Following is the list of those who were present to meet His Holiness:
List of former prisoners from the Auschwitz-Birkenau camps
who met with His Holiness, Pope Francis
DUNICZ NIWIŃSKA Helena, born in 1915, in Vienna, camp number 64118, polish violinist, classical music literature translator. Her hometown was Lviv, where until 1943 she was living with her parents and brothers. She was arrested together with her mother, Maria Dunicz, in January 1943 . She was brought to Auschwitz on the 3rd of October in1943 from Lviv. As a violinist she became a member of an orchestra in a Auschwitz II-Birkenau camp. Her mother died two months later, on December 1943. In January 1945 during a death march she was evacuated to KL Ravensbruck, and then to Neustadt-Glewe, where she regained her freedom. After the war she started to live in Kraków. In 2013 thanks to National Publishing, part of the Auschvitz-Birkenau Museum her book One of the Girls in the Band appeared.
FROS Alojzy, born in 1916 in Rybnik, camp number 136223. Arrested in April 1943, because of conspiracy work. Deported to Auschwitz on August 9th, 1943. During the first two months, as an ill person, he was in the camp hospital. After that he was hired to sort the packages for the prisoners. During the Autumn of 1944 he was transferred to KL Sachsenhausen (number 115773), and then to KL Buchenwald (number 96935), liberated in April 1945. In 2015 his memoir entitled: My story was published.
IWAŃSKA Janina, born in 1916 in Warsaw, camp number 85595. On August 12th, 1944 she was brought to KL Auschwitz in a vehicle for civilians from the Warsaw Uprising Evacuated. In January 1945 she was taken to KL Ravensbruck, then to Neustadt-Glewe, where she was liberated.
Professor DŁUGOBORSKI Wacław, who was born in 1926 in Warsaw, camp number 138871. He was arrested in May 1943 in Warsaw for a conspiracy activity. On August 25, 1943, he was transported from the Pawiak prison and deported to Auschwitz where he was employed in the camp hospital in Birkenau until the end of January 1945. After the departure of evacuation transports, he escaped from the camp. After the war he worked as a university researcher and research curator at the State Museum of Auschwitz-Birkenau.
Professor KĄCZKOWSKI Zbigniew born in 1921 in Kraków, camp number 125727, was arrested in April 1943 under a false name Kaczanowski. On June 24th he was sent to Auschwitz. His mother Zofia, who died in the camp was employed in the camp hospital at Auschwitz I, as a nurse. In July 27, 1944 he escaped from the camp but was captured and imprisoned in Block 11, then deported to Buchenwald, where he was transferred to Ravensbrück. After the war he was working as a university researcher.
LESIAK Stefan was born in 1927 in Pińczów, camp number 197204. On the 17th of September in 1944 he was deported to Auschwitz, under a false name Wesiak. He was transported in a vehicle for civilians from the Warsaw Uprising. A month later he transferred to Buchenwald, where in April 1945 he was freed.
NIKODEM Valentina was born in 1922 in Lodz, camp number 8737. On the 16th of July in 1942, she was brought to Auschwitz with her mother who died in the camp because her father killed the Gestapo in Lodz. In the camp she worked in the camp packaging department, she helped women who gave birth to children in the camp and was the godmother of some of those infants. On 26 October 1944 she was transferred to Flossenbürg and regained freedom in May 1945.
Majerowicz Marian was born in 1926 in a Jewish family in Myszków, camp number 157715 in October 1943. He was brought to Auschwitz, where his parents and little brother died. In January of 1944 he was taken to the Gross-Rosen and liberated during the death march from the camp in 1945. He is the President of the Association of Jewish Veterans and Victims of World War II in Warsaw.
UMLAUF Eva, 74 years old), camp number A-26959, was brought to Auschwitz as a two year old child with her family in November 1944 from Sered. Her mother was liberated from Auschwitz, since she was pregnant at the time of arrival to the camp. She gave birth to a daughter - Eleonora - in April 1945.
