Wartime Rescue of Jews by the Polish Catholic Clergy

I went there with Marysia [her daughter].

‘You’re not Jewish or a convert, are you?’ asked the Reverend Mother in her office.

‘God forbid! I’m a good Catholic.’ …

‘In principle we only accept people over the age of sixty-five,’ said the nun looking at me inquiringly. ‘You’re too young for us. But sometimes we make exceptions.’

I was accepted and paid her the amount required, 500 złotys.
Gradually, Helena Szereszewska realized how many Jews actually lived in the institution, and that there was an immense silent conspiracy among the nuns and the elderly chaplain about that topic. The residents were expected to attend chapel. Szereszewska recalled the priests that she encountered along the way. Among them was Rev. Zygmunt Kozubski, professor of Catholic theology at the University of Warsaw and rector of the academic church of St. Anne in Warsaw.
In the middle sat an old woman in a black coat and a worn black felt hat on her head. She had a Jewish nose and looked like a town Jewess. She sat huddled up and slept all through the mass. She immediately attracted my attention. …

Then an old priest in a golden chasuble celebrated the mass. There were two small altar boys, eight years old perhaps. …

I watched the altar boys and thought about [my grandson] Maciuś. He had served at mass too [at St. Anne’s church in Warsaw] thanks to Father [Zygmunt] Kozubski. The priest knew Maciuś was Jewish and wanted to protect him. So he gave him a white surplice and a bell. The young curate also knew about Maciuś but he found it worrying and one day he said, ‘He’s a Jewish child so what’s he doing serving at Holy Mass.’

‘What about it?’ All children are the same before God,’ replied Father Kozubski. …

Every Sunday I listened to the priest’s sermon. He often referred to the events which had so recently and so tragically taken place. He talked about the annihilation of the Jews. ‘Everything that has happened to the Jews is atonement for the terrible sins they committed. It was God’s punishment. The Germans are only the instruments of God’s punishment.’ …

I walked to the church of St Charles Boromese [Borromeo] on Chłodna Street. I sat down on a pew and thought about my daughters … I got up and approached the altar and knelt down. … So I knelt in front of the altar with the huge cross all alone in the church, sensing the priest’s questioning look on my back. He must have known who I was. …

I knew the story of a relation of ours, an old woman who was hiding in the country with the family of a Polish friend of her son’s. She became very ill so they called the priest. She was on the verge of dying. When she caught her breath she called out, ‘Shema, Israel.’ He gave her the holy oils. She died. He closed her eyes. ‘I think,’ he said as he was leaving, deeply moved, ‘that Catholic wasn’t completely Catholic.’
Helena Szereszewska maintained the pretence that she was a Catholic throughout her stay.
Being visited by people whose appearance was faultless could strengthen my position. It was very important. So [my daughter] Marysia asked Mrs Grabowska to visit me one day. … So a few days later Marysia asked the very aristocratic-looking Mr. Sztark with the walrus moustache to visit me. … He went to see the Reverend Mother in her office, kissed her hand, introduced himself and asked her to take special care of me as I was the wife of a colleague of his.
Szereszewska also encountered a Jewish woman who assumed the role of an anti-Semite during her stay at the institution.
Anna Białkowska moved into our room … In the second year of the war she was taken to Ravensbrück concentration camp and cleaned the latrines there. The cold and terrible damp affected her legs. Thanks to her distant relatives she got out after a while and spent a year in the Red Cross hospital unable to use her legs. …

She was a Calvinist. In principle, the institution only took in Roman Catholics, but they made an exception for her. … She supported the National Democrats and had ultra right-wing views. I realized that the very first evening when she mentioned politics while talking to Zofia Łoziewicz. That evening Zofia was playing the part of an anti-Semite who was nevertheless a supporter of Józef Piłsudski. …

A few days after Anna Białkowska moved into our room a bombshell burst. Zofia Łoziewicz was summoned to the office. ‘Mrs Łoziewicz,’ said the Reverend Mother, ‘you concealed the fact that you’re Jewish. Your papers are in order and no-one knew, but your secret has come out and now we can’t keep you here any longer.’ …

‘Mrs Majewska,’ said Mrs Kowalska … ‘Someone rang from town and informed on her. They can’t keep her any longer. But they’re taking her to Otwock, to another place they’ve got. Sister Franciszka is going with her.’

‘Mrs Majewska,’ said Mrs Mech, the one who dozed during mass, ‘… Do you know who set her up like this? Her husband. She had a Polish husband who wanted to get his own back on her. Did you guess that Zofia is my daughter?’ …

That day, immediately after mass, as [Maria Zawadzka] was going round the rooms where the bedridden women lived, she came across someone who had just come to the institution. The woman looked at Maria Zawadzka and shouted, ‘I know her! She’s Jewish! She comes from a Jewish house! I did their washing and I know her!’

Maria Zawadzka turned as white as a sheet, ran out of the room, looked for the Reverend Mother, Sister Bogumiła, and threw herself at her feet. Crying, choking and nearly unconscious, she told her what had happened. The Sister Bogumiła rushed into the room like a fury, her habit flapping and her cross and rosary beads jingling. ‘Listen you, you hell-raiser.’ Perhaps she wanted to call her a bitch, but could she of all people say that? ‘You monster. If you open your mouth once more and say one more word about Mrs Zawadzka you’ll die and perish and you’ll be damned and swallowed up by hell. And you won’t receive absolution in this world or in the next either. You’re nearly dead already, you viper.’ That’s how she spoke to her in her fury, completely ignoring the other invalids lying next to her and half dead with fright.

Later the nuns tried to cover up the whole business. ‘It’s completely untrue,’ they told everyone. ‘That old Mrs Pikulska has gone mad. She doesn’t know what she’s saying. She was very ill when she came here and she’ll go to Jesus soon.’ …

One day when our old priest was celebrating mass a woman I’d never seen before entered the chapel. … I could tell that she was terribly confused. She didn’t know whether to kneel or sit. She could see that nearly all the women were wearing a hat while she was bareheaded. She didn’t have a missal. …

Her name was Mrs. Makowska and she’d just arrived that day. … I could immediately tell that she was Jewish. It wasn’t because of her face … but her manner and behaviour. …

There was one thing I often thought about. I knew I wasn’t the only Jew in the place. How did Mrs Makowska, old Mrs Kosińska, Mrs Mech and Mrs Kowalska get into the institution? Mrs Makowska could have got in the same way as I did. We both had neutral faces and our identity cards were in order. … But Mrs Kosińska’s and Mrs Mech’s Jewish faces were absolutely obvious and so how could Reverend Mother possibly ask them that ritual question about whether they were Jews or converts? …

By now I was sure that the nuns knew they had Jews in hiding in the institution. [Others included Mr and Mrs Binder and Mrs Kozubowska. Mr Binder’s accent gave him away, as did his looks, so he hardly spoke.] I became fully aware of it when a tall, thin woman with a typically Jewish face entered the chapel for morning mass one day. She sat down on a pew and was so terrified that she didn’t make the sign of the cross when she came in or during mass. … I was sure that the nuns had accepted the woman knowing very well who she was.