Wartime Rescue of Jews by the Polish Catholic Clergy

Our destination was Bitterfeld, the ammunition plant of IG Farben.
Sonya Bimko (later Sarah Salamon) was born in Lublin in 1922. She was married to Stanley Litwiński with whom she had two children, Henry and Barbara. Her father, Zeleg Bimko, had befriended a Catholic priest who visited his home regularly before the war. Before her arrest and deportation to a concentration camp, Sonya’s father arranged with that priest to leave her daughter on the steps of a church on Zamojska Street, in Lublin. When she returned to Lublin after the war, she learned that the priest had given the child over to a nursery. However, she was unable to find her daughter because the priest was arrested by the Soviets and imprisoned in the Soviet Union. Her son, Henry, who had been left in the care of a Polish woman, was shot by the Germans shortly before the arrival of the Soviets when he was recognized as a Jew while playing in the street.⁴³⁴
In Lubartów, a town north of Lublin, Jan Maluga, the sexton of the parish church, hid Mrs. Zylber and her son from Lublin in a cellar under the church with the approval of the vicar, Rev. Władysław Pardyka. After a stay of several weeks, they were moved to more comfortable premises where they survived the war.⁴³⁵
After escaping from the Lubartów ghetto during its liquidation in October 14, 1942, Mojżesz Apelbaum made his way back to his hometown of Firlej where he turned to the local priest for help. Rev. Szymon Tomaszewski hid Mojżesz Apelbaum and his daughter in the attic of the rectory until the arrival of the Soviet army in July 1944. As a Home Army chaplain, the Communist authorities put Rev. Tomaszewski on trial after the war on trumped up charges. Mojżesz Apelbaum came forward to testify on his behalf.⁴³⁶
A priest in Kurów near Lublin, probably Rev. Wincenty Szczepanik, the pastor, assisted Hersh and Helen Kotlar in finding a Christian family willing to take in their young daughter Goldele. The placement fell through after a few weeks, however, because the Polish couple became more fearful. The Kotlar family, consisting of the parents and two daughters, survived the war, receiving shelter and assistance from numerous Poles along the way. (Helen Kotlar, We Lived in a Grave [New York, Shengold Publishers, 1980], pp.53, 89–90.)
The only money that was still ours was entrusted to the priest. … The priest was a good-natured and just man. He was concerned about the great sufferings of the Jews. Hersh was friendly with the priest. … When the Nazis began to confiscate Jewish belongings and the Polish zlotye [sic] was devaluated, Hersh endeavored to exchange both our textile and yardgoods for gold coins. Both of us realized that in the future there will be a need for this type of currency. Having succeeded in selling some of our merchandise for payments in gold, we looked for a place to hide our money as well as the unsold goods. The priest helped us immensely. He hid our gold coins for us in his house.

One day he said to us, “In case I will not be present when you will be in need of the money, it is important that you know the location of the hiding place.” He also assured us that only one other person knows about the money. This person, he told us, is an honest man, reliable and trustworthy. … Had it not been for the priest we would not have been able to make the payments to the peasants who gave us shelter. The priest was an honest man and was fond of Hersh because he knew of Hersh’s good reputation in the community.
A Jew who hid in the Skrzynice forest near Lublin with a group of Jews received assistance from an unidentified priest he happened to encounter in the forest. (Account of A.G. in Trunk, Jewish Responses to Nazi Persecution, p.169.)
The next morning, we watched a priest and a peasant roll a wagon into the forest to get firewood for the church. We went up to the priest and asked for some bread. The priest said he had no bread with him, but in the afternoon, when he came to the forest for more wood, he’d bring us some. Later, he did bring us bread and two bottles of milk. The bread and the bottles were hidden under the straw in the peasant’s wagon, and he didn’t know it. While the peasant was busy gathering wood, the priest told us to go to the wagon, where to look for the bread and milk, we found it and left.
Ryfka Goldiner, a newborn at the time, was sheltered by Stanisław and Helena Wiśliński in Bełżyce near Lublin. Although the villagers were aware of her origin no one betrayed them. The local priest did not agree to formally baptize the child in the event her parents survived the war. In fact, they did survive and reclaimed her after liberation.⁴³⁷
Gitel Hopfeld and her two young children moved from village in vicinity of Bełżyce and Wronów, near Lublin, until the arrival of the Soviet Army. While few farmers were prepared to shelter them for any length of time, almost no one turned them away empty-handed, and no one betrayed them to the authorities. Eventually, they were taken in by the regional leader of the Home Army. Along the way they encountered the kindness of two priests.⁴³⁸
Thirteen Jews were sheltered by the Jarosz family in Piaski near Lublin. Marianna Krasnodębska (née Jarosz), who was awarded by Yad Vashem along with her parents and two brothers, recalled their rescue and the help Jews received from many residents including priests. (Poles Who Rescued Jews During the Holocaust: Recalling Forgotten History, p.79.)
“We had to help them,” she reflects on the Jews. “It was simply the duty of any human being. They helped us too, as is normal when living together.”

Marianna lived in Piaski, near Lublin. Her father was a clerk, one of the town’s elite; they let a tenement house and owned a large farm. There were eight children in the family. All of them were part of the underground from the very moment the occupation started. The Germans murdered four of Marianna’s brothers and her grandfather for harboring the guerillas. Her Home Army codename was “Wiochna.”

“With absolute confidence and with a clear conscience,” she states, “I can say that none of the residents of Piaski ever betrayed the Jews in hiding. They might have been too afraid to help, but would not sell one out. There were two informers, but they were executed by the Home Army.”

She enumerates the Jews hiding in Piaski. Nina Drozdowska from Warszawa [Warsaw] at Janek Król’s, Mrs. Makosiowa and her son at the Baranowskis’. There was a Jewish boy with the Świtacz family, a German or Czech Jew at the Siedliska [Jan and Aleksandra Pasternak rescued Johewet Netzman of Piaski in Siedliszczki⁴³⁹], and an entire family at the Zajączkowskis’. Zajączkowski was of great help to the Jews, and so were priests, and also doctor Bażański, who provided them with medication and bandages. The friends of her family who were saved, with their help, also included: Godel Huberman, Mendel Plinka and Józef Honig with his father and brother.