moshe Markus, as well. In December 1942, the Szymczak brothers helped Rachel’s sister, Felicia Markus (Izabelle Minz), escape from the Tarnow ghetto. They took her to Warsaw and put her up for a few days in their mother’s apartment. They also arranged Aryan papers for her and helped her find an apartment. Zdzislaw also helped Roman’s sister, Lili Rosenblum, flee the ghetto. In July 1943, the teenager David Plonski escaped from the [Warsaw] ghetto through the sewage system. He tried to contact the Polish underground to arrange for the escape of the handful of fighters who had remained alive in the destroyed ghetto. The Szymczak brothers came to his aid and provided him with food and arms. They also helped him return to the ghetto through a manhole and then, for three nights, waited for him and his group of comrades to leave the ghetto. They kept in contact with the fighters after finding hiding places for all. In 1944, following the end of the Warsaw Uprising, Zdzislaw helped Roman to relocate his family.
The aforementioned Zdzisław Szymczak provided additional details of his exploits in his own recollection of these events, including the assistance he received from Rev. Paweł Iliński of Zalesie Górne near Warsaw. (Richard C. Lukas, ed., Out of the Inferno: Poles Remember the Holocaust [Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 1989], pp.166–68.)
The aid that I organized for the Jews had a three-fold character, first of all moving Jews to safe places. Often through my mediation, people found shelter with partisan units [who operated in the Kielce woods]. The point of contact for moving Jews was my own residence at 15 Granica [Graniczna] Street in Warsaw. During the occupation, nearly 100 people passed through my apartment. To avoid provocation of the Germans, those Jews who came to my home first called upon people whom I knew and in whom I had confidence. That same day or the following day, the Jews were moved to other apartments in City Center, Powiśle, or Wola. These apartments were specially prepared with secret tile stoves on rollers, in the event of a German search. The Jews were also moved often to the apartment of my in-laws at 43 Królewicz Jakub Street, where in a one-family dwelling two secret places to hide Jews—one in the cellar and one in the loft—had been built. …

Second, I helped to provide food to Jews who lived in the ghetto, even during the Ghetto Uprising. After the end of the Ghetto Uprising, I received from Mieczysław Kadzielski (the name he used during the occupation) information about the location of a camouflaged bunker in the ghetto. I decided to help this group out of the ghetto. To gain entry to the ghetto, I hired myself out for several days with a group of transport workers who worked for the Germans. This groups’ [sic] task was to carry away industrial machinery from the ghetto. I assumed the risk, convinced that there was no other possibility to save the people in the bunker. During the time of my work in the ghetto, I detached myself from the other workers, with the agreement of the supervisor, and went to the address of the bunker. All I got there was information that Kadzielski had moved to another bunker and would indicate later where he was. After several weeks, a fifteen-year-old Jewish boy, Little Jurek [Jerzy Płoński], a member of Kadzielski’s group, came to my apartment. He had gotten out of the rubble of the ghetto through the sewers and he brought news of Kadzielski’s location. Together with my friends, we decided to help Kadzielski and the people who were with him get out through the sewers. At a designated manhole exactly at midnight we would take them out. We leased an apartment near the entrance to the sewer, where we would immediately be able to get to the survivors. We anticipated using armed guards. The escape was successful. Kadzielski stayed first in the apartment on Królewicz Jakub Street and found himself later in Zalesie Górne near Warsaw, where he was hidden by Father [Paweł] Iliński, a member of the Home Army, in the home of the Matysiak family.

In my third way of aiding Jews, it often happened that I traveled by train to escort Jews to Warsaw. On one of these trips I went to Częstochowa to escort the twelve-year-old niece of Mrs. Kadzielski. After several days, we moved her to the house in Zalesie Górne. The girl calls herself Ola Harland now and lives in Paris.

During the entire occupation, although I was registered as living at 15 Granica [Graniczna] Street, I tried to be there very rarely because I was being pursued by the Gestapo. The Gestapo possessed documents concerning my prewar Communist activities at the Warsaw Polytechnic. I succeeded in avoiding arrest three times. Since I myself was being pursued by the Nazis, it seemed reasonable for me to help the persecuted Jews.