FÜRST Naftali was born in 1932. In Bratislava, camp number B-14026, he was deported to Auschwitz on the 3rd of November 1944. From Sered, he was evacuated in January 1945 to Buchenwald and liberated there. He lives in Israel. He is the author of the book Wie Kohlestücke in den Flammen des Schreckens - eine Familie überlebt den Holocaust.
RAUCH Peter was born in1939. In Munich, camp number Z-3531; He lived with his parents and five sisters in Munich, where his father ran his own business in shipping. On the 8th of March 1943. His whole family was arrested and deported to Auschwitz II-Birkenau. Peter and his mother were transferred first to Ravensbrück, then to Mauthausen and Bergen-Belsen. There, in 1945. He was liberated and returned to his hometown.
List of the Righteous among the Nations
who met with His Holiness, Pope Francis
Maria Augustyn née Jamro
In September 1942, after many days of wandering through villages and fields, Hena and Oskar Oliner reached the village of Zagórzany, in the Nowy Sącz district, where they knocked on the door of Karol and Waleria Jamro, a peasant couple who lived in the village with their two children. Exhausted, starving, and desperate, the Oliners begged them to let them stay the night. To their surprise, the Jamros agreed, and even offered them a hot meal. At dawn next day, the Oliners left, but a few days later, after several aborted attempts to find another hiding place, they returned to the Jamros, who prepared a well-camouflaged hiding place for them behind a wardrobe. In saving the Oliners, the Jamros were prompted by humanitarian motives, which overrode considerations of personal safety or economic hardship. The fact that a group of Germans who were billeted in the area used to visit the Jamros unexpectedly made the situation even more dangerous. It was only thanks to the Jamros’ courage and resourcefulness that the Oliners survived until the area was liberated by the Red Army. After the war, Oskar and Hena Oliver emigrated to the United States, from where they carried on a correspondence with Jan and Maria, the Jamros’ children. In 1991, they invited Maria to stay with them.
On February 11, 1992, Yad Vashem recognized Waleria and Karol Jamro and their daughter, Maria Augustyn-Jamro, as Righteous Among the Nations. On August 1, 1993, Yad Vashem recognized Jan Jamro, Waleria's and Karol's son, as Righteous Among the Nations.
Anna Bando, née Stupnicka
Janina Stupnicka, a teacher, was employed during the German occupation managing and registering residential buildings, including buildings in the Warsaw ghetto area. In the course of her work in the ghetto, her twelve–year-old daughter Anna, often accompanied her, and the two of them smuggled bread into the ghetto in their handbags and distributed it to starving Jews. In 1941, Stupnicka, with the active assistance of her daughter, removed eleven–year-old Liliana (Lilka) Alter from the ghetto. From then until the end of the war, the Stupnickas kept the orphaned Jewish girl in their home and met all her needs. For some time, they also gave temporary refuge to Ryszard Grynberg, the son of pre-war acquaintances, who stayed in their apartment until Stupnicka provided him with forged Aryan documents. She did the same for Mikolaj Borenstein, a Jewish doctor for whom Stupnicka arranged a job and who visited the Stupnicka apartment almost every day to eat, bathe, and rest. After the war, the survivors testified that the Stupnickas provided their assistance, including food and acquisition of documents, without remuneration and for purely humanitarian motives, and were fully aware of the danger their actions involved. After the war, the Stupnickas and the Jews they had rescued remained in close contact.
On September 19, 1984, Yad Vashem recognized Janina Stupnicka and Anna Bando nee Stupnicka as Righteous Among the Nations.
Mirosława Gruszczyńska
Bronisław Kowalczyk’s aunt, Helena Przebindowska, agreed to shelter Marysia (Anna Allerhand) at her place, for a few days. Her daughters Mirosława and Urszula agreed. But the girl quickly became seriously ill, making it impossible for her to leave the house. Helena attempted to cure her at home, as it was too dangerous to call a doctor. Fortunately Marysia recovered, by which time she was so loved by the family that they decided she should remain with them.
