Wartime Rescue of Jews by the Polish Catholic Clergy

Beside priests, the testimonies mention also working-class Poles who rescued Jews. …

Assistance rendered by Polish peasants was more frequent. … Large numbers of cases of assistance are documented to have occurred in remote Polish villages in the northeastern and, particularly eastern parts of the region across the Sluch [Słucz] River … Hundreds of Jews hiding there were given food and shelter.
The aforementioned Rev. Dominik Wawrzynowicz, the pastor of Włodzimierzec, who enjoyed excellent relations with the Jews before the war, also preserved valuables which many Jews had entrusted to him and returned them to their rightful owners. Sender Appelboim (Apelbaum) writes: “The Polish priest from Vladimertz [Włodzimierzec] endangered himself by saving Jews. In church, he told his congregants that it was their duty to save Jews, to hide them, give them food and offer help. Some of his people followed his direction.” In his 1966 testimony he urged Yad Vashem to recognize Rev. Wawrzynowicz as Righteous among the Nations.³⁹⁰
According to Polish sources, Rev. Jan Leon Śpiewak, the pastor of Janowa Dolina, was arrested by the Germans in May 1942 for providing false baptismal certificates and other forms of assistance to Jews. He was sent to a hard labour camp in Ludwipol. He managed to escape when that camp was attacked by Soviet partisans, after which he had to hide from the Germans. He became chaplain of a local Home Army unit, whose leadership was apprehended by the NKVD in December 1943 and shipped to Lubianka prison in Moscow. He was released in April 1944.³⁹¹
Halina Mirska (later Lasota) describes, in her memoir, how various people, including the aforementioned Rev. Ludwik Syrewicz, helped her survive the German occupation. After escaping from the ghetto in Równe, Volhynia, with her mother in 1941, 11-year-old Halina was taken in successively by Kazimierz Milewski; then for two months—in November and December 1941—by Rev. Syrewicz, who issued her a false baptismal certificate; by unknown benefactors; and by the family of Zielonko, a railway worker who took her to Warsaw. In Warsaw, Halina lived with the Rauch family, and was helped by the sisters Ania and Lonia Burzyńska. In May 1943, she was taken to the Sisters of Charity on Tamka Street. Afterwards, one of the nuns, Maria Stanke, kept her at the hospital of the Transfiguration of Our Lord where she worked as a nurse. Her next place of residence was with the Sisters of the Family of Mary on Hoża Street in Warsaw, where she was accepted by Mother Matylda Getter. Halina was transferred to the nuns’ orphanage in Płudy, where a number of Jewish children found shelter. She recalled being treated fairly, on par with all of the other children. She had fond memories of her instructor, Sister Ludwika, who cared for her lovingly. When the Soviet front approached, the Germans evacuated the institution. After escaping from a transport train headed for Germany, Halina, then 14, found herself in the town of Sierpc. She was taken in by a woman by the name of Czerwińska, who then passed her on to the Kłobukowski family, who treated Halina like a member of the family. She remained with them until 1946.³⁹²
Another person whom Rev. Syrewicz aided was Leah Bodkier, a young Jewish woman who escaped from the massacre of the Równe Jews and was concelead, with her little sister, in the attic of Jerzy Nowakowski’s mother. Rev. Syrewicz agreed to baptize Leah as Krystyna Broniewska so that she could marry Jerzy Nowakowski, a Polish Catholic, and pass as a Catholic Pole. He then referred them to the priest in nearby Żytyń, Rev. Ludwik Warpechowski, who married the couple on December 30, 1941.³⁹³
The Równe memorial book states that Rev. Ludwik Syrewicz taught his congregation “moral and humane teachings”. Many Jews were able to survive in other cities, where they were not recognized as Jews, with the birth and baptismal certificates he issued free of charge.³⁹⁴ Rev. Syrewicz was arrested by the Germans in January 1944; he was imprisoned in the Gross-Rosen and Dachau concentration camps, but survived. Chana Comins (Cominetsky, née Bebczuk), who together with her young child survived in the forests near Równe with the help of Poles, mentions an unnamed priest from Równe who hid Jews in the church.³⁹⁵
Romualda Mansfeld-Booth (née Goldynsztajn, born in Brody in 1939), arrived at the home of Maria and Mikołaj Titarenko in Równe at Easter 1943. Her new “parents” took her to the local church to have her baptized and obtained a baptismal certificate stating she was born in 1939.³⁹⁶
