Wartime Rescue of Jews by the Polish Catholic Clergy

Father Gedovsky mounted the pulpit and preached a sermon about the importance of helping your neighbor, quoting the appropriate passages from the New Testament. …

After mass, the priest stood in the door of the church, smiling, shaking hands with the worshippers, and exchanging a few polite words with everyone. …

Gertruda waited until everyone had gone and then went to the priest, who looked at her affectionately. Ever since Lydia’s death, Gertruda had come to church with Michael almost every Sunday.

“Father,” she murmured, “can I talk with you in private?”

The priest looked at her gently, “Of course, my child.”

She asked Michael to wait for her on a bench in the church, and let the priest lead her to the office. Once inside, the priest closed the door. His eyes looked at the woman’s face lined with distress and anxiety. Out the window, the day turned grey and long shadows crept into the room.

Gertruda wanted to speak, but tears choked her voice. Uncontrollable weeping racked her body. The priest put his warm hand on her shoulder.

“How can I help, my child?” His voice soothed her.

“I don’t know what to do, Father,” she said at last. “I don’t know who to turn to.”

He waited patiently for her to tell him her distress. …

“It’s about my child,” said Gertruda.

“The sweet child with the blue eyes sitting there outside?”

“Yes.”

Fear of what she was to reveal in this room nailed her to the spot. Her body was shaking, but she knew she had to go on. The priest was the only person she could pour her heart out to, the only one she could trust.

She told him the truth and he looked at her with eyes opened wide in surprise.

“I didn’t realize that the child was a Jew,” he said.

She called Michael.

“Do you know who Jesus was?” asked the priest.

“The man everybody prays to,” replied the child. He remembered the prayers he had heard in church.

“And what is the Holy Trinity?”

Michael frowned and repeated what Gertruda had recited to him: “The Father … the Son … the Holy Spirit.”

The priest sprinkled holy water on him and said a prayer.

“From now on, you’re a Christian like all of us,” he said. “Tomorrow morning you’ll start attending the church school.”

“But,” she stammered, “I don’t have money to pay.”

“I’m not worried,” he said. “God will reward me.”

The priest sat Michael on his lap and stroked his hair.

“You want to hear a story?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“In chapter two of the book of Daniel, there’s a story of a king of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar, who woke up one night in panic after a horrible dream. In his dream, the king saw a statue with a head of gold. A big stone suddenly smashed the statue into slivers. The king called the sages of Babylon and asked them to interpret his dream. None of them could. When the prophet Daniel learned of this, he came to the king and interpreted. The statue, he said, is your kingdom. The stone symbolizes the kingdom of Heaven that decided to smash your kingdom to dust.”

A slight smile hovered over the priest’s lips.

“You know what is the kingdom of Nebuchadnezzar?” he asked.

Gertruda nodded. The comparison with the Nazis was obvious.

“I promise you,” said the priest, “that the end of the wicked will be as the end of Nebuchadnezzar’s statue.”

She left with Michael and hurried home. The child was saved, at least for the time being, and that was what was most important. She wasn’t worried about his Christian baptism. She was sure that, just as Michael was born a Jew, he would go back to being a Jew when the war was over

On the morning Michael was about to enter the school of Ostra Brama Church, Getruda dressed him in his best clothes, packed up his belongings in a small suitcase, and went with him to Father Gedovsky’s office, where they were greeted warmly

“Leave the boy here and go in peace.” He said. “Here he’ll be protected from every evil.”