Many other priests from Warsaw assisted Jews during the German occupation. The following members of the Society of the Catholic Apostolate, also known as the Pallottine Fathers, extended help to Jews in Warsaw: Rev. Franciszek Pauliński, the rector of the residence on Miodowa Street; Rev. Wiktor Bartkowiak, the chaplain of the transit camp on Skaryszewska Street; Rev. Jan Stefanowski, who assisted both Polish and Jewish children; Rev. Jan Młyńczak, who was active in the Polus shelter for the homeless in the suburb of Praga.²¹¹
Fruma Bregman found shelters for herself, her husband, and her daughter, as did other Jews, thanks to contacts provided by the Jesuit Rev. Alojzy Chrobak and by Rev. Michał Kliszko, the vicar of Warsaw’s cathedral parish of St. John the Baptist. Rev. Chrobak was acquainted with Fruma Bregman’s husband, at whose store he shopped before the Bregman family moved to the ghetto. Rev. Chrobak gave him his address in case his family needed help. For a time, Fruma Bregman and her daughter, Zosia, lived with Maria Szymczyk, with whom she made contact thanks to Rev. Chrobak. She describes her as a “saintly woman” who would distribute money to the sick and those in need.²¹² Rev. Chrobak worked closely with the Sisters Servants of the Blessed Virgin Mary Immaculately Conceived (of Stara Wieś), who ran an orphanage in Chotomów outside Warsaw, where he placed Halina W. The Chomotów convent was part of network composed of lay organizations, such as the Department of Social Welfare headed by Jan Dobraczyński, who referred Jewish children there, and priests, such as Rev. Stefan Ugniewski, who headed the foundation responsible for the orphanage. During the German occupation some 80 to 90 girls, mostly orphans, were under the care of eight nuns, including the superior, Sister Teofila Kozłowska, and Sister Witolda (Bronisława) Krzemińska, an educator. Some ten Jewish girls were sheltered in the orphanage including: Joasia Majerczyk, who was referred there by Mother Urszula Ledóchowska of the Ursuline Sisters of the Agonizing Heart of Jesus; Feliksa B., who was later transferred to the convent in Turkowice along with her brother; Idalia Gołąb (born in 1939); Anna P. (born in 1939); Halina W. (born in 1938); Jadwiga Cz. (born in 1931); the sisters Irena and Anna Monat (born in 1933 and 1936, respectively); Janina L. (born in 1936); and Danuta R. After the Warsaw Uprising of 1944, the orphanage was relocated to Modlin, then to Częstochowa, and finally to Krasice.²¹³
According to a Jewish testimony, 10-year-old Fejgele Inwentarz was placed there by her mother, Bella Inwentarz, but she was so attached to her mother that she left the convent on her own and returned to her mother. They then relocated to Warsaw ghetto where they perished.²¹⁴ However, Fejgele’s older brother, Josek Inwentarz (born in 1930, later Josef Carmeli) survived with the assistance of many local Poles families, including his prewar neighbours, the Lisowski family, and an unidentified priest. (Anna Kołacińska-Gałązka, ed., Dzieci Holocaustu mówią..., vol. 5 [Warsaw: Stowarzyszenie “Dzieci Holocaustu” w Polsce, 2013], 19.)
The fall of 1943 approached. Having no place to stay I went in the direction of the place of my birth which I knew from childhood—the area of Tarchomin, Winnica, Henryków, Wiśniew. During the day I hid in the brushwood near the Vistula River. At night, like a wolf, I approached farmsteads asking for a place to sleep and something to eat. Nowhere did anyone refuse me some food. Sometimes I was allowed to stay overnight in a house, barn or stable. Everywhere I got some bead and milk for the road. Often I would enter a stable or cowshed without the farmer’s knowledge. I ate the food that the farmer left for the horse (cereal) or pigs (boiled potatoes). For quite some time I lived in the attic of a parish rectory. The priest knew I was a Jew. He gave me shelter and fed me … I had a warm place under a roof, a full stomach and was under the care of the priest. However, I couldn’t stay too long in anyone place. My instincts told me that I should change my whereabouts.
