Wartime Rescue of Jews by the Polish Catholic Clergy

The priest said, ‘This is my sister.’ And they left.

My sister had already told the priest that her daddy was a Polish officer in captivity, and Mummy was at Auschwitz for selling pork fat. She said she was now going to Kraków where she did not know anyone, as she came from Bydgoszcz. And the priest took her to his friends from Bydgoszcz (Bydgoszcz had been incorporated into the Third Reich as soon as the war had started), who were moving to a small town—Kocmyrzów.

The priest’s name was Alfons Walkiewicz.

The priest’s friends had a buffet in Kocmyrzów. They were Genowefa Kunegunda and Roman Kłosowski. They immediately treated my sister as if she were one of the family. She even began to go to school. She shared a bed with the family servant, Czesia. At one point Czesia started doubting my sister’s history, as some of the facts did not fit. Anyway, they deduced that they were both Jewish, but they did not give it away to one another. They were both ready to deny it, because you couldn’t be sure who was a spy and who wasn’t. They did not tell each other the truth until after the war. Nowadays, Czesia, then some twenty years old, lives in Jerusalem. She comes from Sanok. …

My sister stayed in touch with Father Walkiewicz till he died, which was in the 1980s.
Rozalia Allerhand’s twin sister, Anna Allerhand, also relocated from Monasterzyska to Kraków, where she was assisted by a number of Poles. Rev. Faustyn Żelski provided her with a false baptismal certificate in the name of Maria Malinowska in order to pass as a Catholic Pole. (Gutman and Bender, The Encyclopedia of the Righteous Among the Nations, volume 4: Poland, Part 1, pp.386–87.)
In October 1942, during the first deportation from the Cracow [Kraków] ghetto, 12-year-old Anna Allerhand fled after her mother was taken to a death camp. … Anna had no choice but to return to Cracow where she turned to Salomea Kowalczyk, a seamstress who before the war had had business ties with her parents, who owned a fabricstore. Salomea, her husband, Stanislaw [Stanisław], and their sons, Czeslaw [Czesław], Jerzy, and Bronislaw [Bronisław], agreed to hide Anna in their home and did all they could to make her feel welcome. When the neighbors became suspicious, the Kowalczyks transferred Anna to a vegetable plot they owned outside the city, where she masqueraded as gardener and custodian. Meanwhile, the Kowalczyks continued looking for a safer place for Anna and finally arranged for her to stay with Helena Przebindowska, Salomea’s sister-in-law, who knew Anna’s parents. Przebindowska, a poor widow who lived with her three children in a one-room apartment, welcomed Anna, and she and her two daughters, Urszula and Miroslawa [Mirosława], who were let into the secret, treated Anna like one of the family. Przebindowska enlisted the help of the local priest [Rev. Faustyn Żelski²⁷⁸] to obtain Aryan papers for Anna and enrolled her in the local school [under the name of Marysia Malinowska]. Meanwhile, a Polish friend of Anna’s parents paid Przebindowska for Anna’s upkeep from assets Anna’s mother had entrusted to her. … After the war, Anna’s father, an officer in the Polish army, returned from captivity, reclaimed his daughter, and took her with him to Israel.
Rev. Aleksander Osiecki was instrumental in rescuing the Haber family from Brzeźnica, a village near Dębica, where he was the pastor. He was recognized by Yad Vashem as a Righteous Gentile. (Gutman and Bender, The Encyclopedia of the Righteous Among the Nations, volume 5: Poland, Part 2, p.567.)
In 1940, Oscar and Frieda Haber were sent to a forced-labor camp in Pustkow [Pustków], near Brzeznica [Brzeźnica], the village where they were born in Debica [Dębica] county, Rzeszow [Rzeszów] district. Oscar, a dentist, had treated many of the people in his village and he and Father Aleksander Osiecki, the local priest and one of his patients, had become fast friends. To help them, Osiecki issued Haber and his wife Christian birth and marriage certificates, which they used to obtain Aryan papers. In August 1942, when the Germans were about to liquidate the camp, the Habers decided to flee. The priest directed them to the home of relatives of his who lived in the nearby village of Jurkow [Jurków], and they remained there, working on the farm, until May 1943. Following information provided by informers, the Gestapo raided the village, but the Habers spotted them in time and managed to escape to the forest. At this point, Haber and his wife realized that they could no longer hide out in the village and in their distress returned to Franiczesk Musial [Musiał], a Polish laborer who had worked alongside them on the farm and with whom they had become friendly. Musial empathized with the Jewish fugitives’ suffering and took the Habers to the home of Jan and Anna Stalmach, his sister and brother-in-law, who lived with their son, Adam, in Tworkowa, a remote village in Brzesko county, in the Cracow [Kraków] district. Motivated by pure altruism, the Stelmach family received the Habers warmly and hid them in their home for a year and a half, providing them with all their needs until their liberation, without asking for or receiving anything in return.
Rev. Florian Moryl, the pastor and dean of Pilzno near Dębica, provided a false birth and baptismal certificate to Jozek (Józef) Wurzel, the son of an estate owner in nearby Pilźnionek. Wurzel was thus able to survive the German occupation passing as a Catholic Pole. The priest was offended when Wurzel asked him how much he should pay for the document and wished him luck. Wurzel survived the war with the help of the Jabłonowski family from Przyborów and the Rudzki family from Skałbia.²⁷⁹
Józefa Rysińska, who was a liaison officer in the Żegota underground organization, arrived in Pilzno during the deportation of Jews. Her mission was to take a three-year-old Jewish girl to Tarnów. The Poles showed empathy with the plight of the Jews. Father Mateusz Holewa, the former prior of the Carmelite monastery in Pilzno, then an elderly man, offered to harbour Jews in the monastery church. (“Account of Józefa Rysińska, pseudonym “Ziuta,” a messenger working for the Rada Pomocy Żydom (Committee for the Assistance of Jews) who, in 1979, was awarded the Righteous among the Nations medal,” Virtual Shtetl, Internet: .)
In the morning, the news spread in the town that something was going to happen judging by the number of carts gathered in the market place. When the mother came back from church, we went to the market place where our Jews from the ghetto were gathered. I can remember the place full of carts, some of the Jews already sitting in them. Many of the Pilzno inhabitants came out, I can remember Marceli Drobiński, they came up and said goodbye. The Jews were crying and the Poles were wiping their tears. I went to my friends, Hela Abraham, Ilonka, Hania Baum, Chilowiczówna, Hajcia Nord and consoled them that that was not the end. Some fathers and mothers turned to me asking, Dziuniu, help her, she is young, just like you, and many other words and spells …