Rev. Ludwik Wrodarczyk, of the Order of Oblates of Mary Immaculate, was awarded posthumously by Yad Vashem at the behest of the brothers Alex (Joshua) Levin and Samuel Levin (Levinson), whom he had sheltered in the village of Okopy in Volhynia. Rev. Wrodarczyk incurred the wrath of Ukrainian nationalists who tortured and killed him in December 1943.³⁹⁷ He was recognized as a Righteous Gentile by Yad Vashem in 2000. (Gutman, The Encyclopedia of the Righteous Among the Nations: Rescuers of Jews during the Holocaust: Supplementary Volumes (2000–2005), volume II, pp.594–95.)
On August 26, 1942, at the time of the liquidation of the Rokitno ghetto (Sarny County, Volhynia District), the local Jews were ordered to gather at the train station. The German and Ukrainian police surrounded the assembled Jews. Many began to flee, whereupon the SS and police opened up with automatic fire. In the resulting panic, many Jews succeeded in fleeing to the forests and surrounding villages. Among those who escaped were the two Samuel brothers, 17-year-old Lewin and 10-year-old Alexander, who tried to find a hiding place in one of the [Ukrainian] villages but were repelled by the farmers. After wandering for a long time, they reached the [Polish] village of Okopy and knocked on the door of a house at the edge of the forest asking for food. This time they were lucky. They were taken inside by a man and a woman who warned them that a roundup of Jews was being carried out at that very time in the area. The woman, the teacher Felicja Masojada, was the mistress of the house, and the man was the local priest, Ludwik Wrodarczyk, who happened to be visiting at the time. They decided to hide them in the house until the danger was past. While the murderers scoured the area, the teacher and the priest hid the brothers in a closet. Once the roundup was over, they gave them food and sent them to hide in the forest, explaining that it was safer than in the village. After they settled in a cave in the depths of the forest, Masojada’s house remained for them a kind of aid station to which they returned to receive food and a change of clothing. Felicja and Ludwik were exceptional in this rural community for their high moral values and their profound social commitment. They also assisted other escaped Jews who happened to come to their village, and they paid for this with their lives. Felicja Masojada was murdered in June 1943 by Ukrainian ultra-nationalists. In December 1943, the priest Wrodarczyk was also murdered by them on suspicion of collaboration with Jewish partisans and anti-Fascists activists.
Alex (Joshua) Levin, born in 1935 wrote about his and his seven-year older older brother Samuel’s escape from the Rokitno ghetto in August 1942, in his memoir Under the Yellow & Red Stars (Toronto: Azrieli Foundation, 2009), at pages 21–22:
We managed to escape from Rokitno. We didn’t know where to go at first, but soon headed deep into the woods. We wanted to get as far away from that murderous place as possible. The forest was dense and thick and frightening or two boys already deeply traumatized, but we soon found some small relief. In the woods we came across other escapees. At first we met one person and then a few more until there were a significant number of us together in the woods. The adults talked to each other in whispers. … There was hurried discussion among the adults. Finally, they agreed. “We’re in more danger if we all stay together,” they said. “Let’s break up into small groups. That way it will be harder to find us.”

For the next two weeks or so, Samuel and I wandered alone, moving toward the Polish villages of Netreba and Okopy. The woods in that area were denser and the swamps there provided better cover. I remember occasionally meeting peo2ple along the way who warned us that we should only go into the villages in the case of extreme emergency. If we did come close to any villages, they said, we should still stay as close to the woods as possible in case we ran into the police. … When we did go to try to find or beg for food we mostly went into the Polish villages because they were more generous to us than the Ukrainians were.

Our journey over those couple of weeks was very hard and dangerous, but there were some memorable acts of kindness and courage that stand out. The two names in particular that are forever etched into my heart are Ludwik Wrodarczyk, a Polish Catholic priest, and Felicia [Felicja] Masojada, a Polish teacher from Okopy. When we arrived at their door after the massacre in Rokitno, they hid us in a closet and gave us some clothes and enough food to last a little while. We found out later that these wonderful people, truly good souls, paid a high price for their compassion—they were executed by Ukrainian Nazi collaborators. … In 1998, Samuel and I initiated the process to have Wrodarczyk and Masojada declared Righteous Among the Nations by the Jewish Holocaust memorial organization Yad Vashem in Jerusalem. The presentation was made in 2000.