But the situation became more complicated when another Polish family moved in with them. Wartime conditions often saw two families sharing one house. Without Aryan papers, Marysia could not even walk around the house, so a priest and family friend, Father Faustyn Żelski, prepared a baptism certificate for her in the name of Marysia Malinowska. From then on she was introduced as a member of the family from eastern Poland, and she was able to remain there safely until the end of the war.
The three Allerhand children all survived the war: Aleksander was moved from camp to camp, and eventually was placed on Schindler’s List and was sent to the Brunnlitz camp, where he was liberated. Anna continued to pass as a non-Jewish girl, and after the war she was joined by her brother and father, who was released from the POW camp, and together they found Róża. The girls left soon afterwards for Israel, where they were later joined by their father, Leopold, and Aleksander after he graduated from university in Poland.
Łucja Jurczak
The Steins, fur traders from Międzyrzec Podlaski, and the Nestorowiczes of Jelnica became friends through their young daughters, Łucja and Bella. Before the war, the Steins spent summer vacations in the village of Jelnica and the two girls, who were of the same age, formed a strong friendship. The families lost contact after the war began until Łucja, visiting Międzyrzec Podlaski in early 1943, encountered her friend Bella on the other side of the ghetto fence. With the sense of the ghetto’s imminent liquidation already in the air, sixteen-year-old Bella obtained Aryan papers and sought shelter on the Aryan side of the city. She related this to her friend Łucja, who revealed the secret to her parents and they agreed to conceal Bella in their home even though this would place them in mortal danger. Several weeks before the ghetto was liquidated, Łucja helped Bella to escape to the home of her parents, Szymon and Michalina Nestorowicz, who gave her a warm welcome and prepared a hideout for her in their granary. Several weeks later, Bella’s parents also fled from the ghetto and joined a group of Jews in a hiding place that they had built in the forest near the Nestorowiczes’ home. From that time on, the Nestorowicz residence was a base of sorts, where Jews in hiding found assistance. This was especially so in the case of their erstwhile friends, the Steins, who visited the Nestorowiczes in the evenings to see their daughter, launder their clothes, and replenish their food supplies. In August 1943, the Nestorowiczes’ oldest son, Stanisław, came on furlough from his forced-labor assignment in Germany. He met Bella in his parents’ home and, when the villagers began to spread rumours to the effect that the Nestorowiczes were concealing Jews, Stanisław freed his parents from danger by taking Bella to Germany as his fiancée and finding her a job with a German peasant family. Bella maintained this arrangement until the Allied armies liberated Germany; afterwards, she reunited with her parents in France.
On December 19, 1993, Yad Vashem recognized Szymon Nestorowicz, his wife Michalina, their daughter Łucja Jurczyk, and their son Stanisław Nestorowicz as Righteous Among the Nations.
Witold Lisowski
Before the war, Witold Lisowski, who lived with his widowed mother, Zofia, in Henryków, near Praga, the eastern suburb of Warsaw, had been friendly with his neighbour, 13-year-old Dudek Inwentarz (later Józef Carmeli), who was his age. During the occupation, the Jews of Henryków, including Inwentarz, were interned in the nearby Ludwisin ghetto. In October 1942, the Germans liquidated the ghetto and the local Jews were dispatched to Treblinka. Young Dudek managed to escape from the transport and, after wandering for many days through the surrounding fields and villages, exhausted and starving, he met Witold who carried him back home. Witold’s mother, Zofia, welcomed the orphaned refugee, fed him, gave him clean clothes, and together with her son, Witold, arranged a hiding place for him in her house. Lisowska and her son looked after Dudek devotedly for several weeks, until their neighbours grew suspicious; he then he moved to a hiding place in the nearby wood, where Witold brought him food prepared by his mother. Inwentarz stayed in his hiding place until September 1944, when the area was liberated by the Red Army. After the war, he immigrated to Israel where, for many years, he kept up a correspondence with Witold, his saviour.
On January 26, 1994, Yad Vashem recognized Zofia Lisowska and her son, Witold, as Righteous Among the Nations.
