Wartime Rescue of Jews by the Polish Catholic Clergy
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We came up to a booth on the border. The guide said goodbye to us. There were two Hungarians in the booth who said they will take us to Koszyce [Košice]. …
Next day they took us to the local authorities in Koszyce. We walked in and there were soldiers there. They sent in two gendarmes to watch us. Finally, they called in Karol. Karol still had the papers to the name of Marian Warunek. I didn’t show my papers. They told him not to worry, that they won’t send us back to Poland and that we’ll stay and go to Budapest. It must have been Saturday. Our room was on the ground floor and I was sitting at the window, looking out. I said, ‘Karol, look, they are making a movie!' There were three Jews walking with a little boy; such as I’ve never seen in Lwow: Jews wearing gabardine, fur caps, white stockings, patent leather shoes, and yellow stars, for the Hungarians wore yellow stars. I said, ‘They must be making a film here.' For can you imagine Jews like that walking on the streets of Hungary in 1943 as real people?! But it turned out those were real Jews, to whom nothing happened. It was such a shock for me. I though, ‘Where on earth am I?' A Jewish woman identified as S.F. worked in a labour gang composed of Poles and Jews in the fields of a manor requisitioned by the Germans on the outskirts of Warsaw. She was separated from the group just prior to the outbreak of the Warsaw ghetto uprising, when the Jewish farm labourers were taken by the Gestapo. She ran to the manor of a Polish woman who had sheltered her earlier. After a narrow escape during a raid on the manor, she turned to a priest, Rev. Edward Wojtczak, the chaplain at a nearby convent, who was known as a “friend to the Jews.” He provided her with temporary shelter at the convent before placing the Jewish woman with his sister in Warsaw, who had also taken in a Jewish child, and then with a doctor. Father Wojtczak supplied the woman with false identity documents and found employment for her. It is not clear which convent this story refers to. Rev. Wojtczak was a priest at the chapel of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Kaplica Niepokalanego Poczęcia Najświętszej Maryi Panny), which was attached to an institution for the infirm located in the Królikarnia home on 113 Puławska Street. That institution was under the care of the Franciscan Sisters of the Suffering. However, during the occupation, the Ursuline Sisters of the Roman Union had to relocate to that same building, and Rev. Wojtczak is mentioned in one of their accounts reproduced later in the text. During the Warsaw uprising, on September 16, 1944, the Germans dropped a bomb on the chapel and institution, killing many insurgents and patients, and five nuns. The story is recorded in Isaiah Trunk, Jewish Responses to Nazi Persecution: Collective and Individual Behavior in Extremis (New York: Stein and Day, 1979), at pages 135–38. The Gestapo squad called to the lord of the manor to come out. Fijalkowski [Fijałkowski] appeared and they pounced on him like wolves, slapping him and screaming: “Juden seinen bei dir!” It was no use when he protested that the German authorities had given permission. They beat him up so bad all his teeth came flying out of his mouth. Next, they ordered all the Jews to come out with their hands up. They were all marched off to a waiting truck and beaten and humiliated without mercy. I ran straight into Lady Fijalkowska’s chamber, crying to her that I was finished. She led me down into the cellar and told me to wait there until they’d gone. But a Polish policeman broke into the house … “I was told there’s a Jewess in here!” The lady couldn’t talk him out of it. He ran down to the cellar and found me right away. He dragged me up to the ground floor. I kept crying and kissing his hands: “Tell them no one’s here! Give me a second and I’ll be far away!” He did. He must have been an angel of some kind. He let go of me and in an instant, I flew through the back door and out of the house. When the truck was gone, I went back into the lady’s chamber. She wouldn’t let me stay. She herself was still trembling from what had just happened. I knew I had to go now. I left the estate and walked through an open ditch by the side of the road. I stayed down there till morning. As the sun was coming up, I fell into a panic. I knew no way of escaping my horrid fate. I went back to Lady Fijalkowska again. I clung to her, crying and pleading for her to save me. Her answer was telling me there was no reason to panic—I didn’t look “too much” like a Jew. She talked me into going to the nearby monastery and asking for sanctuary from the father, Edward Wojtczak. He was supposed to be a kind man and a friend to the Jews. I went. What else could I do? A sister answered my ring and asked what it was I wanted. I told her I had to see the father. She didn’t say anything—just looked me up and down as if trying to figure out who I was. She told me to wait. A long time passed. The father himself came out to see me. A tall man, gray-haired—he looked about