About 8 thousand participants, joined together in the 19th March of the Living, walked from the camp gate with a sign “Arbeit macht frei” in the former German camp Auschwitz I to the former place of extermination, Auschwitz II – Birkenau.
The marchers put black ribbons on the Israeli flags in order to show the solidarity with mourning Poles.
Just before the start of the march, the event coordinators informed that its participants pay homage to the tragically killed Presidential Couple, Lech and Maria Kaczyński, and all the other victims of the Smolensk disaster.
They emphasized that Mr President and the First Lady were great friends of Jewish nation and the State of Israel. In the gesture of solidarity, the flags carried at the head of the march, will be decorated with a black ribbon.
On the sound of Shofar
The sign to start the march was the sound of shofar, shepherd’ ram horn. The ancient Hebrews used it during the religious ceremonies. Together marched Jews from e.g. Israel, France, USA and Hungary.
Among the marchers was the Chief Rabbi of Israel, Meir Lau and the dissident from the Soviet era, Anatol Szczaranski (Natan Sharansky). The participants of the March of the Living will walk 3 km to the former Auschwitz II – Birkenau, where the ceremony will be held to pay honour to the victims of Shoah.
The March of the Living has been held in Auschwitz since 1988. They’re traditionally organized on the Day of Remembrance of the Shoah victims (Yom HaShoah). 1,5 thousand Jews took part in the first march. Since 1996 the marches are organized annually.
The Israeli Parliament, Knesset, established the Day of remembrance of Shoah on 12th of April 1951. It’s date is related to the outbreak of the Uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto. Originally the holiday was called Yom HaShoah U’Mered Hagetaot (The Day of Remembrance of Holocaust and the Ghetto Uprising). Later the day was called Yom Hashoah ve Hagevurah (The Day of Remembrance of Holocaust and Heroism). Today it’s simply the Day of Shoah.
There, they killed a million
The date of Day of remembrance is mobile, which relates to the Jewish calendar, which is a lunar calendar, and happens on the 27th day in the month of Nissan. The biggest March ever held took place in 2005 – on the 60th Anniversary of Liberating Auschwitz. About 20 thousand participants were present. It was lead by the Polish and Israeli Prime Minister – Marek Belka and Ariel Sharon. The ceremony was attended by the representatives of over 50 countries, like the PM of Hungary, Ferenc Gyurcsany and the Nobel Prize Winner, Elie Wiesel.
The German Auschwitz Camp was built in 1940. KL Auschwitz II – Birkenau – two years later it became the place of the mass murder of Jews, Auschwitz III is a system of sub-camps. Germans exterminated over 1,1 mln people, mainly Jews but also Poles, Roma, Soviet POWs and other nationals.
written by: jaś//kdj/k
For the original article, please click here.
Fully translated by the blog's author to the best of his ability.
Showing posts with label News Updates. Show all posts
Showing posts with label News Updates. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Thursday, April 8, 2010
The Grand Opening of White Storck Synagogue in Wroclaw
After 65 years of ruin and neglection, the White Storck Synagogue in Wroclaw, will be once again reopened to serve the Jewish Community of Wroclaw. Rabbi Yitzhak Rapoport, the Chief Rabbi of Jewish Commune in Wroclaw will lead the first Shabbat services in the Synagogue since the Nazi Crystal Night of 1938. The renovation was funded from the donations collected by the Bente Kahane Foundation ("Fundacja Bente Kahane").
To go to the website of the Foundation in English, please click here.
To go to the website of the Foundation in English, please click here.
News Updates: "I miss you, Jew!" - Gazeta Wyborcza, 21.03.2010
I MISS YOU, JEW! - a new campaign organized by a Polish artist Rafal Betlejewski all across the coutry. University of Warsaw demands changing the slogan of the campaign to "less controversial".
Rafal Betlejewski has been traveling for the last month and photographing those who would like to express their feeling of missing of Polish Jews, who perished or left Poland and are not here in anymore. Three events were organized so far where a group photo was taken - in Poznan, at the Gdanski Train Station in Warsaw (where the Jews departed Poland from in 1968) and in Grodzisk Mazowiecki (near Warsaw). Hundreds of people reminisce the Jews of Poland on the website www.tesknie.com ("I miss".com).
Another event was supposed to be organized at the Warsaw University, where one inspired student of UW, Bartosz Zurawski wanted to commemorate Zygmunt Bauman (father of liquid modernity theory). A group photo was to be taken around an empty chair, which would symbolize prof. Bauman. Bauman was one among few thousand Warsaw Jewish intelligentsia members that had to leave Poland after the antisemitic demonstrations of 1968 organized by the Communist government.
However, the University of Warsaw gave the permission for holding the event only few days before the scheduled date, and it was hard to spread the news around the capital in such a short time so the event was cancelled - says Betlejewski. At the same time UW authorities suggested that the word "Jew" in the main slogan isn't "very fortunate". The Chancellor of the University, Jerzy Pieszczurykow, informed the media through his spokesperson that it was just a suggestion that Mr. Betlejewski could or could not use. He said that he remembers 1968 very well and he knows very well the atmosphere of those days and he would rather see a more "collective" slogan, embracing all the groups that had to leave in 1968.
Piotr Pazinski, the General Editor of Jewish monthly "Midrasz" commented:
"I will say ironically that thanks to unprecedented and unchallenged reaction of the University authorities which does not subject itself to political correctness, in a true spirit of pluralism opened the doors to all the people who are missed, not only the Jews. I will miss a wise, open-minded and friendly authorities of my home Institute of Philosophy, and especially my professor, who really took care of me and made sure that my possible scientific achievements were not contaminated too much with the spirit of Hebrew prophets. "
In addition, Betlejewski put up graffiti all over Warsaw saying "I miss you Jew!"(A picture of one of the graffitis is available on the website with the original link). Many people saw it as an antisemitic slogan and in some cases the word "Jew" was erased by the locals leaving simple "I miss you".
For the original link, click here
Rafal Betlejewski has been traveling for the last month and photographing those who would like to express their feeling of missing of Polish Jews, who perished or left Poland and are not here in anymore. Three events were organized so far where a group photo was taken - in Poznan, at the Gdanski Train Station in Warsaw (where the Jews departed Poland from in 1968) and in Grodzisk Mazowiecki (near Warsaw). Hundreds of people reminisce the Jews of Poland on the website www.tesknie.com ("I miss".com).
Another event was supposed to be organized at the Warsaw University, where one inspired student of UW, Bartosz Zurawski wanted to commemorate Zygmunt Bauman (father of liquid modernity theory). A group photo was to be taken around an empty chair, which would symbolize prof. Bauman. Bauman was one among few thousand Warsaw Jewish intelligentsia members that had to leave Poland after the antisemitic demonstrations of 1968 organized by the Communist government.
However, the University of Warsaw gave the permission for holding the event only few days before the scheduled date, and it was hard to spread the news around the capital in such a short time so the event was cancelled - says Betlejewski. At the same time UW authorities suggested that the word "Jew" in the main slogan isn't "very fortunate". The Chancellor of the University, Jerzy Pieszczurykow, informed the media through his spokesperson that it was just a suggestion that Mr. Betlejewski could or could not use. He said that he remembers 1968 very well and he knows very well the atmosphere of those days and he would rather see a more "collective" slogan, embracing all the groups that had to leave in 1968.