Maria Nowak, née Bożek
During the war, the Gryczkiewiczes rescued Janina Bergson, a school friend of their daughter Anna, and her mother, Helena, who were interned in the Warsaw ghetto. The Gryczkiewiczes obtained Aryan documents for Helena and Janina Bergson, and for a relative of theirs, Stella Lesman, which enabled all three of them to escape. Even after their escape, the Gryczkiewiczes continued to take care of them, and found them shelter and work on the Aryan side of the city. The Gryczkiewiczes’ apartment served as a transit point for other Jewish fugitives from the ghetto, including Wiera Bakszańska and her mother, Fryda, whose Aryan papers in the name of Wojutyńska, placed them above suspicion. Although harassed by blackmailers and haunted by the fear of discovery, the Gryczkiewiczes considered their work a human imperative and an integral part of their struggle against the enemy. After the war, Janina Bergson (later Henryka Malinowska) remained friends with Anna Gryczkiewicz, her saviour.
On May 29, 1995, Yad Vashem recognized Maria-Krystyna and Kazimierz Gryczkiewicz, and their daughter, Anna, as Righteous Among the Nations.
Irena Sanderska – Rzońca, née Krzyształowska
In early 1944, the Bander family from the city of Borysław (Drohobycz County, Lwów District, today Ukraine) were in serious difficulties. The parents, Elias and Regina, and their six-year-old son, Myron, had managed to survive until then thanks to the relations of the father, a doctor by profession, with his Christian patients. Now the last family with whom they had been hiding had decided to abandon the town and they were about to remain without a hiding place or anyone to take care of them. By this point, they were also completely destitute. In his distress, Doctor Bander turned to the Krzyształowski family, who were also among his patients, and received shelter readily. The Krzyształowski family numbered six: the parents Józef and Helena and their four very young children. They were poor people living on the modest salary of the father, the chief of the municipal fire brigade. Nonetheless, they took upon themselves to hide and to support another three people. Józef Krzyształowski hid the Bander family in the loft of a small storeroom in the courtyard where they raised pigeons. There they watched over them and attended to their every need. The oldest daughter, Irena, then aged 13, took on the main responsibility of serving them. This was a dangerous and tense period, and the children kept the secret well even though the house shared a common courtyard with several neighbours. The military front drew ever nearer and the town swarmed with German soldiers. The Krzyształowskis lived in constant fear that the German soldiers who were now lodged in their house and sought provisions in the courtyard for the army's needs, would
unintentionally discover the hidden Jews. Notwithstanding, it never crossed their minds to send the Bander family away. The Banders hid with the Krzyształowski family for about seven months, from February to August 1944, when the town was liberated, and were never asked for any payment in return
Alicja Schnepf, née Szczepaniak
Anna Albert, her two daughters, and Janina Sandel, her nine-year-old niece, escaped from Lwów in 1944 and made their way to Warsaw. Albert’s daughters, equipped with Aryan papers, found work as Polish women in local industrial plants, while their mother had to arrange a hideout for herself and for her young niece, whose facial features left no doubt about her Jewishness. Albert was referred to Natalia Szczepaniak, a war widow who, with her two daughters, lived in the Warsaw quarter of Praga. After Albert and Szczepaniak met, the latter agreed to accommodate Albert and her niece in her home and to have Albert’s two daughters, who were working on the Aryan side of the city, pay for their upkeep. After Albert’s daughters were sent to work in Germany as Polish women, Szczepaniak continued to shelter the Jews without remuneration, with the resourceful and courageous assistance of her daughter, Alicja Maria. Szczepaniak was aware of the danger she and her daughters faced for sheltering Jews, and everything they did for them was purely for humanitarian motives. After the war, Albert and Sandel left Poland but remained friends with Szczepaniak and her daughter, Alicja Maria.
On January 1, 1981, Yad Vashem recognized Natalia Szczepaniak as Righteous Among the Nations.
On November 13, 1991, Yad Vashem recognized Alicja Maria Schnepf nee Szczepaniak as Righteous Among the Nations.