Mateusz Holewa, the prior of the Carmelite Fathers monastery was walking down the pavement, I greeted him, and he said that we needed to save the poor people, that the church and the choir were open, and that, later on, we would hide them somewhere. And again, I came and spread the words of the hope for an instant escape. But nobody decided to do it. Some had second thoughts, but the reaction was unanimous. If anybody were going to die, they would die together.
Rev. Jan Patrzyk, the pastor of Medenice near Drohobycz, rescued the daughter of his acquanitance, Dr. Meir Eisenberg, by taking her to his native village, Lipinki near Gorlice, where she survived the war. Rev. Patrzyk’s brother, Władysław, escorted Judyta Eisenberg from Drohobycz to Lipinki, barely surviving a German inspection. Rev. Patrzyk obtained a false baptismal certificate for Judyta from Rev. Franciszek Zmarzły, the pastor of Racławice, in the name of Anna Maziarz. She lived with the Patrzyk family openly, passing as a cousin. Rev. Patrzyk’s sister, Barbara, cared for her solicitously. A local landowner, Wacław Byszewski, employed Judyta so as to prevent her from being sent to Germany as a labourer. Rev. Patrzyk made plans for Dr. Eisenberg to come to Lipniki, but he was executed in Drohobycz, where had been working for the Germans as a specialist.²⁸⁰ Rev. Patrzyk and his sister, Barbara, were recognized by Yad Vashem as Righteous Gentiles. (Gutman and Bender, The Encyclopedia of the Righteous Among the Nations, volume 5: Poland, Part 2, p.590.)
Dr. Meir Eisenberg, a Jewish doctor, and Jan Patrzyk, a priest, had become friends before the war when they both served in Medenice, near Drohobycz, in Eastern Galicia. During the occupation, Patrzyk was transferred to the village of Lipinki in Gorlice country, Cracow [Kraków] district, and Eisenberg was deported with his family to the Drohobycz ghetto. In 1942, after losing his wife in an Aktion, Eisenberg decided to try to save at least his 15-year-old daughter, Judit. He turned to his friend Father Patrzyk and smuggled the girl into his home. Patrzyk took the Jewish girl under his wing and obtained Aryan papers for her [from Rev. Franciszek Zmarzły of Racławice, in the name of Anna Maziarz]. She became a part of his family, and his sister, Barbara Patrzyk, cared for her as if she were her own sister. After the war, when Patrzyk discovered that his friend Meir Eisenberg, the girl’s father, had perished, Judit remained under his care and continued her studies in the local high school. Only after a year, when an aunt of the girl’s was found, was she handed over to her, all without asking for or receiving anything in return. Judit eventually immigrated to Israel …
Rev. Andrzej Osikowicz (sometimes given as Osikiewicz), the pastor of Drohobycz parish, in southeastern Poland, exhorted his parishioners to help Jews, provided many Jews with false documents, looked for shelters for them, and intervened on their behalf with the German authorities. Prior to his arrest, Rev. Osikowicz destroyed the parish records so that the Germans could not identify the false documents he had issued to Jews. This led to his arrest by the Germans. He was deported to the Majdanek concentration camp, where he perished in Majdanek on December 29, 1943. He had been infected with typhus, which he contracted while attending to sick inmates.²⁸¹ Rev. Osikowicz was recognized by Yad Vashem as a Righteous Gentile, together with Stanisława Fedorcio. (Gutman and Bender, The Encyclopedia of the Righteous Among the Nations, volume 5: Poland, Part 2, p.568.)
On August 2, 1942, on the eve of the Aktion in the city of Boryslaw [Borysław], in Eastern Galicia, Berta Brawer gave birth to her son, Dani, and decided to do everything in her power to save his life. She heard that a Catholic priest, Father Osikiewicz [Andrzej Osikowicz], was hiding Jewish children, and Brawer appealed to him for help. After he explained that he had no place for infants, the priest suggested that she look for a Christian woman willing to hide the baby and take care of him. He also promised to provide the baby with a Christian birth certificate. In her distress, Brawer appealed to Stanislawa [Stanisława] Fedorcio, with whom she had become acquainted before the war when she had done housework for Brawer’s neighbors. At first, Fedorcio hesitated, fearing for her life, but after the priest found out that she had been approached he invited Fedorcio to be the baby’s godmother at his baptism ceremony. After the ceremony, he convinced her that as the baby’s Catholic godmother she was required to safeguard the baby’s life, otherwise God would not forgive her. Convinced, Fedorcio took the baby home and for three years raised him as her own, taking care of all his needs. Brawer survived and after the war Fedorcio returned the baby to her safe and sound.
In her memoir, Shedding Light on Dark Times, Dr. Bella Brawer-Tepper writes: “I also have definite proof that some of her (i.e., Fedorcio’s) neighbors knew about this but did not tell the police.” She also mentions another “worthy Polish lady who entered the ghetto during a pogrom. She came to warn us and smuggle a Jewish child out of a ghetto surrounded by police. I don’t know her surname and am therefore unable to ensure that she receives the deserved title of Righteous of the Nations from Yad Vashem.”²⁸² At least two other survivors, Blima Hamerman and Anna Wilf (Thau), state that Rev. Osikowicz helped them and many other Jews by providing them with Christian documents and shelter.²⁸³
Krystyna Libera, born in 1915, was a school teacher in Borysław. During the various German operations directed against the Jews in Borysław, she, her husband, her young daughter, and her sister were sheltered by Polish neighbours. After her husband’s death, she turned to his Polish work colleague for help. He took them to a priest who gave them false baptismal certificates. Krystyna Libera and her daughter were then sent to her husband’s colleague’s friend who lived in the countryside. She lived there openly posing as his sister. The Polish family treated them well, even though Krystyna Libera had no money to pay for their upkeep.²⁸⁴
According to Jewish testimonies, assistance from priests and nuns in Drohobycz was extensive. (Chciuk, Saving Jews in War-Torn Poland, 1939–1945, p.48.)
In a letter from a Drohobyczian Mrs. Lola Getlinger received from Brazil in 1959 … she refers to cases where the Polish Roman Catholic and also the Ukrainian Greco-Catholic clergy issued literally hundreds of false birth certificates to Jewish people, so as to enable them to be regarded as Aryans. Among others, Mrs. Getlinger’s whole family was issued with such papers.