Piotr Pazinski, the General Editor of Jewish monthly "Midrasz" commented:
"I will say ironically that thanks to unprecedented and unchallenged reaction of the University authorities which does not subject itself to political correctness, in a true spirit of pluralism opened the doors to all the people who are missed, not only the Jews. I will miss a wise, open-minded and friendly authorities of my home Institute of Philosophy, and especially my professor, who really took care of me and made sure that my possible scientific achievements were not contaminated too much with the spirit of Hebrew prophets. "
In addition, Betlejewski put up graffiti all over Warsaw saying "I miss you Jew!"(A picture of one of the graffitis is available on the website with the original link). Many people saw it as an antisemitic slogan and in some cases the word "Jew" was erased by the locals leaving simple "I miss you".
For the original link, click here
Thursday, March 18, 2010
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Light a candle at 18:00 - tvn24.pl
During the V International Holocaust Memorial Day and 65th Anniversary of the Liberation of KL Auschwitz-Birkenau by the Soviet Army, a several events will be held in Warsaw, Cracow and Oświęcim (Auschwitz).
150 Holocaust survivors will be present at the ceremony in the former Death Camp Auschwitz-Birkenau, as well as President of Poland Lech Kaczyński, Prime Minister Donald Tusk, Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu and the Chairman of European Parliament Jerzy Buzek. The ceremony will be preceded by an international conference of ministers of education called "Auschwitz- Remembrance, Responsibility, Education".
Cracow will hold the III International Holocaust Forum "Let My People Live" where the participants from 44 countries will be discussing issues concerning Holocaust and the abuse of human rights. A part of David Eddleman's oratory "Kolot Min HaShoah" will be played in the Cracow Opera.
Warsaw will host the V International Holocaust Memorial Day. As every year, the ceremony will take place at the Warsaw Ghetto Heroes Memorial, where the Polish actors, Daniel Olbrychski and Zbigniew Zamachowski will recite the poetry of Itzhak Katzenelsson and the crew of Jewish Theatre will sing. The ceremony is co-organized by the Warsaw City Council and Szalom Foundation.
To commemorate the Shoah and its victims, the representatives of various social groups, including high school students and scouts will put the flowers by the Memorial.
A nationwide campaign is organized to light a candle in the window at 6pm. By lighting the candles, we'll salute the victims of Holocaust and the pre-war Jews, our neighbours in the cities and towns of Poland - said Gołda Tencer, the Head of the Szalom Foundation.
For the original article, please click here
150 Holocaust survivors will be present at the ceremony in the former Death Camp Auschwitz-Birkenau, as well as President of Poland Lech Kaczyński, Prime Minister Donald Tusk, Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu and the Chairman of European Parliament Jerzy Buzek. The ceremony will be preceded by an international conference of ministers of education called "Auschwitz- Remembrance, Responsibility, Education".
Cracow will hold the III International Holocaust Forum "Let My People Live" where the participants from 44 countries will be discussing issues concerning Holocaust and the abuse of human rights. A part of David Eddleman's oratory "Kolot Min HaShoah" will be played in the Cracow Opera.
Warsaw will host the V International Holocaust Memorial Day. As every year, the ceremony will take place at the Warsaw Ghetto Heroes Memorial, where the Polish actors, Daniel Olbrychski and Zbigniew Zamachowski will recite the poetry of Itzhak Katzenelsson and the crew of Jewish Theatre will sing. The ceremony is co-organized by the Warsaw City Council and Szalom Foundation.
To commemorate the Shoah and its victims, the representatives of various social groups, including high school students and scouts will put the flowers by the Memorial.
A nationwide campaign is organized to light a candle in the window at 6pm. By lighting the candles, we'll salute the victims of Holocaust and the pre-war Jews, our neighbours in the cities and towns of Poland - said Gołda Tencer, the Head of the Szalom Foundation.
For the original article, please click here
News Updates: Komorowski and Peres discuss the Jewish property - tvn24.pl
The Chairman of the Polish Parliament, Bronisław Komorowski met with Shimon Peres on the 10th of December 2009,as a part of his 3 day visit to Jerusalem. Two issues were discussed - the youth exchange and the restitution issue. Komorowski reiterated that young Israelis should not only visit the death camps and Holocaust sites but also meet with their Polish peers. He also noticed that on the Polish part, numerous pilgrims go to Israel to visit Christian holy sites, but very few are interested with the Jewish side of Israel.
Right now, 11 Polish students participate in an exchange program, studying for a semester at the Tel Aviv University.
Komorowski stated that the restitution rate is possible at the approximate rate of 25% of property value, paid back in several installments.
The meeting was supposed to have partially a private character.
For the original article, please click here
Right now, 11 Polish students participate in an exchange program, studying for a semester at the Tel Aviv University.
Komorowski stated that the restitution rate is possible at the approximate rate of 25% of property value, paid back in several installments.
The meeting was supposed to have partially a private character.
For the original article, please click here
News Updates: Judaism Day in Polish Catholic Church - tvn24.pl
"Leave your country and go to the land that I will show you" - this is the slogan of the Judaism day organized throughout Poland by Catholic church in the framework of the Christian-Jewish Dialogue. Bishop Mieczysław Cisło, the Head of the Council of the Episcopal Conference for the Religion Dialogue Affairs, said that after 13 years of holding this day, the effort has already born fruits, since the majority of Catholics know that such an event is organized, but much more has to be done: the spirit of reconciliation and religious community should be present in every church in every diocese in Poland - he added.
The central celebration was held in Tarnów, which before the war had 45% Jewish population. The Judaism Day consisted of prayers, Bible studies, discussions, and cultural events. Catholics and Jews prayed together at the place where the Tarnów Synagogue stood at the City Square, as well as at the Jewish cemetery. In the Tarnów Cathedral, both a Rabbi and a Catholic Biblicist commented together on the passages read from the Bible.
The Polish Catholics celebrate Judaism Day every year on 17th of January since 1997, when the Episcopal Conference designated this day as Judaism day.
For the link to the original article, click here
Rav Michael Schudrich, the head of the Polish Association of Jewish Communities also attented the celebration in Tarnów. If it was possible, some of the churches held joint worships with local Jewish communities.
The central celebration was held in Tarnów, which before the war had 45% Jewish population. The Judaism Day consisted of prayers, Bible studies, discussions, and cultural events. Catholics and Jews prayed together at the place where the Tarnów Synagogue stood at the City Square, as well as at the Jewish cemetery. In the Tarnów Cathedral, both a Rabbi and a Catholic Biblicist commented together on the passages read from the Bible.
The Polish Catholics celebrate Judaism Day every year on 17th of January since 1997, when the Episcopal Conference designated this day as Judaism day.
For the link to the original article, click here
Rav Michael Schudrich, the head of the Polish Association of Jewish Communities also attented the celebration in Tarnów. If it was possible, some of the churches held joint worships with local Jewish communities.
Monday, December 28, 2009
News Updates:
In Christmas edition of "Polityka", the newspaper reminded that apart from the war in Gaza earlier this year there were 6 other conflicts going on around the world which were much bigger in casualties than the Israeli operation in the Strip. "Polityka" numbered Afganistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen and also the one that has already finished, namely the civil war in Sri Lanka.
The article appears only in a hardcopy edition.
The article appears only in a hardcopy edition.
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
News Updates: "War with terror is never pretty" - rp.pl
Marek Magierowski, one of the bloggers for Rzeczpospolita ("Commonwealth"), one of the biggest newspapers in Poland wrote on 15th of December about the false impressions of Israel among the international public opinion.
He reiterated that Israel has fought the terrorists for years and succeeded in most parts since there were no major bombings in any of the Israeli cities. However she had to paid a great price of losing the media war. In his opinion, the measures taken by Israel are for the majority of the world unacceptable, but at least she's doing it with "an open visor".
