Wartime Rescue of Jews by the Polish Catholic Clergy

Gertruda kissed Michael’s sad eyes.

“Don’t worry,” she said. “I’ll come to visit you often.”

The priest went with Michael to the school building next to the church, showed him his bed in one of the dormitory rooms, and then put him in class. The children looked at him with curiosity and at recess tried to size hum up. He said what Gertruda taught him to say: that his mother was the widow of a Polish officer and that he was her only son. …

Despite the strict studies and the fear that accompanied Michael day and night, life in the boarding school was rather comfortable. There was enough food, he had his own bed, and Father Gedovsky kept an eye on him. The children in the boarding school were divided, as always, into better and worse. Some wanted to be his friend. Other looked for his weak points and teased him a lot. He was glad to make friends with children he was fond of, and avoided responding to the teasing from the others.
Michael Stolowitzky recalled that he even beame an altar boy. (“When They Came to Take My Father”: Voices of the Holocaust, Leora Kahn and Rachel Hager, eds. [New York: Arcade Publishing, 1996], p.150.)
I grew up as Gertrude’s son. We lived together in an apartment in Vilnius [Wilno] very near the Vilnius ghetto. I used to see how they took Jews from the ghetto. I was outside it thanks to her. There was this very large sign outside our house that said, If you are caught hiding a Jew you will be executed without a trial.

Just outside the ghetto was the main church of Vilnius. Gertrude was Catholic, and she enlisted the priest’s help in hiding me. I became an altar boy. Every Sunday, there I was, dressed in a white gown with a red apron.
This rescue is also described in Paldiel, The Path of the Righteous, at page 227, and in Gay Block and Malka Drucker, Rescuers: Portraits of Moral Courage in the Holocaust [New York: Holmes & Meier Publishers, 1992], at pages 166–69. The following account appears in Gutman and Bender, The Encyclopedia of the Righteous, volume 4: Poland, Part 1, at pages 65–66.
At the outbreak of war, Mr. Stolowicki [Stołowicki] was living in Paris. When the Germans occupied the city of Warsaw, Mrs. Stolowicka decided to escape with her four-year-old son, Michael, and his nanny, Gertruda Babilinska [Babilińska], a teacher by profession and a native of Gdańsk [Gdańsk] (Danzig). The three made their way to Vilna [Wilno], Lithuania, en route to Paris. When, however, the mother discovered that her husband had died, she suffered a stroke and, realizing that her days were numbered, asked Babilinska to do all she could to take her son to Israel. After Stolowicka died, Babilinska continued looking after Michael. After she informed some priests that the boy was Jewish, they took Michael on as an acolyte in a church in Vilna. Although the Germans were in the habit of conducting impromptu raids on the apartments of the refugees from Warsaw, Babilinska continued to look after Michael and care for his needs. Babilinska, who was fluent in German, worked as an amanuensis, writing petitions to the authorities on behalf of local farmers, for which she received eggs, dairy products which she used to smuggle into the ghetto for her friends. After the war, Babilinska returned with Michael to Gdansk to take leave of her family. Although her family tried to persuade her to stay, she stood by her promise to Michael’s mother and took him to the displaced persons camps in Germany, and a passage was arranged for them on the SS Exodus. Despite assurances by members of the Hagana that they would look after the boy and make sure he reached Israel safely, Babilinska insisted on coming with him, declaring her willingness to throw in her lot with the other clandestine immigrants. Babilinska and Michael endured hardships on the journey to Israel, until the ship was ordered back to Hamburg. Undaunted, Babilinska embarked with Michael on the SS Transylvania, reaching the shores of Israel in 1948. Babilinska settled in Israel, where she raised Michael as her son, and was awarded Israeli citizenship. She passed away in Israel at a ripe old age.
Isaac Kowalski, who was active in the Jewish underground in Wilno, described the attitude of a number of priests, as well as a cross-section of the city’s population. (Isaac Kowalski, A Secret Press in Nazi Europe: The Story of a Jewish United Partisan Organization [New York: Central Guide Publishers, 1969], pp.216–25.)
Professors [Aleksander] Januszkiewicz and Michaida [Kornel Michejda]⁴⁸⁵ helped their friends who were Jewish doctors.

… [Rev.] Dr Jazas Sztakauskas [Juozas Stakauskas], director of the government archives, together with a Lithuanian teacher Zemaijtis and the Polish [Benedictine] nun Milkulska [Maria Mikulska], hid 12 Jews: Dr. Alexander Libo with wife and daughter, Grigori Jaszunski and wife, Engineer Jacob with wife and daughter, Miss Ester Jafe, Mrs. Bak and her son, the young artist Zalman [Samuel].

Profesor Aka [Jan Oko], Professor Czizowski [Tadeusz Czeżowski],⁴⁸⁶ Professor Petruszewicz [Kazimierz Petrusewicz], lawyer Josef Czlecki [Józef Cielecki]⁴⁸⁷ helped hide some Jewish acquaintances. Merila [Maryla] Abramowicz-Wolska⁴⁸⁸ made counterfeit papers for Jews. At 16 Puhulanka [Pohulanka] Street she hid tens of Jewish people and helped them with food and money. Mrs. Wiktoria Grzmiliewska [Grzmielewska]⁴⁸⁹ hid scores of Jews in every apartment and showed friendliness to them. It is in place here to mention Mrs. Maria Fedeka [Fedecka],⁴⁹⁰ who saved a lot of Jews from death, by helping them to run from the ghetto. The above women carried out their mission from pure human motives.

A great many Aryan domestics showed human feelings for their employers, by helping them with food and in some cases, even hid them. Aryan governesses hid Jewish children, whom they helped to raise. Some help for Jews came from Catholic priests. Markowicz [Rev. Tadeusz Makarewicz, pastor of St. John the Baptist church], a Pole, and Lipniunas [Alfonsas Lipniūnas] had spoken to their people to give back Jewish property. Lipniunas was arrested. Father Krupowicius [Mykolas Krupavičius], who showed sympathy to the Jews was sent away to a German concentration camp, Tilzit [Tilsit]. Father Waltkaus [Mykolas Vaitkus] hid the Trupianski child in a Catholic orphanage, and helped save other Jewish children.

… There were occasions when priests met Jewish workers on the street and encouraged them by telling them that they would soon be free.

Our friend, the old Masha, told me one day, when she met me on the way to the ghetto from work, that her Pastor [Rev. Bolesław Sperski] from the “Wszystkich Świętych” [All Saints] church which was located only a few feet from the ghetto gates, advised her during confession that she should help us with everything possible.⁴⁹¹

The Jews in the ghetto knew about his [i.e., Rev. Sperski’s] human attitude to our suffering people and dug a tunnel from the ghetto to the church. A few escaped on the day of the liquidation of the ghetto through the church to the city and then to the woods.

Eta Lipenholc tells about Leokadia Piechowska and others. …“We were 24 people saved at this place called Tuskulany farm. … The Polish people who kept us for a whole year until the liberation, were Mrs. Stankiewicz and Mrs. Gieda.”