Extremely helpful in this task were Fathers Dr. Kazimierz Kotula and Banaszak [actually Rev. Stanisław Banaś, who provided false baptismal certificates and shelter to Jews]. The monasteries of the Capuchin and Bazylian [Basilian] Brothers gave refuge to a large number of Jewish children.
Some of the assistance provided by Polish Jesuits to Jews as well as others has been chronicled in Vincent A. Lapomarda, The Jesuits and the Third Reich (Lewiston/Queenston and Lampeter: The Edwin Mellen Press, 1989), at pages 124–25 and 129–31.
Father [Tomasz] Rostworowski entered the Jesuit Order at the age of nineteen and was ordained a priest on 23 June 1935. Engaged in the fight for Warsaw under the title of Ojciec Tomasz (Father Tomasz), he served as chaplain in the main command. With the setback of the revolt, he was originally believed to have perished until he was found very heroically helping the wounded in the underground. Tragically, his sorrow at the failure of the uprising was compounded by helplessly witnessing the slaughter by the Nazis of the wounded prisoners shortly after he had distributed Holy Communion to them. At the same time, his heroic activities included that of providing secret shelter for Jews hunted by the Gestapo.

As for Father [Józef] Warszawski, he entered the Society of Jesus in 1924 and was ordained a priest on 18 June 1933. He was known as Ojciec Paweł (Father Paul) in the underground which he joined in October of 1941 where he served under the command of Colonel Radosław (Jan Mazurkiewicz) in a unit that had at least fifty Jews engaged in the uprising. Despite the Gestapo’s constant surveillance of the two Jesuit houses in Warsaw, Father Warszawski was able to warn some Jews about the Nazis and to help those rescued from the Warsaw Ghetto find lodging and even escape death. … After the capitulation of Warsaw, he escaped for a short time from the Gestapo with a number of others in the Polish underground. When he was caught, he was imprisoned first in the Gestapo Center (Aleje Szucha) in Warsaw and, then, taken to various places until he ended up in Germany where he was freed as a prisoner of war during the liberation, on 29 April 1945, of Stalag XB at Sandbötsel by the Canadians. …

Father [Jerzy] Mirewicz was ordained a priest on 24 June 1938 and was caught up in the turmoil of events that overwhelmed Poland during the war. The Nazis had imprisoned Jews in the temporary camp on Lipowa Street in Lublin shortly after the invasion of Poland before Majdanek, the major concentration camp in the Lublin area, was built. It was in these circumstances that Father Mirewicz was instrumental in rescuing seventeen Jews in 1940.

The Jews had served in the Polish Army and were separated as captives from other Polish soldiers with the defeat of Poland. Since they were expected to be transported to the death camp [actually a gravel pit at the time, which was later transformed into a hard labour camp for Poles and then a death camp for Jews—M.P.] at Treblinka, northeast of Warsaw, Father Mirewicz risked his life in rescuing them. This involved hiding the Jews and obtaining fabricated documents for them as well as transportation. Through various means, the Jesuit was instrumental in having the seventeen Jews transported to the relative safety of the Russian front [actually Soviet-occupied Eastern Poland—M.P.].

Moreover, in 1942 Father Mirewicz had occasion to escort a Jewish fugitive by train from Biłgoraj in the Lublin area to Milanówek in the Warsaw area where the fugitive could join the members of his family who were being hidden by a Christian family. Even though the Jesuit had permission to travel, officials were constantly checking the papers of passengers. When the train reached Dęblin, within the district of Warsaw, a policeman came into the car and demanded to know if Mirewicz’s companion was a Jew. Fortunately for the priest and the fugitive, the whole compartment came to their rescue by insisting that Mirewicz was escorting a “lunatic” to a hospital asylum.

During the war, Father Mirewicz had cooperated with the Council for Aid to the Jews in Poland. Known as “ŻEGOTA,” its code name, it had originated among Catholics … Despite these dangers, never did Mirewicz find any Christians who refused to cooperate with him in helping the Jews.

Father Mirewicz referred to the obstacles that were encountered in trying to rescue the Jews. At times not only did their appearance and their speech betray them, but there were cases of Jews who had lost their nerve in those trying circumstances and even revealed to the Nazis the identity of those Poles who had given them shelter. The Jesuit found that, in the case of rescuing those seventeen Jews from Lipowa Street, the Jews whom he had helped did not wish to risk their own lives even though they were happy to be liberated. In 1944, when at least three of them returned to Lublin with the liberation forces of the Russians, Mirewicz was disappointed to learn that two of those whom he had rescued wanted nothing to do with him lest they be exiled to Siberia by the Lublin Government on the suspicion of having collaborated with a sympathizer of the exiled Polish Government.
There are many accounts of priests providing guidance and encouragement to the faithful who assisted Jews. The reason that Polish rescuers turned to priests is not because they thought that helping a Jew was wrong—indeed according to their religion it was a sin to harm one’s neighbour, including a Jew, but rather for assurance that they should persevere despite their fear and the grave danger that they were exposing their own families to. In his memoirs A Warsaw Diary, supra, at pages 87–88, Michael Zylberberg describes how his Polish benefactors in the Czerniaków district of Warsaw (St. Anthony’s Parish), turned to their parish priest for guidance.
Our poor family were keen to have us without rent at a time when people were taking enormous sums to hide Jews. They had no previous knowledge of us but felt they had a sacred duty to shelter anyone in need. Of course, our existence had to be a closely-guarded secret. … Both the grandmother and her daughter prayed frequently that God would help them and us. When we were worried that something might happen, they always assured us that they would stand by us and protect us. Their compassion was outstanding.