He also mentioned Tzipi Livni's arrest warrant in UK, stating the Ms. Livni can rely now only on her fellow countrymen, because outside of Israel supporting the "criminals" of Star of David is seen as not a good thing to do. Pointing out Israel as the main obstacle in Middle East process is once again trendy - reminds Magierowski. He calls an absurd, the British government's recommendation for retail sellers in UK to mark the products coming from the Jewish settlements in the West Bank, thus suggesting not to buy it.
'I'm curious if we could find a sign on Iranian carpets sold in London shops saying "By buying this product, you will fund the biggest sponsor of global terrorism'
Then he presumes that if today's criteria of a war crime would be applied to what the Her Majesty's Government was doing to Irish when fighting IRA, most of the British Prime Ministers of that time would be in jail.
For the original link, click here.
He reiterated that Israel has fought the terrorists for years and succeeded in most parts since there were no major bombings in any of the Israeli cities. However she had to paid a great price of losing the media war. In his opinion, the measures taken by Israel are for the majority of the world unacceptable, but at least she's doing it with "an open visor".
He also mentioned Tzipi Livni's arrest warrant in UK, stating the Ms. Livni can rely now only on her fellow countrymen, because outside of Israel supporting the "criminals" of Star of David is seen as not a good thing to do. Pointing out Israel as the main obstacle in Middle East process is once again trendy - reminds Magierowski. He calls an absurd, the British government's recommendation for retail sellers in UK to mark the products coming from the Jewish settlements in the West Bank, thus suggesting not to buy it.
'I'm curious if we could find a sign on Iranian carpets sold in London shops saying "By buying this product, you will fund the biggest sponsor of global terrorism'
Then he presumes that if today's criteria of a war crime would be applied to what the Her Majesty's Government was doing to Irish when fighting IRA, most of the British Prime Ministers of that time would be in jail.
For the original link, click here.
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Michnik defends himself in the court - tvn.24.pl
tvn24.pl wrote on Tuesday (8.12.2009) on the proceedings of the trial against about a dozen of diplomats and journalists, accused of defamation by Jan Kobylański, former Honorary Consul to Uruguay. The subtitle reads: “Adam Michnik does not revoke his statement published in „Gazeta Wyborcza about Jan Kobylański. – There is no doubt that this gentleman disclosed a Jewish family [to the Nazis – added by S.S.]. And the anti-Semitic language of his group is close to the Nazi one. – he said in front of the Judge.”
The plaintiff wants each one of the defendants to pay 100 thousand PLN to charity organization. Kobylański charged Michnik over articles published in Gazeta Wyborcza revealing Kobylański’s collaboration with Nazis, during the II World War.
Michnik used as an example the quotes from USOPAŁ declaration of the Former Consul Nazi sentiment, (USOPAŁ – Unia Stowarzyszeń i Organizacji Polskich w Ameryce Łacińskiej – The Union of Polish Associations and Organizations in Latin America, Kobylański is its CEO). For example, the Union called Władysław Bartoszewski, Righteous among Nations, Foreign Minister and Auschwitz prisoner, by names like
“a shabbesgoy”, “a jew”, “a traitor”, or an “anti-Pole”. Władysław Bartoszewski, during his term as Foreign-Minister, fired Kobylański from the office of Honorary Consul to Uruguay for his anti-Semitic comments.
Michnik also reminded the Court that the opinion on Kobylański given by the Committee for Prosecuting Crimes against the Polish Nation, finds him guilty of reporting a Jewish family to Gestapo.
Kobylański sued not only “Gazeta Wyborcza” “Rzeczpospolita”, „Newsweek”, „Polityka” but also Radek Sikorski, Polish Foreign Minister. The documentation of the articles, calling him e.g. „a notorious anti-Semite” has 100 pages.
The link to the original article - click here
The plaintiff wants each one of the defendants to pay 100 thousand PLN to charity organization. Kobylański charged Michnik over articles published in Gazeta Wyborcza revealing Kobylański’s collaboration with Nazis, during the II World War.
Michnik used as an example the quotes from USOPAŁ declaration of the Former Consul Nazi sentiment, (USOPAŁ – Unia Stowarzyszeń i Organizacji Polskich w Ameryce Łacińskiej – The Union of Polish Associations and Organizations in Latin America, Kobylański is its CEO). For example, the Union called Władysław Bartoszewski, Righteous among Nations, Foreign Minister and Auschwitz prisoner, by names like
“a shabbesgoy”, “a jew”, “a traitor”, or an “anti-Pole”. Władysław Bartoszewski, during his term as Foreign-Minister, fired Kobylański from the office of Honorary Consul to Uruguay for his anti-Semitic comments.
Michnik also reminded the Court that the opinion on Kobylański given by the Committee for Prosecuting Crimes against the Polish Nation, finds him guilty of reporting a Jewish family to Gestapo.
Kobylański sued not only “Gazeta Wyborcza” “Rzeczpospolita”, „Newsweek”, „Polityka” but also Radek Sikorski, Polish Foreign Minister. The documentation of the articles, calling him e.g. „a notorious anti-Semite” has 100 pages.
The link to the original article - click here
Monday, November 30, 2009
Polish perspective:
As I wrote before, the debate on Polish attitudes towards exterminated Jews is still in process. As a proof of it, I present here an article published last Friday (27.11.2009) in Rzeczpospolita newspaper. The translation is of my own to the best of my knowledge. Here's the link to the original article.
The forgotten heroes
The Jewish side starts to realize that the list of Poles, Righteous among the Nations, is not complete – the historian elaborates.
The researchers of WWII and particularly those who specialize in Polish-Jewish relations know very well the tragedy of Ciepielów. It is one of many stories that without a mythologizing and remaking could become a basis for a movie script. It is a story of a small place close to Lipsk, which (altogether 30 people) were murdered by Nazis for saving Jews.
The Kowalscy, Kosiorowie, Obuchiewicze, as well as Skoczylasy are for majority of Poles unknown till this day. They didn’t receive a medal of “Righteous among the Nations”. Who knows their story? Who knows that in the first days of December 1942, the German gendarmerie, in front of the neighbours’ eyes, murdered parents, their children, as well as the Jews that where hiding in their house? They died in torments, burnt alive in their own dwellings. The youngest child of the Obuchiewicze was 7 months. Despite of this tragedy the neighbouring villages continued to hide the ghetto escapees.
Mr. President of Republic of Poland, Lech Kaczyński awarded the members of those families with the Commander’s Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta after the premiere of the documentary directed by Arkadiusz Gołębiewski and Maciej Pawlicki titled “The Story of Kowalscy” in the Warsaw movie theatre “Silver Screen”. They were but the heroes of Fighting Poland, the same as generals, general commandeers of AK (underground State Army): “Grot”, “Bór”, “Niedźwiadek” and their soldiers.
“Will be executed”
After the creation of the ghettos and their closures on the fall of 1941, Germans began creating legislation that was supposed to prepare both Jews and “the Aryan side” to the approaching time of Shoah (from June 1941 on the territories occupied in 1939 by Soviets, from July 1942 in other areas). The main purpose of the notices was to spread fear among the populace living on both sides of the wall. They began to appear on the towns’ and cities’ walls, signed by gen. Hans Frank or commandants of particular regions:
1. “Jews, who without an authorization will leave the designated for them district, will be executed. The same punishment applies to those who will provide shelter to those Jews.