Ludwika Oberleder (born in 1920), her older sister and her mother, who were natives of Kraków, moved to Warsaw during the war. They assumed Christian identities using birth and baptismal certificates in the name of Piekarzewski provided to them by a priest in the Praga district of Warsaw. Ludwika’s father eventually joined them. While living in outlying Milanówek ostensibly as Polish Catholics, the family was protected by the pastor of the local parish, Rev. Jerzy Modzelewski, who assisted in their cover-up and performed marriage ceremonies for Ludwika’s sister and her cousin. Both priests were said to have been very helpful to Jews.²¹⁵ After the war, Rev. Modzelewski was nominated an auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Warsaw.
Jewish converts posed a unique challenge for the Catholic clergy. Several thousand Catholics of Jewish origin, some from families who had converted one or two generations previously, were classified as Jews by the Germans and forced into the ghettos.²¹⁶ These converts required both spiritual care and material assistance. Many other Jews converted once inside the ghetto. However, the activities of the Polish clergy were not confined to converts. Monsignor Marceli Godlewski, the pastor of All Saints church, which was included in the Warsaw ghetto, and his vicars Rev. Antoni Czarnecki and Rev. Tadeusz Nowotko, as well as priests from other Catholic institutions, extended their help to everyone. They ran a soup kitchen where meals were dispensed to the starving residents of the ghetto, both Christians and non-converts. Jewish children from Janusz Korczak’s orphanage often played in the church’s garden. Rev. Godlewski opened up the church’s crypt to Jews making their way out of the ghetto, provided false documents to many Jews, and helped smuggle Jewish children out of the ghetto. Monsignor Aleksander Fajęcki, the secretary of the metroplitan curia, visted the parish from time to time. As Rev. Godlewski resided outside the ghetto, he had a special pass which allowed him to enter the ghetto. As a result, he was able to smuggle food into the ghetto and help many people escape from the ghetto and hide under false names. Several Jewish children who escaped from the ghetto, among them Adam Feller, were placed in an orphanage run by the Franciscan Sisters of the Family of Mary which was located in Rev. Godlewski’s home in Anin, outside of Warsaw. Rev. Godlewski, who was recognized as a Righteous Gentile by Yad Vashem in 2009, is the subject of a monograph in Polish.²¹⁷ According to Yad Vadem, Rev. Godlewski was responsible for rescuing at least 70 Jews.²¹⁸ After the liquidation of the so-called small ghetto, where All Saints church was located, Rev. Edward Gorczyca became the acting pastor and continued to provide assistance to Jews. Rudolf Hermelin, whom Rev. Czarnecki arranged to have smuggled out of the ghetto in February 1943, was sheltered temporarily in the parish rectory.²¹⁹ The following description comes from Irene Tomaszewski and Tecia Werbowski, Żegota: The Council for Aid to Jews in Occupied Poland, 1942–1945 (Montreal: Price-Patterson, 1999), at page 36; Code Name: Żegota: Rescuing Jews in Occupied Poland, 1942–1945: The Most Dangerous Conspiracy in Wartime Europe (Santa Barbara, California: Praeger/ABC-CLIO, LLC, 2010), at pages 27–28:
When the walls were erected around the Warsaw ghetto, All Saints’ church was enclosed within them. Its parish priest [pastor] was Marceli Godlewski, known quite well before the war for his anti-Jewish views. [In actual fact, Rev. Godlewski was disliked by the Jews for promoting Polish business and workers’ unions as well as credit unions, and for his association with the National Democracy.] However, once he witnessed the terrifying persecution of the Jews, Godlewski turned his energies to the task of helping as much as he could. He did so by remaining in the ghetto and ministering to the Jews who had been converted to Christianity. He also offered the shelter of his church to any others who turned to him.

Father Godlewski gave the Jews who came to him birth certificates of deceased parishioners, thus providing those ready to escape with an “authentic” document. He smuggled children out of the ghetto under his robes, and helped find shelter and provide food on the other side for those who did make it out.