Easter was getting closer and a new problem arose for us. Mrs. Klima said she had to go to confession and that she had to tell the whole truth. That included telling about us. She was afraid that the priest might not approve and regard this procedure as dangerous; she was at a loss what to do, and asked me for advice. I begged her to let us know what day she was going to confession, so that we could stay out of the house all day. Thus she would not need to mention us and would have a clear conscience. We kept out of the house that day, as promised, but Mrs. Klima confessed everything to the priest! Happily for us and for her, however, the priest assured her that she was performing a noble service on helping those in danger. She returned home overjoyed.
Esther Kimchi, a native of the town of Złoczew near Wieluń, was a little girl when the war broke out. The family moved to Warsaw. One day they escaped from the ghetto where they had been forced to move into. Her parents turned to Polish acquaintances who agreed to take the child in. She survived the war protected by this pious Polish Catholic family, encouraged in their resolve by their parish priest. After the war young Esther was reunited with some uncles who had also survived. Her parents perished. (Esther Kimchi, “Due to the Merits of the Righteous of the World,” in Sefer Zloczew [Tel Aviv: Committee of Former Residents of Zloczew, 1971], pp.272–75.)
My parents also faced this decision and decided to use their connections. I was left outside the ghetto in a safe hidden place. To tell the truth, a hiding place was also found for my mother, but she preferred to stay in the ghetto in order to save me, for she feared that if she was discovered she might reveal my hideaway. Thus, she sacrificed herself for me.

My parents left and I remained with Polish acquaintances from before the war. They consented to keep and protect me in their house in order to avoid being captured by the German killers …

At first, I was not completely isolated from my family since my father took risky chances to see me. He would dress up as a sanitation worker and reach my hiding place or he would smuggle something to the “Aryan side” and use the opportunity to visit me. These activities were very dangerous. Once, I even heard his injured call when he encountered German guards that fired at him while crossing the ghetto passage.

Towards the end of 1941, the visits stopped and I stopped seeing him. Slowly, I began to realize what was happening there in the ghetto and what was happening to my protective family. I saw on the horizon the flames that were rising from the burning ghetto. This was a picture that I will never forget.

A new chapter began in my life. I erased my youth, so to speak, from my memory and all it stood for. I became an inseparable part of the adopted family, although I had certain reservations in my heart. I understood that I am not like everybody in the family for I had something to hide.

My adopted parents had families and when somebody asked the husband who I was, he pointed to his wife and said she belonged to them and vice-versa. My stay in the flat was also irregular since I had a hiding place in a box of straw near the fireplace. I did not attend school but received lessons from the oldest daughter of the family who had just turned 18. All the children in the family were warned to keep my presence a secret and to reveal nothing about me to friends or relatives.

My luck was that the children were older and could be trusted. But I was still a small girl and had to be drilled about the fact that I was no longer Jewish and not to say something that might reveal my identity or lead to insinuations …

In order to provide me with an absolute hidden identity, the family decided to convert me to Christianity. Thus, when the family went to mass on Sunday I was part of the family and prayed with them. In retrospect, it appears that my conversion to Christianity was of great importance and would play an important role later on in my life. The days of the terrible rule seemed to prolong themselves. The Germans were victorious on the battlefields and seemed invincible, and there was not even a spark of hope for change. This situation depressed everybody, especially my savior family for they were in constant mortal danger. The lack of change and the constant fear of hiding a Jewish child in their home began to wear thin in the house. The husband especially began to show signs of despair, but the wife, who was a devout Catholic, went to consult the priest about the situation. He gave her spiritual strength to hold fast in her belief of saving a soul. From then on, not only was I protected by the lady of the house but also by the Catholic Church. Needless to say, the husband and wife squabbles on the subject ended with the husband’s submission to the wife’s decision to continue to hide the girl. …

The family treated me very well. They liked me and spoiled me by providing me with everything that I needed in spite of the hardships due to the war situation and the shortages. They sometimes even treated me better than their own children so that I did not feel underprivileged. Following the Polish uprising in Warsaw, the city lacked food and to a certain extent water, but I hardly felt it as I was provided by the savior family with the necessary needs.

Since I did not attend school for fear of being exposed, the daughters of the family taught me how to read and write. They also escorted me to church and instructed me how to pray. Sometimes I joined the church choir. I was always escorted by one of the girls when I visited the priest at the church and he always stressed the importance of religion and adherence to it. As for myself, I was still rather young to understand the importance of religion. The home atmosphere however was one of warmth and reception. I received and gave gifts, participated in family celebrations, and felt as though I belonged to the family.

Meanwhile, the war was nearing its end. The pressure on the Germans grew by the day and they prepared for the final battle in the city. They ordered the entire civilian population to abandon the city. There were no cars, so we started to walk in the direction of Lodz [Łódź]. We walked for about two weeks until we reached some abandoned camp that became our temporary abode.
Halina Neuberg (now Zylberman), a native of Kraków, moved to Warsaw with her parents during the occupation where they passed as Christians under an assumed identity. At one point she confided in an unknown priest at the Church of the Holy Saviour (Najświętszego Zbawiciela) where she and her mother would meet her father, who lived on his own for safety’s sake. (Halina Zylberman, Swimming Under Water [Caulfield South, Victoria: Makor Jewish Community Library, 2001], pp.38–39.)
One afternoon after meeting my father in the church, I had an overwhelming urge to talk to the priest. I entered the Confessional Box and in a few short sentences I told the priest how I felt. It all came tumbling out, that I was Jewish, that I felt inferior to the whole human race, that I couldn’t bear it any longer. I had a naïve trust in priests because they were often Polish patriots. That didn’t necessarily mean that they were sympathetic to Jews, but this time, I was in safe hands.