2. Firebrands and helpers are subject to the same punishment as the committer, a deed intended will be treated as a deed committed. In lighter cases [i.e. crimes] the sentence maybe imprisonment or heavy imprisonment.
3. The rulings will be conducted by the Specials Courts”
That’s how one of the first notices sounded like – issued on 15th of October 1941.
Those regulations were repeated both in contents and in the places where they were published. Only the penalties were harsher since the shameful law did not work – despite that Germans proved that they treat those threats seriously. Punished were also those who knew about the Jews hiding in nearby. The examples of the rulings of German courts as well as the further rulings were supposed to terrorize Poles, deprive them of the instinct to help needy ones.
Polish nation, however does not accept orders. Any confinement of freedom becomes detestable for us. It is proved by many Polish and Jewish testimonies, which were written since 1945 till this day. There is also an evidence in the documents, those of the German special courts and the Polish ones collected after the war by the General Committee for Research of Crimes against the Polish Nations (see IPN’s recent work published within the series “Who saves lives?”: “Who saves Jews in times like these?... Poles helping Jewish populace during the German occupation”, edited by Aleksandra Namysło, Warszawa 2009 [Polish only]).
According to the calculations made by dr. Wacław Zajączkowski and the prosecutor Wacław Bielawski, which are till this day verified by IPN’s historians and NSDAP archivists, Germans have murdered at least few hundred people for the very fact of hiding the Jews. Other few hundred, or maybe even thousands were sent to concentration camps or were persecuted (e.g. arrested and tortured). According to IPN’s data, until July 2009, there were 4709 records of people persecuted, which – after another phase of verification – will become a credible list of persecuted.
Complicated conditions
Long decades after the war, the only testimonies that world public opinion could hear were mainly of the saved Jews. It is understandable that their focus was the experiences of the Jewish community, i.e. the Shoah. In order to learn about a Pole that saved a Jew, that Jew had to survive the war, afterwards he had to wish to show appreciation to his saviour, and ultimately know his identity and actively appeal to award him a medal. He also had to preserve his national or religious identity and recognize Yad Vashem Institute as a natural place to testify in. I skip other issues, much more complex, as lack of consciousness of the saved ones – e.g. children – living and being brought up in post-war Poland.
Only fulfilling of all of those conditions, from which the most important one was the first one (surviving the war), allowed the YVI to award a medal. There are about 6600 of Poles from 22000 names from all over the world. The Council for Helping the Jews “Żegota” was the only organization to be awarded with this medal […]. Most of the saved, number of which after the war was about 30-50 thousands among those who were dared to break the German law and leave the ghetto, did not fulfil all the pre-conditions – for variety of reasons.
Through Jewish eyes
When reading the Jewish memoires, one can quickly notice that the perspective of constant fear and tension (observing the world from the hiding through horrified eyes) did not allow the saved ones to objectively take interest of Polish space or learning about the scale of the help provided or even understanding of the tension which accompanied the day-to-day occupation reality on “the Aryan side”. Only few could write that they were saved by dozens of people, and each one of those people, if wouldn’t appear in the right place at the right time, would cut off the link of solidarity with the hiding one.
Władysław Szpilman, whose saviour – acc. to the popular version – was a German officer, wouldn’t survive a day in Warsaw before the uprising, if he wouldn’t find friends and strangers to help him out. “I was extremely depressed, when once again the Providence sent me a salvation in the form of Mrs. Helena Lewicka, sister-in-law of Mrs. Jaworska. She has never met me before, she saw me for the first time in my life, but when she found out about my so far experiences, she at once agreed to keep me at her place.” – he recalled.
Jews didn’t meet only good Poles but also “szmalcownicy” – blackmailers, but above all fearful people – as all of us – who withstood threatening lives of their family for a life of a stranger. The state of anxiety and negative relations “behind the wall” strengthened among the refugees a negative stereotype of Poles – the issue which was discussed by Teresa Prekerowa (“The Attitude of Polish population towards the Jewish refugees from Death Camps in Treblinka, Sobibór and Bełżec in the light of Polish-Jewish Relations”, “Biuletyn GKBCpNP”, nr XXXV, Warsaw 1993, p. 100-114) – as the murderers, greedy on money, jewellery or even shoes, hating and being hated.
Jews saving themselves, who evaluated this way the potential saviours and their own fragile dependency from Poles, often tried to find a way to their hearts through money. It gave them a more solid guarantee of survival, and simultaneously made them less dependent. Hiding someone was a contract, although exceptional because of the potential price – human life. Jewish accounts, like diaries of Fela Fischbein, proved an often wrong presumption that Poles were conducting some sort of trade, subject of which was a needy Jew. However, they traded with their own life.
Polish side, with its argumentation, was absent from those memories (and yet Polish family had to find a secret way to find means to feed additional persons, in secret from their neighbours. Money didn’t mean that the main motive for providing shelter was lack of disinterestedness or reflex of conscience.
Understanding the Polish space was also difficult due to the lack of knowledge of Polish homes, faith and culture, and even language. As Czesław Miłosz wrote before the war, Vilna was a city of two civilizations: Polish and Jewish one. But the elite of Jewish community was speaking Russian, and the orthodox majority spoke Yiddish or Hebrew. Furthermore, pre-war Jews from Polish Silesia spoke German more frequently than Polish. Only few percent of Jews stated that Polish is their mother tongue.
Jewish community lived its own life, religiously (an independent press, theatres or schools), part of communist Jews knew only their Polish counterparts, and the neighbours' business contacts usually generated frictions, rather than mutual understanding.
It seems then that the barrier between Poles and Jews – which became extremely important during the years of occupation – did not allow both sides to reach a broader understanding. It is even more so, since the most important issue became the survival of the next minute, day or month. It was only after the shared experience of suffering allowed to relinquish old prejudices. However after the war Poles did not gain independence, and some of the Jews actively supported the new occupants, the conditions of mutual acquaintance have significantly worsened.
Jews, who did not identify themselves with Polish aspirations and sensitivity, before the war were fulfilling their aims on family, social or political grounds in the extreme conditions of the war and looked at the Aryan side with fear and almost panic. After the war, the saved ones probably did not want to remember about the trauma they were through or anything associated with the years of occupation, including Poles – the alien saviours, who were becoming more and more distant memory.
Help came from the friends
Only polonized Jews, often Roman Catholics, who had Polish friends or living before the war in Polish families, shared with Poles in the time of occupation the same amount of feeling of security.
They perfectly realized, where the help came from: “I became genuinely curious when I learnt about the planned book on Poles saving Jews” – Mrs Barbara Marlow wrote to me, referring to the book that I prepare in IPN called “Good Neighbours”. – “My father, Leon Bregman, after obtaining a diploma in Law from University of Warsaw, had had his own import company of machines and greases from England, he was also active in the Assoc. of POW, Assoc. of Jewish Participants in the Fight for Independence of Poland in Warsaw, the Board of Warsaw Fund for the Handicapped of the Polish Army and also a deputy to the City Council of Warsaw […]. My father’s brother, Aleksander Bregman, was a well-known political journalist and in September 1939 he went to Romania with Polish government, from where he obtained Romanian visas for my father and brother. They left Poland in April 1940, not for Romania but straight to Yugoslavia, where Father, the reserve officer of the Army of Poland, at once reported to the Army, and my brother obtained a postponement [from the army service] until passing the final exams. My mother and I stayed in Warsaw and together with my father’s parents we were forced to go to the Ghetto in October 1940.
