Wartime Rescue of Jews by the Polish Catholic Clergy

Once again he asked that I be hidden in a safe place, and then he died. I can’t remember the priest’s name. He was a parish priest in Novy-Dvor.

The housekeeper led me away from the priest and cleansed me of his blood. She changed my clothes, and at five in the morning she led me to Modlin. She left me there and disappeared.
William (Wolf) Ungar had taken refuge in the town of Nowy Dwór, north of Warsaw, in territory incorporated into the Reich, where he lived with the family of his Jewish friend. He decided to leave that town and return to Lwów, when it appeared that the ghetto in Nowy Dwór was about to be evacuated. In March 1943, Ungar approached a Polish smuggler who agreed to take him and another Jew, who had a very bad appearance, across the border to the General Government. The smuggler directed Ungar to an unidentified priest in Warsaw for assistance. (Ungar, Destined to Live, pp.235–36.)
We waited as the chief smuggler talked to the fisherman. When he finished he came over to me and said, “You shouldn’t stay here. It’s not safe. … This man here,”—gesturing toward the fisherman—“can take you to the other side. There’s a railroad station not too far off. You can get a train there for Warsaw.”

“Okay,” I said, “that’s what we’ll do. We want to thank you for your help.”

“One more thing,” he said. “Take this.” He gave me a piece of paper. “It’s the address of a priest in Warsaw who can help you get train tickets. You might not be able to do so yourselves.”

The fisherman had a rowboat tied to a little pier that jutted into the river. We climbed in and two minutes later we were on the other side. There the fisherman led us to a path. “Follow this a mile or so,” he said, “and it’ll take you right to the railroad station.”

… At the station the ticket window was was already opened and I bought two tickets for Warsaw while my friend hung in the background keeping out of the ticketmaster’s view. …

I Warsaw we found our way to the priest’s address the smuggler had given us. My impression was that this priest was probably working for the Polish underground. He didn’t ask a single question, he just did what he could to help. He gave us food, then went out and bought us train tickets to Lvov [Lwów]. With hindsight, I guessed he was part of the organization that was working with the Jewish underground, helping Jews acquire arms, or escape, or putting children into monasteries and other safe places. There were networks that did such things, as I learned later on, and more than a few Catholic priests were involved.
Jola Hoffman, who lived in the Warsaw ghetto together with her family, recalled their rescue and the assistance they received from friends and a priest in the Polish underground.⁴⁵⁷
Anna Kovitzka fled during a German Aktion in Grodno and remained in the countryside for several weeks until things quietened down and she was able to return. An unidentified village priest sheltered her during that period, made enquiries about her husband, and drove her part of the way home in his cart.⁴⁵⁸ (Anna Kovitzka’s account is posted on the Internet at )
The Germans were grabbing the people and dragging them to work in Germany. I wanted to return to the ghetto. Then thousand Jews were deported that day. The ghetto was surrounded. One couldn’t get in, nor could one get out. Part were going to Treblinka, and to get in one also didn’t know how. I ran into a Christian—he was a working man. I told him I am a Jewess—“I can’t get into the ghetto.” And he said, “Get out of the city. You do not look Jewish. Go where ever you can, but don’t remain here. You see here it burns.” And so I departed alone, without papers, into the woods. I did not know the roads. Through the woods, into a village. I entered. “Give me some water.” If one is alive, one has to drink water. And sometimes one has to eat. Everybody gave me something. I did not look Jewish, but they knew—what else could be driving me in the snow through the woods? Everyone kept me for one night.

The Christians—I can’t complain. Everybody gave me warm water to wash myself. They gave me food, so that I should have strength to wander farther. And there was a preacher—a Christian, a Catholic. He hid me “for strength” for eight days. But it drove me back to Grodno to find out what was going on. The priest encountered some Jews that were going to work. She he asked them: “Do you know whether Jack Kovitzki is there?” So they said: “He is there, he has remained alive.” Three thousand Jews were still in Grodno. So he said, “Tell him that his wife is alive—that she does not want to remain among us. She wants to go back, and in a few days she will be back.” The next week he took me out part of the way in a cart—to go further, he was afraid. And I went alone towards Grodno—I can’t remember how many kilometers. I arrived in Grodno. It’s the same story again—how does one get in—into the ghetto? And then it occurred to me that my father had a chauffeur, a Christian, a decent man.

He was a good business man; so he had an automobile and a driver—a very decent person. He lives now in the yard of the house that once belonged to my father-in-law. So I went to him. He didn't know me, but I gave the name of Meyer Kovitzki, and he said: “Don’t be afraid. You can be with me as long as you want.” But he had a wife and a child, and I did not want to cause him anxiety. So I went down to the cellar, and he went to the ghetto to find out about things, and Friday morning his own wife went with me through the streets, and she led me to the ghetto. Then another Pole helped me to get in. But before I went in, he told me:“You know where you are going?” And I said, “Where is my man, and where is my place?” That was on Friday noon.
Sometimes, Christian benefactors were put at risk because of internal rivalries and bickerings within the Jewish community, as in the case of Lida, in the Nowogródek region. (Shmuel Spector, ed., Lost Jewish Worlds: The Communities of Grodno, Lida, Olkieniki, Vishay [Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 1996], pp.212–13.)

In December 1941, all the Jews of Lida were concentrated in a ghetto … At this time Aktionen were being carried out in Vilna [Wilno], and a few hundred Jewish survivors fled from there to Lida. By paying off Polish municipal clerks, the Judenrat was able to obtain residence permits for the refugees. However, not long afterward a group of Jews was caught while trying to steal the Jewish property that had been left for safekeeping with the local [Orthodox] priest. The thieves were taken to prison. Their wives demanded that the Judenrat intercede to obtain their release. When the Judenrat refused to act, the detainees told the authorities about the permits the Judenrat had arranged for the Vilna refugees and promised to disclose the identity of the latter as well. On March 1, 1942, all the town’s Jews were assembled in the square next to the new post office. They were then made to walk through a narrow passage, where one of the thieves identified five people. They were immediately arrested and two days later were shot in the prison courtyard. Some 200 sick and elderly Jews who could not get to the site were murdered in their lodgings. A week later a number of the Judenrat’s senior figures, including the chairman, Lichtman, were arrested, tortured, and murdered.

Eliahu Damesek describes the events in the Lida memorial book as follows (Alexander Manor, Itzchak Ganusovitch, and Aba Lando, eds., Sefer Lida [Tel Aviv: Former Residents of Lida in Israel and the Committee of Lida Jews in U.S.A., 1970], pp.viii ff.):

One day, a party of Jewish thieves made an attempt on the life of a Russian [Belorussian] clergyman in the town and tried to rob him of the property which the Jews of Lida entrusted to him. The attempt did not succeed and some of the attackers were arrested. The wives of the thieves appealed to the Judenrat for assistance in obtaining the release of their husbands. The Judenrat could not take upon themselves their request and turned them down. Upon the thieves being informed of this fact, they decided to revenge themselves upon the Judenrat.