He listened to me patiently and seemed moved by my confession. He said: “I sympathise with you my child. You must never consider yourself an inferior being. You are not. It’s just the times and this dreadful was that are responsible for the injustices and cruelties that are inflicted on people. Please believe that this will pass eventually, and you must have the patience and stamina to survive it. Our God is everywhere. He watches over his children and helps them. It doesn’t matter what their skin colour is, or their religion. As long as you are a good human being then he will be with you, my child.”

His words were so important to me that I remember them, word for word, to this day. They lifted my fear and depression and as I left the church, I became aware of the sunshine and the first signs of autumn approaching.
During the Warsaw Uprising of 1944, Halina and her mother were captured by the Germans and given jobs as cooks at a German army base. Eventually, with the help of a priest, they were released from their service in the German army. They survived in a Red Cross camp in Pionki until the withdrawal of the Germans. (Ibid., pp.88–120.)
Stefan Chaskielewicz, who was in hiding in Warsaw, recalled how a priest at the Church of the Holy Saviour (Najświętszego Zbawiciela) counselled a Polish woman, who had broken down out of fear of announced German reprisals, to continue to shelter a Jewish family in her home.²⁸⁵ Chaskielewicz also noted in his memoir the reactions of the Poles to the plight of the Jews and the beneficial role played by religion. (The following excerpt from Chaskielewicz’s memoir was translated in Władysław T. Bartoszewski, “Four Jewish Memoirs from Occupied Poland,” Polin: A Journal of Polish-Jewish Studies [Oxford: Basil Blackwell for the Institute for Polish-Jewish Studies, 1990], volume 5, p.391.)
Many Poles helped Jews in a variety of ways, sheltering them or supporting them financially, risking a great deal in doing so and exposing themselves to various dangers. The majority of Poles undoubtedly felt great sympathy for the Jews and categorically condemned the humiliation of their Jewish fellow-citizens. But there were others who emphasized with pride that they were not Jews and that German treatment of the Jews was a matter of indifference to them. Some felt deep compassion for the Jews, but were subconsciously glad of the benefits their destruction brought. There were also Poles—but surely few in number—who actively collaborated with the Germans and it is difficult now to ascertain whether they did this out of conviction, because of direct material benefits, or whether they were forced to do so by German blackmail.

Can the Polish population of Warsaw therefore be categorically described as anti-semitic or philosemitic? Can the population as a whole be characterized through the actions of individuals? No, the people behaved in the same way as anyone would probably have behaved in similar circumstances, including the Jewish population. There were good people, there were evil people, there were indifferent people. Just as there always are all over the world.

I must make one observation here. In hiding, I realized how deeply humanitarian the role of religion was, how much the teachings of the Catholic Church influenced the development of what was most beautiful and noble among believers. Just as in critical moments the majority of people turn to God for help—even if their faith is not particularly strong—so the very thought of God dictates to them the need to help their neighbour who is in danger.
Chaskielewicz also records that, after escaping from the Warsaw ghetto with her daughter, Dr. Orlikowska found employment as a housekeeper with a priest who was aware of her Jewish origin.²⁸⁶
Blanca Rosenberg, who passed as a Christian in Warsaw, resided in the vicinity of St. Alexander’s Church in Three Crosses Square (Plac Trzech Krzyży). Her curiosity about the true attitude of priests toward Jews led her to conduct the following experiment: “I wondered what Jews could expect in the privacy of the confessional, and one Sunday at mass, I decided to find out. As seemingly good Catholics, we went regularly, and at the end of mass that morning I impulsively entered the confessional. ‘Father I’m breaking the law. I’m hiding a Jew.’ It was as close as I dared get to the truth. The voice that answered was young. ‘It is no sin, my child. In the sight of God it is a good deed.’”²⁸⁷
Janet Applefield, born Gittel or Gustawa Singer, was just four when the war broke out. She was cared for by a number of Poles in her hometown of Nowy Targ and Kraków, including members of the clergy. Her father acquired from a priest a birth cerificate of a deceased Polish girl which enabled his daughter to assume the identity of Krystyna Antoszkiewicz. After being left by her cousin in a church in Kraków, the young Jewish girl was found roaming the streets of Kraków by Alicja Gołąb, a member of the Polish underground. Alicja Gołab brought her to a farm owned by the Catholic Church that was administered by Jan Gołąb, her brother-in-law. The latter’s brother, Rev. Julian Gołąb, the pastor of St. Nicholas’ Parish in the Wesoła district of Kraków, hid a Jewish engineer in his rectory for the duration of the war. The man survived and, after the war, converted to Catholicism. Alicja’s husband, Ludwik, a judge, collaborated with his brother, the priest, in saving two hundred Jews by providing them with baptismal certificates. Janet Singer Applefield’s recollections, “Lost Childhood,” were published in John J. Michalczyk, ed., Resisters, Rescuers, and Refugees: Historical and Ethical Issues (Kansas City: Sheed & Ward, 1997), at pages 204–205.
While still in the ghetto, my father knew my stay with the Polish woman had to be temporary, and he had to figure out what to do with me. He was able to buy [likely through a voluntary offering to the church] the birth certificate of a deceased Polish girl from a Catholic priest, and I became that girl. I had a new identity, a new name: Krystyna Antoszkiewicz. He also contacted our cousin, a young woman, who also had falsified Polish papers with the name Halina Walkowska [Wałkowska]. She agreed to take me, and we went to live in Myslenice [Myślenice], a town close to Kraków.