You mentioned the church of All Saints, which in this time was inside the ghetto borders. I remember it very well, it was our parish church (parents, brother and me have been baptized) and also because of gardening lessons in which I participated every day for 2 years. I left the ghetto in July 1942 together with my mother. The further story requires a longer description but I will add only that we received a lot of support and help from old and new friends in next 2 years. An old friend of mine Mrs. Stanisława Wedecka was our main protector, parents of my brother’s friend from prof. Lenart, his wife and sons kept in touch with us continuously. My mother lived for 18 months with Mrs. Irena Nowodworska, Leon Nowodworski’s widow, a man who was the dean of the Attorneys’ Council and one of the leaders of National Party, as well as with priest Leon Pawlina from Caritas [after the war imprisoned and died in unclear circumstances hit by a train – added by JŻ]
Whole two years after we left the Ghetto, our helpers made it possible for us to have an almost “normal” life i.e. I could live in the city centre, go out as usual, join the Scouts and see my mother, although we didn’t live together. As a scout I fought in Warsaw Uprising. After the war we managed to flee Poland and we could reunite with Father who was stationed with II Corps in Italy. My brother, Lieutenant-observer in 300th Squadron was killed in action in July 1944”. In a great, American-Israeli documentary, which was showed recently on tvn [Polish biggest private TV station], the main character was a son of a saved Jew, who after the years of silence breaks the barrier of reluctance towards Poles and Poland and forces his family (older and younger generation) to come to the “goy” country and see if their saviours are still alive. The story ended with a happy end. Mrs Mucha and her husband were awarded a medal of the Righteous among Nations. Mrs. Marlow’s saviours didn’t receive any medal till this day. Only in the recent days, IPN received a message that Yad Vashem awarded a medal to priest Marcel Godlewski, the pastor of the Church of All Saints parish.
Nuns and intelligentsia
Jews, who had survived the war and testified to the truth, are only a fraction of those, who took a heroic decision to try to escape the ghetto (400 thousand people were living in the Warsaw ghetto, from which 25 thousand had escaped). In order for Pole to help a Jew, the latter one had to escape from the ghetto or from the transport.
In Polish accounts, the motif of helping the needy ones appear quite frequently. This individual help was placed in a broadly understood Civic Conspiracy Fight of the nation, which was supervised by Stefan and Zofia Korbońscy. Nuns played a great role. Their homes provided a shelter for thousands of children, hidden among Polish orphans.
One of those places, where both lay people and nuns worked, was the House of Small Children of priest Gabriel Piotr Baudouin, directed by dr. Maria Wierzbowska. Nun Joanna H. Lossow on the other hand, the Franciscan Servant of the Cross, the Head of the Warsaw House and since 1942 also of the Association for the Blind near Krasnystaw, counted how many homes and persons were helping Jews, e.g. injured in 1939, or later on to children: “In this time, my work was mainly based on managing the House’s errands in German offices and collecting food for Laski [a village]. And there were people to feed, since apart from the locals, there were also injured soldiers, officers and cripples from September 1939, as well as refugees from Warsaw, among whom were Jews and a quite big group of children, who in the time of war were left without any care and for whom we established a boarding school, the so called Alojzki – named after the patron of the House, in which they were put”.
Similar memories referred to Polish families in both countryside and in urban area. Mrs. Miecznikowska, Warsaw, reminisced: “First we rented out the children room to two young men – Adam Kapłański and Bronisław Lewandowski. Both were in the underground. Mr Bronisław was a musician, the author of the famous “Żoliborz March”. And so our house – as most of the houses in our journalist neighbourhood, joined the conspiracy life of Warsaw. […] According to my brother – the first one to appear in our house was Mrs. Niewiadomska [In Polish "nie wiadomo" means “no clue”]. Obviously it wasn’t her real name, we never got to know her real name. We don’t know, neither me, nor my brother, from whose recommendation a big fat gentleman from Lublin came to our house and asked if he could rent the room for her. We, the children, were told that it his fiancée. This gentleman told my father: “She has to leave Lublin, it’s a small city, everyone knows her…” My parents agreed to rent out father’s cabinet to Mrs. Stefania Niewiadomska. She didn’t have a “good look”.
In 1941 the flatmates from the children room moved out. We were saying goodbye to so dear and young people with a great regret. Children room was vacant and awaited new roommates. A young, slim lady with straight hairs came to rent it out. Blue-eyed, chestnut hair was tightly queued. She wanted to rent a room for her and another one in nearby for her husband. The location of our house was suitable for her. She saw the gardens, two exits, a path connecting all the gardens, used for taking out garbage and bringing coal and potatoes for winter – and she decided to stay. Borowscy moved to our house. When we saw Mr. Artur, even we, children realized that he is not an Aryan. Short, energetic, dark-eyed, with a characteristic shape of nose, his looks were definitely disadvantageous. Despite that, the parents decided to rent them out the room”.
Krystyna Zabłocka, Maiden Name Skarżyńska wrote in a letter to the Committee for Remembrance of Poles saving Jews (all the quotes come from this collection): “Lidia Parecka, born […] in Tarnopol was a third-generation Catholic, but for Germans she was Jewish. Gestapo was looking for her after death of her parents, and in spring 1942 she was forced to flee to Lwów [Lemberg]. Sacre Coeur Sisters, by whom she was brought up, sent her to Sisters Niepokalanki in Nowy Sącz, where I was learning. After a few day stay she was sent to my parents’ house – Jadwiga I Stanisława Skarżyńscy, where she lived until the end of the war. To justify her stay she was introduced as a cousin of Armenian descent from Lwów. She was registered in Czchów County, where she worked as a gardening intern. She lived in one room with us”.
Out of Christian mercy
In thousands of testimonies we find common facts. Firstly, afraid of being killed the saved ones moved from one place to another. The circle of people of good will was growing and enhanced the chances to save a Jew. Secondly, in the place when a certain person was hiding (e.g. a nun’s house or apartment house, a landlords’ manor or even a whole village) all the locals learnt about the hidden one sooner or later. The possibility of keeping the hidden one in secret from the neighbours was in many cases simply impossible or even detrimental – e.g. in the villages, where the locals trusted each other and solitarily stood together against the strangers.
In many testimonies comes back the story of a stay of a “cousin” from the city and then it is admitted that no body believed in this legend. Obviously, the less you know the better. Countryside population protecting Jews was afraid of both strangers, who could disclose the hiding place or the hidden Jew himself, who usually was unknown and nobody had seen him and created a potential risk to the community.
In Polish testimonies, a Christian sensitivity dominates. I haven’t found a single testimony in which priests or nuns would refuse to help a needy human being, if it was an injured soldier, a guerrilla fighter or a Jew. Christian mercy constituted a foundation, which appeared every time when there was a necessity to make a decision. It destroys therefore an unjust and stupid myth of Christianity as a religion supporting racist hitlerism in its indeed pagan extermination of Jews, Gypsies, handicapped, homosexuals and second-in-line Slav nations or “unsuitable” for III Reich project.