sixty—with a kind face. I started crying and said I was a Jewish daughter. I took out my purse with the little money I had left and some jewelry I always carried with me for whenever I had to buy my way out of getting killed. I told him I would give it all away to the sick people in his infirmary. The priest looked at me with understanding and said: “I don’t need it. You might have to use it someday. Where will you go now? It’s night already.” He took me inside the monastery, I felt lost in the darkness. There were only small candles flickering over the heads of the marble and bronze icons. It was all horrifying. I sank quickly into a sleep. At five in the morning, the priest came to me. He took me to his cell, gave me some food. I was beginning to feel that my fate was changing. He told me that in two hours, his real sister was coming here to talk things over with me. It was true—she really came. A nearsighted woman, she stared straight into my eyes as we stood nose to nose. She was simply radiant with kindness. She kissed me and calmed me down. I offered her my little bag with all my possessions. “I’ll only hide it for you. Hitler won’t be around forever,” she said. She combed out my hair so I’d look like a Gentile girl. She changed my clothes. She took me with her. We got on a trolley and she took me to Pulawska [Puławska] Street, to her unmarried sister. This sister was caring for a Jewish child—a girl of about two. Such a beautiful and wonderful child you’ve never seen. The child treated her like a mother and she simply cherished the little girl. “And you say,” she says to me, “that I’m a cousin of yours.” The priest’s sister had a buttons-and-notions shop downstairs. I stayed in her flat and sometimes I came down to help out. My Polish was perfect. Soon, Germans came and took over the store, letting only Volksdeutsche run it. I happened to be there that day. You can imagine how scared to death I was. After that, I never left the room. That’s right. I made it too obvious when I ran back to the room like that—but I was so scared. The priest came. He comforted me. “Don’t worry,” he said. He told me to go back inside the monastery and to stay there till he got me papers and a job. I was now back inside the cloister. I learned all their prayers and the group recitations the nuns sang. The priest went to see Fijalkowski—the lord of the manor where I worked on the labor gang. It turned out they were very well acquainted and he brought me back the Kennkarte of a real Gentile girl—Zofia Ryclinska [Rychlińska] of Białystok who had just died in the Warsaw Hospital. The father accompanied me—I was supposed to be a simple farm girl now—to the Gestapo, to have me registered. The Gestapo were completely cynical. They stared at me maliciously—they knew perfectly well who I really was—but since a Catholic priest had come along, they didn’t feel like starting the investigation. So now I had the identity card of an “Aryan” Christian girl and my name isn’t S– V– anymore, it’s Zofia Rychlinska. I keep attending the services in the convent and sing along with the nuns. The priest did me more favors. He got me a job with Dr. Niewiadomski on Marszalkowska [Marszałkowska] 87—a completely Gentile street—and I worked for a Gentile family. The priest had mentioned me to the doctor a few times. The father didn’t want to take on another person in times like these! The doctor finally agreed. I got along in Dr. Niewiadomski’s house. Sleep, food, and a couple of zloty [złoty] a week. I helped take care of his house, and also his office. The Jewish woman turned to Father Wojtczak again, frightened by a Gestapo raid on a nearby building. Three weeks later, I was in the priest’s cell and Fijalkowski walked in. He was pale as the wall. He didn’t say anything. I got scared—something must be wrong. He was the one who got me the identity card. I tried to keep up appearances and say something pleasant. But he was lifeless. The next day, I had to go back to the priest to find out what was going on and again, I met Fijalkowski. I tried sounding cheerful … Then, it suddenly dawned on me that he was hiding out here, and it was because of me. His caretaker had denounced him to the Gestapo for giving the identity card of his servant girl, Zofia Rychlinska, to a Jew. The Gestapo rushed over to Fijalkowski’s estate, found the place abandoned because he’d escaped through a back door, so they beat up his father and mother and arrested his wife and children. It was like this for many sad days until the priest was able—for a huge sum of money and through personal contacts—to free Fijalkowski’s family and have the whole matter disposed of. This Jewish woman remained in Warsaw until she was deported to Germany in November 1944, after the failed Warsaw uprising. Most Jews who survived in Poland had to rely on any number of Poles—both long-term and casual benefactors—to survive the long years of German occupation. Róża Reibscheid-Feliks identified many benefactors, among them priests, who came to her family’s assistance. Several of them, including Rev. Wojciech Bartosik, the pastor of Wawrzeńczyce, a village east of Kraków, were recognized by Yad Vashem. (Kazimierz Iranek-Osmecki, He Who Saves One Life [New York: Crown Publishers, 1971], pp.284–85.) My conscience would not leave me alone if I kept silent about the deeds of these “Righteous.” Some helped me for a whole year, others for two months, some for a few days only, but I shudder to think what would have happened if they had not held out their helping hand just for those few days! Even he who gave me shelter for one night only—may he be blessed! … Here are my saviors:
Every one of these people has done a great deal for me at the risk of his own life. Róża Reibscheid’s testimony from 1946 provides additional details of the assistance she, her husband and young son received from various priests and nuns in the Kraków area, including Rev. Wojciech Bartosik of Wawrzeńczyve and Rev. Wacław Radosz of Proszowice. Rev. Ferdynand Machay was the chaplain at the Norbertine Sisters’ convent and church of St. Augustine in Kraków, where Róża Reibscheid was sheltered temporarily. Afterwards, the Reibscheids moved to Warsaw where they were also helped by numerous Poles. (Archive of the Jewish Historical Institute (Warsaw), Record Group 301, number 1713.) When they started to collect Jews from nearby towns in Wawrzeńczyce, Nowe Brzesko county, Poles warned us that something was about to happen, especially after stories of the events in Tarnów reached Wawrzeńczyce. The pastor, Rev. Wojciech Bartosik, who was very kind to us, referred us to Buchowski [Władysław Bukowski], the owner of a nearby country estate, who took my husband on as a mechanic for all his farm machinery and tractor operator, and his wife recommended me as a seamstress to neighbouring manors. … Materially we were well off there, but peasants from Wawrzeńczyce came by who knew us. Some Pole betrayed us. The Germans looked for us in the entire area … but found out nothing … The sołtys (village administrator) warned me and sent his daughter to the warehouse to warn my husband. When the girl was in the warehouse, Gestapomen were already circulating in the courtyard. My husband got on a bicycle and was able to escape undetected by the Germans. I went with my son to the Bukowskis, who did not allow me to leave because all the field roads and highway were guarded by the Gestapo, and the train at the train station was held up for three hours and all the passengers searched. I took my son to the barber to have his head shaved so he would not recognizable, and there I learned from clients’ conversations of the arrival of a punitive expedition who searched all the brush along the Vistula River. In the meantime my husband went by bicycle to a priest he knew in Michałowice who allowed took him in for the night. I went to Proszowice to seek advice from Rev. [Wacław] Radosz. He reproached me for not having told him earlier that I was a Jew, as he would have found my husband a position in Radom. He sent for horses to take me to Michałowice. The next day a carriage arrived with a pair of horses (later I learned that the priest rented the horses for 300 złoty), and I travelled to Michałowice like a lady. There I met my husband at the priest’s house. I arranged with my husband to meet in Kraków. In Kraków I endured a real hell. Our Polish acquaintances were afraid to take us in, so we spent every night somewhere else. Rev. [Ferdynand] Machay showed us great compassion, and found a shelter for me with the Nobertine Sisters in Salwator. He helped us financially and found a position for my husband as a mechanic on an estate in Olszanica, seven kilometres from Kraków. After leaving the convent I had nowhere to live so we decided to go to Warsaw. As mentioned earlier, Rev. Machay provided baptismal certificates and other forms of assistance to many Jews, among them, Felicja Seifert (later Ela Manor), who passed as Elżbieta Smoleń.422 Fela Rotsztajn, who lived in the village of Jeziorna near Warsaw, recalled her many Polish benefactors, among them a priest. (Wroński and Zwolakowa, Polacy Żydzi 1939–1945, p.308.) I am a resident of Jeziorna near Warsaw where my family has lived for generations. I survived the occupation years in this area thanks to kind people. This wasn’t for a day or a month, but my wanderings lasted more than three years. Risking their own lives people lent me a helping hand. These were: Wojciech Dominik of the village of Łęg, Edmund Komorowski of Konstancin, Rev. Antoni Konieczny of Słomczyn, Kazimierz Wandel of the village of Łęg, Władysław Moskalewicz of Słomczyn, Stanisława Suchecka of Słomczyn, Władysław Zduńczyk of Słomczyn, Bolesław Zawadzki of Klarysew, Andrzej Rossman of the village of Bielawa, Kornelli of the village of Bielawa, Jerzy Mrówka of Mirków, and Zbigniew Kępka of Mirków. Anna Forkasiewicz (née Niuta-Studnia), a Jewish survivor residing in Melbourne, Australia, described the assistance she and her family received from numerous Poles in the vicinity of Radom and Warsaw, among them members of the Catholic clergy. (Chciuk, Saving Jews in War-Torn Poland, 1939–1945, pp.26–27.) Yüklə 7,11 Mb. Dostları ilə paylaş:
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