One day she told me she was going to meet her Polish boyfriend in a Krakow cafe. She instructed me to wait for her in the church across the street. Though I waited for hours, she did not return. When I walked out to the street, I saw that the street was cordoned off. The Gestapo had arrested everyone in the cafe. It was May 21, 1943. There I was, seven years old, walking the streets and crying, completely bewildered and terrified, not knowing what to do. I was alone in the world. (I have learned that this cafe was a famous meeting place for the Polish resistance movement, and that my cousin and his friend belonged to the Armja [Armia] Krajowa. …)

An older woman came to me and asked what was the matter. She looked around, making sure no one was looking, placed me under her large cape, and quickly whisked me into the building housing the cafe. She was the caretaker of the building and took me upstairs to a woman named Alicja Golob [Gołąb]. Alicja asked me, “Who are you, where do you come from?” I repeated a well-rehearsed phrase [likely with a non-Varsovian accent]: “I come from Warsaw, my parents were killed in a bombing raid, my father was an officer in the Polish army.” That night Alicja’s son, Stashek [Staszek] took me to the farm, a four-kilometre walk. It was too dangerous to remain in that apartment, for the Gestapo always returned to the scene.

Alicja’s mother was an active member of the Polish resistance. She housed ammunition and shortwave radios and maintained an in-house hospital for wounded men and women of the resistance. … She was eventually arrested as a political prisoner. Because of the torture she endured, she died only a few days after her release from prison.

The farm was owned by the Catholic Church and administered by Jan Golob, Alicja’s brother-in-law. Another brother, Julius Golob [actually Julian Gołąb, the pastor of St. Nicholas’ Parish in the Wesoła district of Kraków], a priest, hid a Jewish engineer in his rectory for the duration of the war. The man survived and, after the war, converted to Catholicism. Alicja’s husband, Ludvig [Ludwik], was a judge. He and Julius saved two hundred Jews by giving them baptismal papers (I saw the records on a recent visit to Poland). They treated me like one of the family and asked me no more questions, since it was safer not to know my true identity. I could not go to school because people might get suspicious and ask too many questions. How could my presence be explained? I did not have my identification papers. …

I remained with the Polish family until the end of the war, when my cousin’s father came to take me. I was sad to leave, and the family wanted to keep me but felt that ethically and morally it was the wrong thing to do.
In addition to the aforementioned engineer (and architect), Alfred Überall from Lwów, who had marked Semitic features and had to be disguised as a priest, Rev. Julian Gołąb also sheltered in his rectory the surgeon, Dr. Józef B., later a professor of the Medical Academy in Kraków. Both of these charges survived the war and converted to Catholicism. Rev. Gołąb also provided baptismal certificates to a number of Jews.²⁸⁸
After his parents were killed, a young Jewish boy from Lwów known as Jurek (Jerzy) Górski was brought to Tarnów by his aunt, who entrusted him to a man. The man took the boy to a church and left him there. A priest found the boy and took him to a Catholic nursery. After the war, the boy was taken to a Jewish children’s home in Kraków. The boy recalled his happy stay in the nursery: he played with other children and was well fed.²⁸⁹
A young Jewish boy by the name of Izaak Wasserlauf was abandoned by his mother as they were led from the ghetto in Nowy Sącz to be shot. He was found half-dead in the forest by villagers who brought him to the parish rectory in Przydonica. Rev. Konstanty Cabaj nursed the boy back to health and sheltered him for about half a year later. The boy was later given over to the chancery in Tarnów and housed in the diocesan country estate outside Tarnów, where he survived the war.²⁹⁰
After escaping from the ghetto in Nowy Sącz with her mother in 1942, Jadwiga Fiszbain-Tokarz (born in 1935) found shelter with a number of Poles. Among their benefactors were nuns in Nowy Sącz and Poor Clares of Perpetual Adoration in Stary Sącz.²⁹¹ (Śliwowska, The Last Eyewitnesses, pp.46–47.)
We hid at many people’s homes. First, we were given shelter by Mr. and Mrs. Antoni Ptaszowski at 20 Kunegunda Street [ul. Św. Kunegundy] (my uncle, Stan Fiszbain, had already been staying with them for some time). Then we moved to the home of the couple Joseph [Józef] and Janina Mazurek, at 25 Sikorski Street [then ulica Poprzeczna, now Sikorskiego] (in the Piekło area). Finally, a helping had was extended to us by Professor Giesing of 29 Kołłątaj Street, at whose home we also spent a little time.

We had to frequently change where we were staying. I did not have “good looks”; Semitic features and black curly hair attracted attention. It made it more difficult to maintain safety. I was being hidden in a variety of the least expected places: in a beehive, in a bread-baking oven, in a made-up bed covered with a bedspread, in cellars, in small gardens, and in haystacks. I spent six weeks underground in a hideout, especially dug out for me in a little garden, on top of which was placed a beehive. For a certain time, Helena Mossoczy, a nun in a convent near Święty Duch Street [ul. Świętego Ducha or Holy Spirit], was hiding me and teaching me. Next, Mama placed me in Stary Sącz in a flour mill, next to the Klaryski Convent, at the Michalaks. During roundups, the nuns would hide me, along with other children, in a crypt in the chapel.