“I entered the hut, I closed the shutters and doors and laid down. It seems like I fell asleep well - which happens really rarely to me -, since the knocking on my door in the middle of the night seemed to me to be a dream. It’s a night and someone’s knocking on my door! Startled, I started looking for the light switch on the wall, because I thought that I’m in my flat in Bielsko and I can’t orientate where’s the door, the window or the lamp. I hear Slovak words saying “Len Pomalu, len pomalu”[slowly, slowly]… Finally the doors open, flashlights are twinkling, two men put in two heavy luggage cases, Dr. Rajec, our district’s medic from Frydman, pays them with a shaking hand. The doors close, we’re alone. He, carrying a child, his wife and I. Horrible! Dr. Kuechel from Stara Wieś was taken last night and murdered in Czorsztyn, now it’s their turn. They are Jews… The doctor says that they would rest for a minute and then they would go to the forest… All of us shiver. Mrs. Elżbieta is yellow like a lemon, the doctor is all shivering, little two-and-a-half year Ewa sleeps on his hands. I shake, shiver in fever. My jaws shut, I feel bitter and dry in my mouth. I can’t say a single word out of my throat. We are doomed! Those who are ordered to transport the Slovak Jews to the border can come here any minute. The seconds pass and we drown in lethal, really lethal fear.
Suddenly, a strange calmness comes back to my heart, colour to my face, some wave of love floods my heart, love to those people, so curbed by anxiety. Courage, yes! Courage strengthens my heart. Those people in one moment become the dearest ones to me in the whole world. So I tell them calmly “The Forest has its ends, the winter’s coming. You’ll stay with me”… I realized that it was a God talking through me, they calmed down too. Doctor laid down the child; Mrs Elżbieta started to vomit with bile… They stayed and were alive, the next day they opened the case and gave me a tin can with their money. I told them “there are potatoes in the cellar and that’s where you can keep your can safely. They didn’t realize how holy to me is their life, so as my own, that I've put in danger for them!” – wrote Mieczysława Farysiak from Dursztyn on the Polish-Slovak border.
Two memories
The story of Kowalski family and their neighbours is a typical account of rural family fortunes. Numerous offspring, great love and hard work, few words are spoken at the dinner table, there are however a lot of deeds and feelings.
As in the other places in Poland, Jews were hidden in the small Ciepielów. Till this day the last man who remembers those times tells the story of tragic days of December 1942 with tears in his eyes. It’s a living history, which thanks to Maciej Pawlicki and Artur Gołębiewski can become – and should be– present for all of us. This movie may play a changing role. Indeed the only thing nowadays that both Polish and Jewish sides share is an opinion that Jews are not liked by Poles (obviously it doesn’t mean certain individuals, but generally,as a nation), that they were strangers with their customs. Poles bear a grudge against Jews that they failed to show solidarity with Poles before the war and between 1939-1941. Nevertheless, those two memories bore a solid list of Polish “Righteous among Nations”, which played a role of the only valid and authentic account of Poles saving Jews. Today, thanks to historical researchers, as well as mutual, flourishing relations between Poland and Israel, the Jewish side realizes more and more that the list is not complete.
Therefore the Polish side tries to raise a monument to honour Poles saving Jews, hoping that in near future the Righteous’ list will come closer to the actual list of Poles helping Jews during the Second World War
The author is a historian, advisor to the director of IPN, a professor of UKSW
The forgotten heroes
The Jewish side starts to realize that the list of Poles, Righteous among the Nations, is not complete – the historian elaborates.
The researchers of WWII and particularly those who specialize in Polish-Jewish relations know very well the tragedy of Ciepielów. It is one of many stories that without a mythologizing and remaking could become a basis for a movie script. It is a story of a small place close to Lipsk, which (altogether 30 people) were murdered by Nazis for saving Jews.
The Kowalscy, Kosiorowie, Obuchiewicze, as well as Skoczylasy are for majority of Poles unknown till this day. They didn’t receive a medal of “Righteous among the Nations”. Who knows their story? Who knows that in the first days of December 1942, the German gendarmerie, in front of the neighbours’ eyes, murdered parents, their children, as well as the Jews that where hiding in their house? They died in torments, burnt alive in their own dwellings. The youngest child of the Obuchiewicze was 7 months. Despite of this tragedy the neighbouring villages continued to hide the ghetto escapees.
Mr. President of Republic of Poland, Lech Kaczyński awarded the members of those families with the Commander’s Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta after the premiere of the documentary directed by Arkadiusz Gołębiewski and Maciej Pawlicki titled “The Story of Kowalscy” in the Warsaw movie theatre “Silver Screen”. They were but the heroes of Fighting Poland, the same as generals, general commandeers of AK (underground State Army): “Grot”, “Bór”, “Niedźwiadek” and their soldiers.
“Will be executed”
After the creation of the ghettos and their closures on the fall of 1941, Germans began creating legislation that was supposed to prepare both Jews and “the Aryan side” to the approaching time of Shoah (from June 1941 on the territories occupied in 1939 by Soviets, from July 1942 in other areas). The main purpose of the notices was to spread fear among the populace living on both sides of the wall. They began to appear on the towns’ and cities’ walls, signed by gen. Hans Frank or commandants of particular regions:
1. “Jews, who without an authorization will leave the designated for them district, will be executed. The same punishment applies to those who will provide shelter to those Jews.
2. Firebrands and helpers are subject to the same punishment as the committer, a deed intended will be treated as a deed committed. In lighter cases [i.e. crimes] the sentence maybe imprisonment or heavy imprisonment.
3. The rulings will be conducted by the Specials Courts”
That’s how one of the first notices sounded like – issued on 15th of October 1941.
Those regulations were repeated both in contents and in the places where they were published. Only the penalties were harsher since the shameful law did not work – despite that Germans proved that they treat those threats seriously. Punished were also those who knew about the Jews hiding in nearby. The examples of the rulings of German courts as well as the further rulings were supposed to terrorize Poles, deprive them of the instinct to help needy ones.
Polish nation, however does not accept orders. Any confinement of freedom becomes detestable for us. It is proved by many Polish and Jewish testimonies, which were written since 1945 till this day. There is also an evidence in the documents, those of the German special courts and the Polish ones collected after the war by the General Committee for Research of Crimes against the Polish Nations (see IPN’s recent work published within the series “Who saves lives?”: “Who saves Jews in times like these?... Poles helping Jewish populace during the German occupation”, edited by Aleksandra Namysło, Warszawa 2009 [Polish only]).
According to the calculations made by dr. Wacław Zajączkowski and the prosecutor Wacław Bielawski, which are till this day verified by IPN’s historians and NSDAP archivists, Germans have murdered at least few hundred people for the very fact of hiding the Jews. Other few hundred, or maybe even thousands were sent to concentration camps or were persecuted (e.g. arrested and tortured). According to IPN’s data, until July 2009, there were 4709 records of people persecuted, which – after another phase of verification – will become a credible list of persecuted.
Complicated conditions
Long decades after the war, the only testimonies that world public opinion could hear were mainly of the saved Jews. It is understandable that their focus was the experiences of the Jewish community, i.e. the Shoah. In order to learn about a Pole that saved a Jew, that Jew had to survive the war, afterwards he had to wish to show appreciation to his saviour, and ultimately know his identity and actively appeal to award him a medal. He also had to preserve his national or religious identity and recognize Yad Vashem Institute as a natural place to testify in. I skip other issues, much more complex, as lack of consciousness of the saved ones – e.g. children – living and being brought up in post-war Poland.
Only fulfilling of all of those conditions, from which the most important one was the first one (surviving the war), allowed the YVI to award a medal. There are about 6600 of Poles from 22000 names from all over the world. The Council for Helping the Jews “Żegota” was the only organization to be awarded with this medal […]. Most of the saved, number of which after the war was about 30-50 thousands among those who were dared to break the German law and leave the ghetto, did not fulfil all the pre-conditions – for variety of reasons.