Stanisław Świerczewski
Before the war, Władysław Świerczewski and his family were living in Plońsk (Warsaw District) as tenants in the home of the Neuman family. Władysław became friends with Elia (later, Edward Lejman), the son of his landlord, who was an outstanding soccer player in the town. He did not desert his Jewish friend at the time of the occupation. In December 1942, at the height of the deportations to Auschwitz, he helped Eli escape from the ghetto and for a time gave him shelter in his home, which was not far from the ghetto. Afterward, he found him a place to hide with W. Olszewski, a farmer in the neighbouring village of Szerominek, where Eli remained until the liberation in January 1945. Throughout, Eli was under the protection of Władysław, whose young son, Stanisław, acted as the liaison between them.
On July 5, 2004, Yad Vashem recognized Władysław and Stanisław Świerczewski as Righteous Among the Nations.
Józef Walaszczyk, from Warsaw, had connections with Jews ever since his childhood. At the start of the occupation he was the foreman of a factory outside Warsaw, which employed about 30 Jews, and within the scope of his influence he tried to ensure their safety. During this period he met a young Jewish woman named Irena Front and became friendly with her. During a hunt for Jews in the autumn of 1940, he rescued her from the Gestapo’s clutches and hid her in his home. Afterward he obtained credible Aryan papers for her, paying for them himself. The papers were to serve her until the end of the war. A year later, the Gestapo again arrested her when she left her place of hiding. Józef got involved and by bribing one of the officers of the Criminal Police (Kripo) he was able to arrange for Irena’s release, as well as the release of another 21 Jews. After this incident he was compelled to get a new apartment, where he sheltered Irena and two other Jewish women, Anna and Halina Starzewska. To make sure that they would not have reason to wander about outside, he hired a maid to take care of them. In the autumn of 1944, after the suppression of the Warsaw Uprising, the three women reached the Pruszków transit camp. Again Józef extricated them from their imprisonment and brought them to the farm in the village of Rylsk Wielki where he was then working. They remained there until the liberation and survived. Throughout the entire period in which the three Jewish women were under Józef’s protection he paid for their upkeep. He continued to support them after the liberation as well, when they were destitute.
On May 9, 2002, Yad Vashem recognized Józef Walszczyk as Righteous Among the Nations.
Ryszard Zieliński
During the German occupation, Zbigniew Zieliński worked in a factory in the Warsaw ghetto. Zieliński, who had an entry permit to the ghetto, used to bring in food for his friend, Berek, the former factory owner, who still worked in the factory, and his wife, Paulina. Zieliński also helped other Jewish acquaintances. When Jews escaped to the Aryan side of the city, Zieliński would stand in for them, in order to allay suspicion, and join the group of Jews returning to the ghetto after work. In April 1943, Zieliński helped the Bereks escape from the ghetto, and sheltered them in his small apartment, where he lived with his wife, Kazimiera, and son, Ryszard. The Bereks were given a warm welcome by the Zielińskis who, guided by a loyalty and friendship that triumphed over adversity, arranged “Aryan” documents for them, without expecting anything in return. One day, when the Zielińskis were away, members of the Gestapo raided the apartment, but Berek and his wife managed to hide and survived. During the Warsaw Uprising in the summer of 1944, Zieliński was wounded and hospitalized. Kazimiera stayed in the hospital to look after her husband. Ryszard and the Bereks were evacuated with the other citizens of Warsaw to the Pruszkow camp. Berek, who managed to escape from the camp, found a hiding place in the area, and was liberated in January 1945 by the Red Army, while his wife Paulina, and Ryszard, whom she passed off as her son, were sent to the Sachsenhausen camp. The two were housed in the family camp and were not separated until April 1945, when the area was liberated by the Red Army. After the war, saviours and survivors were reunited and, in time, the Bereks immigrated to Australia. On May 26, 1999, Yad Vashem recognized Kazimiera and Zbigniew Zieliński and their son, Ryszard, as Righteous Among the Nations.