Toward the end of the war, Mama and I were both hiding (we already had false papers) in Chabówka [near Rabka] at the home of the Palarczyk family. It was there, in fact, that liberation found us.
Dr. Helena Regina Stuchły was born in Lwów in 1897 in a Jewish family by the name of Miszel (Mischel). She married Dr. Stanisław Stuchły (Stuchly), a Catholic Pole, in 1924. They had two sons, Stanisław Szczęsny and Janusz. The family relocated to Nowy Sącz before the war. For a short period, Helena worked as a doctor at a school run by the Sisters of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, which was located in the so-called Biały Klasztor (White Convent). Owing to her Semitic appearance, she took shelter at that convent in 1941. She was assisted as well by Rev. Antoni Kuśmierz, a Jesuit. Later, she resided with her sister-in-law in Warsaw until the uprising of August 1944. Afterwards, she was sheltered by the Sisters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul in Kalwaria Zebrzydowska.²⁹²
A number of Poles came to the assistance of Maria Kowalska, who was Jewish but had married a Catholic Pole, and her daughter, Stanisława (born in 1924). Under the German occupation, both mother and daughter were regarded as Jews. One of those who assisted them was Rev. Piotr Poręba, the vicar of Podegrodzie near Nowy Sącz. (Gutman, The Encyclopedia of the Righteous Among the Nations: Rescuers of Jews during the Holocaust: Supplementary Volumes (2000–2005), volume II, pp.631–32.)
During the Nazi occupation Józefa Włodarz (née Kwarcińska), in her forties, lived in the small village of Wojnarowa near Korzenna (Nowy Sącz County, Kraków District) with her two youngest children, Julian and Wiktoria, and her terminally ill husband who had lost an eye in World War I. The family was very poor, living in an isolated small wooden house near the forest in the mountains. She agreed to shelter Józef Kowalski and his daughter, Stanisława, whose mother Maria (Miriam, née Gross) was Jewish. Under the German occupation, Stanisława was in mortal danger as a proscribed Jew. … [After June 1941] Maria with her daughter were briefly reunited with Józef in the area of Nowy Sącz [where he had grown up]. With the assistance of the priest, Piotr Poręba, they lived at first in the village of Podgrodzie [Podegrodzie], and later Maria was placed by Father Poręba with his own sister Helena and parents [Marcin and Katarzyna Poręba] in the village of Mystków, while Stanisława was placed with her father’s sister Helena Kasprzyk in the village of Niecew near Korzenna (Nowy Sącz County). Missing her daughter, Maria visited Stanisława in September 1942, but they were both arrested after most probably having been betrayed by a neighbor. Maria and Stanisława were taken first to the police station in Korzenna and then to Gestapo headquarters in Nowy Sącz. While her mother was being taken away, Stanisława managed to escape to Father Poręba who then took her to Mystków. Józef Kowalski had business dealings with Józef Sus, who was a tailor in Wojnarowa near Nowy Sącz. They were also reportedly members of the Polish underground. Józef Sus’ apprentice was Julian Włodarz, and he later visited Julian’s mother Józefa Włodarz and asked her to accept Józef Kowalski and his daughter into her house. The Włodarz family agreed. Her husband unfortunately died a few days after that decision. Józefa’s children were unaware of the danger involved during the war. Despite the relative safety of the location, Stanisława left the house only in the evenings. During the day, she helped around the house or played with the children. Father Poręba visited them and taught Stanisława the material of her grade in high school. In 1946, following the liberation, Stanisława left with her father, Józefa Włodarz, and her son for Western Poland and settled in the town of Gorce near Wałbrzych. In 1947, Józefa’s other children joined them: Julian, Edward, and Wiktoria. Wiktoria Włodarz married Józef Kowalski with whom she had a son, Leszek.
Józefa Anna Bogusz (later Korzennik) enlisted the support of her brother, Rev. Józef Bogusz, a vicar in Mielec, to help her rescue her Jewish boyfriend, Józef Korzennik, and eight of his family members. (Korzennik Family, The Righteous Database, Yad Vashem, Internet: .)
Ruth Lichtig was born in Kutno, Poland, in 1937. She lived with her parents (her mother, Bertha, was a teacher). In 1939 the Lichtigs moved to Mielec, where they had more relatives, among them Józef Korzennik, Bertha’s brother. In 1941 Ruth’s brother, Józef, was born in Mielec.

The situation was becoming more dangerous, and soon Józef Korzennik found it necessary to seek help from his Polish Catholic girlfriend, Ziuta (her full name was Józefa Anna Bogusz), who was 20 years old at the time. She set about obtaining Polish baptismal certificates for the entire … [Show more]family (Ruth, her brother and parents, her grandmother Anna Korzennik, uncle Józef, aunt Helen Korzennik, and her aunt Ester, uncle Szaja Altman, and their son Emmanuel). This was done with the aid of Ziuta’s brother, a Catholic priest.

Unfortunately, when the papers were not yet ready, the Nazis occupied Mielec, took Ruth’s father away to Auschwitz, and placed the rest of the family in a transit location to be taken to a death camp. Ziuta came to that location with the newly minted false papers and smuggled everyone out. For Ruth this involved a long bicycle ride with Ziuta, who sang to the child most of the way, trying to keep her awake.

The family rented a room in a remote village and began to live as Catholics. Luckily, Polish was already the language spoken in their home, but it was difficult to teach the elderly grandmother and the little girl how to behave in church so as not give away their secret. However, with Ziuta’s help all dangers were avoided, and the family survived in the village between 1941 and 1945.
Szaje (Szaja) Altman, one of those rescued, wrote that their rescuer, Józefa Bogusz, turned to her uncle (sic), who was a priest in Tarnów, and it was he who provided her with a number of birth and baptismal certificates.²⁹³ Perhaps, Rev. Józef Bogusz turned to another priest in Tarnów in order to secure certificates from a large city rather than a small town. Altman gives three examples of Polish policemen who came to his assistance, and to the assistance of his family members. When Altman was caught by the Germans illegally teaching Jewish children in the ghetto in Mielec, a Polish policeman intervened to sweep the matter under the rug. When Altman’s mother-in-law and her daughters were arrested by the German police and handed over to the Polish police for an investigation, the local police commander asked them to find witnesses to attest to their being Catholics. They turned to a Polish friend, who was a policeman in Dębica, and he agreed to vouch for them and thus secured their release.²⁹⁴ Afterwards, Altman worked in various German enterprises in Lwów, passing as a Christian Pole. At his last place of employment, there were two other Polish Jews passing as Poles, a man and a woman. The Jewish woman’s behaviour often betrayed her identity, but her Polish co-workers disregarded this. All three of these Jews survived.²⁹⁵
Several priests in the vicinity of Dąbrowa Tarnowska near Tarnów rendered assistance to Jews, among them Rev. Franciszek Okoński, the pastor of Luszowice, and Rev. Wojciech Dybiec, the pastor of Bolesław. (Wroński and Zwolakowa, Polacy Żydzi 1939–1945, pp.344–45.)
A great deal was done for the Jews by the priests of various parishes, who in addition to finding shelters issued the necessary Aryan documents. … Rev. Franciszek Okoński, (a chaplain of the Home Army whose nom de guerre was “Nawa”), the pastor of Luszowice, assisted both Poles and Jews. He sheltered, among others, a Jewish lawyer from Kraków. Word of this reached Tomasz Madura, a confidant of the Germans who was later executed by the underground. The German police raid on the rectory did not incriminate anyone as the Jew who was hiding there jumped out the window and simply walked away while the ‘Blue’ police stood around. … The enraged Germans found two servants and, without verifying their identities, shot them. The two priests who were arrested at the time were released after a few days because nothing could be proved against them.