Through Jewish eyes
When reading the Jewish memoires, one can quickly notice that the perspective of constant fear and tension (observing the world from the hiding through horrified eyes) did not allow the saved ones to objectively take interest of Polish space or learning about the scale of the help provided or even understanding of the tension which accompanied the day-to-day occupation reality on “the Aryan side”. Only few could write that they were saved by dozens of people, and each one of those people, if wouldn’t appear in the right place at the right time, would cut off the link of solidarity with the hiding one.
Władysław Szpilman, whose saviour – acc. to the popular version – was a German officer, wouldn’t survive a day in Warsaw before the uprising, if he wouldn’t find friends and strangers to help him out. “I was extremely depressed, when once again the Providence sent me a salvation in the form of Mrs. Helena Lewicka, sister-in-law of Mrs. Jaworska. She has never met me before, she saw me for the first time in my life, but when she found out about my so far experiences, she at once agreed to keep me at her place.” – he recalled.
Jews didn’t meet only good Poles but also “szmalcownicy” – blackmailers, but above all fearful people – as all of us – who withstood threatening lives of their family for a life of a stranger. The state of anxiety and negative relations “behind the wall” strengthened among the refugees a negative stereotype of Poles – the issue which was discussed by Teresa Prekerowa (“The Attitude of Polish population towards the Jewish refugees from Death Camps in Treblinka, Sobibór and Bełżec in the light of Polish-Jewish Relations”, “Biuletyn GKBCpNP”, nr XXXV, Warsaw 1993, p. 100-114) – as the murderers, greedy on money, jewellery or even shoes, hating and being hated.
Jews saving themselves, who evaluated this way the potential saviours and their own fragile dependency from Poles, often tried to find a way to their hearts through money. It gave them a more solid guarantee of survival, and simultaneously made them less dependent. Hiding someone was a contract, although exceptional because of the potential price – human life. Jewish accounts, like diaries of Fela Fischbein, proved an often wrong presumption that Poles were conducting some sort of trade, subject of which was a needy Jew. However, they traded with their own life.
Polish side, with its argumentation, was absent from those memories (and yet Polish family had to find a secret way to find means to feed additional persons, in secret from their neighbours. Money didn’t mean that the main motive for providing shelter was lack of disinterestedness or reflex of conscience.
Understanding the Polish space was also difficult due to the lack of knowledge of Polish homes, faith and culture, and even language. As Czesław Miłosz wrote before the war, Vilna was a city of two civilizations: Polish and Jewish one. But the elite of Jewish community was speaking Russian, and the orthodox majority spoke Yiddish or Hebrew. Furthermore, pre-war Jews from Polish Silesia spoke German more frequently than Polish. Only few percent of Jews stated that Polish is their mother tongue.
Jewish community lived its own life, religiously (an independent press, theatres or schools), part of communist Jews knew only their Polish counterparts, and the neighbours' business contacts usually generated frictions, rather than mutual understanding.
It seems then that the barrier between Poles and Jews – which became extremely important during the years of occupation – did not allow both sides to reach a broader understanding. It is even more so, since the most important issue became the survival of the next minute, day or month. It was only after the shared experience of suffering allowed to relinquish old prejudices. However after the war Poles did not gain independence, and some of the Jews actively supported the new occupants, the conditions of mutual acquaintance have significantly worsened.
Jews, who did not identify themselves with Polish aspirations and sensitivity, before the war were fulfilling their aims on family, social or political grounds in the extreme conditions of the war and looked at the Aryan side with fear and almost panic. After the war, the saved ones probably did not want to remember about the trauma they were through or anything associated with the years of occupation, including Poles – the alien saviours, who were becoming more and more distant memory.
Help came from the friends
Only polonized Jews, often Roman Catholics, who had Polish friends or living before the war in Polish families, shared with Poles in the time of occupation the same amount of feeling of security.
They perfectly realized, where the help came from: “I became genuinely curious when I learnt about the planned book on Poles saving Jews” – Mrs Barbara Marlow wrote to me, referring to the book that I prepare in IPN called “Good Neighbours”. – “My father, Leon Bregman, after obtaining a diploma in Law from University of Warsaw, had had his own import company of machines and greases from England, he was also active in the Assoc. of POW, Assoc. of Jewish Participants in the Fight for Independence of Poland in Warsaw, the Board of Warsaw Fund for the Handicapped of the Polish Army and also a deputy to the City Council of Warsaw […]. My father’s brother, Aleksander Bregman, was a well-known political journalist and in September 1939 he went to Romania with Polish government, from where he obtained Romanian visas for my father and brother. They left Poland in April 1940, not for Romania but straight to Yugoslavia, where Father, the reserve officer of the Army of Poland, at once reported to the Army, and my brother obtained a postponement [from the army service] until passing the final exams. My mother and I stayed in Warsaw and together with my father’s parents we were forced to go to the Ghetto in October 1940.
You mentioned the church of All Saints, which in this time was inside the ghetto borders. I remember it very well, it was our parish church (parents, brother and me have been baptized) and also because of gardening lessons in which I participated every day for 2 years. I left the ghetto in July 1942 together with my mother. The further story requires a longer description but I will add only that we received a lot of support and help from old and new friends in next 2 years. An old friend of mine Mrs. Stanisława Wedecka was our main protector, parents of my brother’s friend from prof. Lenart, his wife and sons kept in touch with us continuously. My mother lived for 18 months with Mrs. Irena Nowodworska, Leon Nowodworski’s widow, a man who was the dean of the Attorneys’ Council and one of the leaders of National Party, as well as with priest Leon Pawlina from Caritas [after the war imprisoned and died in unclear circumstances hit by a train – added by JŻ]
Whole two years after we left the Ghetto, our helpers made it possible for us to have an almost “normal” life i.e. I could live in the city centre, go out as usual, join the Scouts and see my mother, although we didn’t live together. As a scout I fought in Warsaw Uprising. After the war we managed to flee Poland and we could reunite with Father who was stationed with II Corps in Italy. My brother, Lieutenant-observer in 300th Squadron was killed in action in July 1944”. In a great, American-Israeli documentary, which was showed recently on tvn [Polish biggest private TV station], the main character was a son of a saved Jew, who after the years of silence breaks the barrier of reluctance towards Poles and Poland and forces his family (older and younger generation) to come to the “goy” country and see if their saviours are still alive. The story ended with a happy end. Mrs Mucha and her husband were awarded a medal of the Righteous among Nations. Mrs. Marlow’s saviours didn’t receive any medal till this day. Only in the recent days, IPN received a message that Yad Vashem awarded a medal to priest Marcel Godlewski, the pastor of the Church of All Saints parish.
Nuns and intelligentsia
Jews, who had survived the war and testified to the truth, are only a fraction of those, who took a heroic decision to try to escape the ghetto (400 thousand people were living in the Warsaw ghetto, from which 25 thousand had escaped). In order for Pole to help a Jew, the latter one had to escape from the ghetto or from the transport.
In Polish accounts, the motif of helping the needy ones appear quite frequently. This individual help was placed in a broadly understood Civic Conspiracy Fight of the nation, which was supervised by Stefan and Zofia Korbońscy. Nuns played a great role. Their homes provided a shelter for thousands of children, hidden among Polish orphans.
One of those places, where both lay people and nuns worked, was the House of Small Children of priest Gabriel Piotr Baudouin, directed by dr. Maria Wierzbowska. Nun Joanna H. Lossow on the other hand, the Franciscan Servant of the Cross, the Head of the Warsaw House and since 1942 also of the Association for the Blind near Krasnystaw, counted how many homes and persons were helping Jews, e.g. injured in 1939, or later on to children: “In this time, my work was mainly based on managing the House’s errands in German offices and collecting food for Laski [a village]. And there were people to feed, since apart from the locals, there were also injured soldiers, officers and cripples from September 1939, as well as refugees from Warsaw, among whom were Jews and a quite big group of children, who in the time of war were left without any care and for whom we established a boarding school, the so called Alojzki – named after the patron of the House, in which they were put”.
