Wartime Rescue of Jews by the Polish Catholic Clergy

At Radomysl, Skobel passed the Kosinski [Kosiński] group, now five in number, into the hands of the local priest, one Eugeniusz Okon [Okoń]. …

Father Okon had arranged for the Kosinskis—for that was now their name—to come to the small village of Dabrowa [Dąbrowa] Rzeczycka, located just west of the San River. Using his ecclesiastical authority, he had enlisted the help of Jozef Stepak [Józef Stępak], the administrator of Dabrowa and nearby Kepa [Kępa]; the two men acting together were then able to enlist the villagers in a conspiracy of silence. The home Okon found for the Kosinskis was in a semidetached apartment owned by a Polish Catholic farmer, Andzrzej Warchol [Warchoł]. …

During the first months the Kosinski spent in Dabrowa, Father Okon periodically bicycled from Radomysl to inquire about them. … Bt within a few months Okon stopped coming, having himself become a fugitive from the Gestapo. …

The Kosinskis settled in cautiously. At first, Mieczyslaw [Mieczysław] Kosinski—the name by which Moses Lewinkopf would henceforth be knows—ventured out in public only when absolutely necessary, and with his collar turned up. Never speaking to passersby, he made the short walk to nearby Kepa to buy food. Slowly he probed for the response of the villagers.

Gradually a way of life began to take shape. Elzbieta [Elżbieta] Kosinka, who had the “worst”—the most Jewish—looks, stayed inside the apartment. … Young Jerzy/Jurek also played in the yard, his dark hair cropped short …

Little by little, Mieczyslaw Kosinski began to go out among the villagers. … The secret to survival, after all, was to blend in and become a part of things. He began giving lessons to children who wished to go beyond the level of the local four-year school; he was qualified to teach all the high-school subjects. The villagers took to calling him “professor” and referring to Elzbieta as “the professor’s wife.”

… [Mieczysław] was, to the simple villagers of Dabrowa, “the professor,” … As he had with the Lipinskis [Lipiński] in Sandomierz, the elder Kosinski knew how to use his knowledge and manner to position himself among the villagers. The honorific encapsulated their sense of him as a man of refinement, but a man whose attainments they did not resent. They took pride in their role in saving such a man. At the market in Kepa, some of the vendors reduced their prices in deference to a man of standing. To the peasants, the Kosinskis offered a connection to the great world outside the village. …

While the Battle of Stalingrad raged, the Kosinskis were invited to celebrate Christmas in Dabrowa—a celebration new to their experience and deeply ironic, but useful. Their hosts were the Migdaleks [Migdałek] … Mr. Migdalek taught in the local elementary school. …

Mrs. Migdalek’s invitation was a statement at several levels. More than a neighbourly gesture, it was a way of saying to the rest of the village that the Migdaleks—who would themselves later take in two Jewish children related by marriage—were unafraid of associating with a family known to be Jewish. And at another level, there was the matter of class; the Migdaleks thought of themselves as educated people like the Kosinskis, people who stood apart from the ordinary citizenry of places like Dabrowa.

It was a meagre Christmas Eve dinner when compared with normal times. There was only bread, and a sour soup with potatoes. The occupying Germans imposed steep levies on foodstuffs, and the soil of Dabrowa was sandier than that of surrounding villages. Daily fare during the war years included pigweed, of which a soup could be made, potatoes, and beetroot, which was used in soup and to make marmalade. …

Part of the Kosinski/Lewinkopf strategy was camouflage, and simply living in the village was not enough. … Thei apartment was decorated with crucifixes and images of the Virgin—too many, some of the locals thought. … And they attended church fairly regularly at n