The pastor of the parish in Bolesław, Rev. Wojciech Dybiec … saved the lives of two Jewish brothers from Bolesław—Dolek and Roman Kegl. He issued birth certificates in the names they had chosen—the surname assumed by the former was Bernat, and the latter Ciepiela. A third brother, Moniek, moved to Dubno [in Volhynia] where he was sheltered by a Polish school teacher. All three of them survived the war. … Dolek Bernat, who lives in Brooklyn, in the United States, wrote in a letter dated December 19, 1965: “… one evening my brother and I went the rectory and asked to speak to Rev. Dybiec. He invited us in asking what we wanted. We requested that he issue us Aryan documents … His reply was, ‘How can I issue such documents, but on the other hand how can I not?’ He looked through the register of births and asked us to choose names that more or less corresponded to our ages … After providing us with the necessary documents he asked us not to disclose where we got them from should the Germans capture us and discover that the documents were not ours … We thanked the priest with tears in our eyes and left. … And indeed the documents did assist us, and to this day we bear the surnames given to us by Rev. Dybiec.”
Rev. Okoński engaged Lea Anmuth, then passing as Helena Podgórska, as a housekeeper. She was introduced to Rev. Okoński by Czesław Wojewoda, a school inspector, who, together with his wife, Maria, had sheltered Lea in the village of Lubcza near Jasło, in Czesław’s parents’ farmhouse. As the frontline approached and more Germans were encountered daily, it became more dangerous for all concerned for Lea to stay there any longer so she was brought to Luszowice. (Wojewoda Family, The Database of Righteous Among the Nations, Yad Vashem, Internet: .)
Before the war, Czesław and Maria Wojewoda lived in Ostrowiec Świętokrzyski. Maria was a teacher and Czesław was a school inspector. In 1940, Czeslaw was forced to run away from the Gestapo. He moved to his parents’ village of Lubcza, in the county of Jasło, with his eight-year-old son. Maria joined them soon afterward, leaving behind their apartment.

In 1942, Lea Anmuth, who introduced herself as Helena Podgórska, an evacuee from Stanisławów, turned to them with a request for help and for a place to stay. “Since she aroused trust, she stayed with us, and after some time she grew so much accustomed to us and felt so much at home that we treated her like a member of the family,” wrote Maria in her testimony. She added that “when Helena got to know us better and got our full trust, she confided, in great secrecy, to me and my husband (even our parents-in-law did not know) that she was Jewish. This did not change our attitude, we only surrounded her with even greater care.”

As the frontline was getting closer to Jasło and as more German soldiers were being encountered daily, it became dangerous for Helena and all people involved to stay together in Lubcza for any longer. Knowing that, Czesław talked to a friend of his, priest Franciszek Okoński, who lived in Luszowice (near Tarnów). Franciszek agreed to provide Helena (Lea) with a shelter. She started working as a maid in the parish house and awaited liberation there.

Lea Anmuth emphasized in her testimony that the Wojewodas gave her material as well as spiritual help during the war and afterwards. “They implanted in me a belief in the existence of noble, fair-minded people.”
Rozalia Połanecka, a Jewish woman from the village of Ujście Jezuickie near Gręboszów who had been hiding in the village of Wola Przemykowska, was arrested in September 1942 and held in police custody in Wietrzychowice. She managed to smuggle a short note from her cell addressed to Rev. Zygmunt Jakus, the pastor of Gręboszów. The letter, dated September 18, 1942, survived the war. It reads: “This letter is written by Rozalia Połanecka (née Berl) from Ujście Jezuickie, parish Gręboszów, who has been sentenced to death. I leave this world grateful to people who dared to act decently. I thank you, Reverend Father (pastor), for all the good you have done. Perhaps, by chance, one of the Połaneckis will survive? Please, let them have this last whisper of mine. …”²⁹⁶
Rev. Jan Curyłło, the pastor of Radomyśl Wielki, near Tarnów, sheltered a local Jewish family by the name of Schaji (Szmaji). The testimony of Szymon Leibowicz, which follows, in found in Jan Ziobroń, Dzieje Gminy Żydowskiej w Radomyślu Wielkim (Radomyśl Wielki: n.p., 2009), at page 177.
I was eleven-and-a-half years old when the war broke out. I remember Rev. Jan Curyłło very well, as he was a friend of my father’s. ... My father used to make contributions to help expand the church. In return, the priest promoted my father’s company among the inhabitants of the town. Rev. Curyłło sheltered a Jewish family named Szmaji, who owned a confectionary in the town square.
Miriam Winter (born in 1933) recalls how, as a young girl, she passed as a Catholic in the village of Wola Rzędzińska near Tarnów. Her benefactor, Maryla Dudek (later Oracz), entrusted her to another Polish woman, and she attended a school run by the Sisters Servants of the Blessed Virgin Mary Immaculately Conceived (Siostry Służebniczki Najświętszej Maryi Panny Niepokalanie Poczętej). The local pastor, Rev. Jan Węgrzyn, allowed her to take Communion without being baptized in order to maintain the ruse that she was a Catholic child. She later stayed with other Polish families until the end of the war. After immigrating to the United States in 1969, she raised both of her children, fathered by a Christian Pole, as Jews. (Miriam Winter, Trains: A Memoir of a Hidden Childhood during and after World War II [Jackson, Michigan: Kelton Press, 1997], pp.54–66.)