Similar memories referred to Polish families in both countryside and in urban area. Mrs. Miecznikowska, Warsaw, reminisced: “First we rented out the children room to two young men – Adam Kapłański and Bronisław Lewandowski. Both were in the underground. Mr Bronisław was a musician, the author of the famous “Żoliborz March”. And so our house – as most of the houses in our journalist neighbourhood, joined the conspiracy life of Warsaw. […] According to my brother – the first one to appear in our house was Mrs. Niewiadomska [In Polish "nie wiadomo" means “no clue”]. Obviously it wasn’t her real name, we never got to know her real name. We don’t know, neither me, nor my brother, from whose recommendation a big fat gentleman from Lublin came to our house and asked if he could rent the room for her. We, the children, were told that it his fiancée. This gentleman told my father: “She has to leave Lublin, it’s a small city, everyone knows her…” My parents agreed to rent out father’s cabinet to Mrs. Stefania Niewiadomska. She didn’t have a “good look”.
In 1941 the flatmates from the children room moved out. We were saying goodbye to so dear and young people with a great regret. Children room was vacant and awaited new roommates. A young, slim lady with straight hairs came to rent it out. Blue-eyed, chestnut hair was tightly queued. She wanted to rent a room for her and another one in nearby for her husband. The location of our house was suitable for her. She saw the gardens, two exits, a path connecting all the gardens, used for taking out garbage and bringing coal and potatoes for winter – and she decided to stay. Borowscy moved to our house. When we saw Mr. Artur, even we, children realized that he is not an Aryan. Short, energetic, dark-eyed, with a characteristic shape of nose, his looks were definitely disadvantageous. Despite that, the parents decided to rent them out the room”.
Krystyna Zabłocka, Maiden Name Skarżyńska wrote in a letter to the Committee for Remembrance of Poles saving Jews (all the quotes come from this collection): “Lidia Parecka, born […] in Tarnopol was a third-generation Catholic, but for Germans she was Jewish. Gestapo was looking for her after death of her parents, and in spring 1942 she was forced to flee to Lwów [Lemberg]. Sacre Coeur Sisters, by whom she was brought up, sent her to Sisters Niepokalanki in Nowy Sącz, where I was learning. After a few day stay she was sent to my parents’ house – Jadwiga I Stanisława Skarżyńscy, where she lived until the end of the war. To justify her stay she was introduced as a cousin of Armenian descent from Lwów. She was registered in Czchów County, where she worked as a gardening intern. She lived in one room with us”.
Out of Christian mercy
In thousands of testimonies we find common facts. Firstly, afraid of being killed the saved ones moved from one place to another. The circle of people of good will was growing and enhanced the chances to save a Jew. Secondly, in the place when a certain person was hiding (e.g. a nun’s house or apartment house, a landlords’ manor or even a whole village) all the locals learnt about the hidden one sooner or later. The possibility of keeping the hidden one in secret from the neighbours was in many cases simply impossible or even detrimental – e.g. in the villages, where the locals trusted each other and solitarily stood together against the strangers.
In many testimonies comes back the story of a stay of a “cousin” from the city and then it is admitted that no body believed in this legend. Obviously, the less you know the better. Countryside population protecting Jews was afraid of both strangers, who could disclose the hiding place or the hidden Jew himself, who usually was unknown and nobody had seen him and created a potential risk to the community.
In Polish testimonies, a Christian sensitivity dominates. I haven’t found a single testimony in which priests or nuns would refuse to help a needy human being, if it was an injured soldier, a guerrilla fighter or a Jew. Christian mercy constituted a foundation, which appeared every time when there was a necessity to make a decision. It destroys therefore an unjust and stupid myth of Christianity as a religion supporting racist hitlerism in its indeed pagan extermination of Jews, Gypsies, handicapped, homosexuals and second-in-line Slav nations or “unsuitable” for III Reich project.
“I entered the hut, I closed the shutters and doors and laid down. It seems like I fell asleep well - which happens really rarely to me -, since the knocking on my door in the middle of the night seemed to me to be a dream. It’s a night and someone’s knocking on my door! Startled, I started looking for the light switch on the wall, because I thought that I’m in my flat in Bielsko and I can’t orientate where’s the door, the window or the lamp. I hear Slovak words saying “Len Pomalu, len pomalu”[slowly, slowly]… Finally the doors open, flashlights are twinkling, two men put in two heavy luggage cases, Dr. Rajec, our district’s medic from Frydman, pays them with a shaking hand. The doors close, we’re alone. He, carrying a child, his wife and I. Horrible! Dr. Kuechel from Stara Wieś was taken last night and murdered in Czorsztyn, now it’s their turn. They are Jews… The doctor says that they would rest for a minute and then they would go to the forest… All of us shiver. Mrs. Elżbieta is yellow like a lemon, the doctor is all shivering, little two-and-a-half year Ewa sleeps on his hands. I shake, shiver in fever. My jaws shut, I feel bitter and dry in my mouth. I can’t say a single word out of my throat. We are doomed! Those who are ordered to transport the Slovak Jews to the border can come here any minute. The seconds pass and we drown in lethal, really lethal fear.
Suddenly, a strange calmness comes back to my heart, colour to my face, some wave of love floods my heart, love to those people, so curbed by anxiety. Courage, yes! Courage strengthens my heart. Those people in one moment become the dearest ones to me in the whole world. So I tell them calmly “The Forest has its ends, the winter’s coming. You’ll stay with me”… I realized that it was a God talking through me, they calmed down too. Doctor laid down the child; Mrs Elżbieta started to vomit with bile… They stayed and were alive, the next day they opened the case and gave me a tin can with their money. I told them “there are potatoes in the cellar and that’s where you can keep your can safely. They didn’t realize how holy to me is their life, so as my own, that I've put in danger for them!” – wrote Mieczysława Farysiak from Dursztyn on the Polish-Slovak border.
Two memories
The story of Kowalski family and their neighbours is a typical account of rural family fortunes. Numerous offspring, great love and hard work, few words are spoken at the dinner table, there are however a lot of deeds and feelings.
As in the other places in Poland, Jews were hidden in the small Ciepielów. Till this day the last man who remembers those times tells the story of tragic days of December 1942 with tears in his eyes. It’s a living history, which thanks to Maciej Pawlicki and Artur Gołębiewski can become – and should be– present for all of us. This movie may play a changing role. Indeed the only thing nowadays that both Polish and Jewish sides share is an opinion that Jews are not liked by Poles (obviously it doesn’t mean certain individuals, but generally,as a nation), that they were strangers with their customs. Poles bear a grudge against Jews that they failed to show solidarity with Poles before the war and between 1939-1941. Nevertheless, those two memories bore a solid list of Polish “Righteous among Nations”, which played a role of the only valid and authentic account of Poles saving Jews. Today, thanks to historical researchers, as well as mutual, flourishing relations between Poland and Israel, the Jewish side realizes more and more that the list is not complete.
Therefore the Polish side tries to raise a monument to honour Poles saving Jews, hoping that in near future the Righteous’ list will come closer to the actual list of Poles helping Jews during the Second World War
The author is a historian, advisor to the director of IPN, a professor of UKSW
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