Tadeusz Burchacki
In November 1940, Kleinbard Józef (Kleinbard or Klejnberd; later known as John (Josef) Klein) was interned in the ghetto in Radzymin in the Warsaw district. A non-Jewish friend of his, named Burchacki Stefan (who lived with his wife, Helena, in Warsaw), heard from his brother - Stanisław (in the beginning of October 1942; two days before the liquidation of the ghetto - probably on the 1st of October 1942) who ran a restaurant in Radzymin (Stanisław heard a conversation between two local officials, one from the German police and the second one from the Polish Blue police; during their conversation, the two of them raised the issue of the intended liquidation of the ghetto) that the Radzymin ghetto was about to be liquidated. Thus, Stanisław immediately informed Kleinbard as well as his brother- Stefan, who lived at that time in Warsaw. Afterwards, both Stanisław and Stefan planed how to save the life of Kleinbard. On the next day, when Kleinbard was outside the ghetto working in the Struga forests - a region of Struga (located 20km from Warsaw), Stefan reached him by a cab; after wandering in a heavy rain, Stefan found Mister Kleinbard, and stayed with him in the forest till the next morning (due to the heavy storm and the late hour, Stefan could only return to Warsaw due to the police hour-restrictions). On the next day, Stefan, at the risk of his life, brought Kleinbard out the forest together with two other young Jewish women (sisters) named: Wajnsztejn (or Wajnsztajn) Róża (known also as- Rózia) and Sabina. He took the fugitives to his apartment in Warsaw (located at 26 Targowa Street, Praga-Warszawa) where they were warmly received by Helena and hidden in one of the rooms. In the course of time, the three were joined by another Jew, named Wajnsztejn (or Wajnsztajn) Leon.
During the period from October 1942 until August 1944; the Burchacki couple provided aid to approximately 40 Jewish fugitives. Twelve of them lived in their apartment for a periods between few weeks up to a few months. The Burchackis’ rescue activities were motivated by sympathy and true friendship; they received no recompense for their actions. Even after the street in which the apartment was situated was carefully searched following a bomb attack on a butcher’s shop that served only Germans, they continued to assist the four fugitives. Józef and the Wajnsztejns (or Wajnsztajns) remained in the Burchackis’ care until the outbreak of the Warsaw Uprising in August 1944. After the entire population of the city had been deported, the Burchackis obtained Aryan documents for their protégés. These were used by the latter to find separate places of refuge in the surrounding villages until the liberation by the Red Army in January 1945.
On the 20th of March 20, 1980, Yad Vashem recognized Burchacki Stefan and his wife, Burchacka, as Righteous Among the Nations. [source:
http://db.yadvashem.org/righteous/family.html?language=en&itemId=4041109]
Sister Matylda Getter, the Mother of Jewish Children from the Warsaw Ghetto and Sister Janina Kierstan, Mother General of Franciscan Sisters of the Family, represents order which saved about 500 Jewish children. Many of them where saved by Sister Matylda Getter.
In 1942, Małgosia Mirska and her younger sister Irena came to the convent of the Franciscan Sisters of the Family of Mary, on Hoża Street 53, in Warsaw, and found salvation there. The former recalls: I as went in through the gate, I was aware that the outcome of my dilemma—it was a matter of life or death— everything depended on her. The Mother Superior, Matylda Getter, looked at us and said: ‘yes.’ – She received us. I had the impression that the heavens were opening before me. Thousands of Jewish children experienced this tragedy and had the same hope during the German occupation.
The Sisters spontaneously worked to save Jews, but their action was organized, under the direction of the Superior General, Ludwiga Lisówna (1874-1944) in Lviv, and the Provincial Superior, Mother Matylda Getter (1870-1968)—known as Mamma —, in Warsaw. Irena Sendlerowa recounts that Mother Getter made sure that every child rescued from the ghetto would be accepted.
There were also young women under Mother Getter’s protection. For example, Mary, who arrived at the convent on Hoża Street in 1943: 'What do you want to tell me, child?' Mamma Getter asked me. I answered that the police was on my tracks and I could not go back to my apartment; that I was Jewish, and I did not know where to go with this life that was beating so desperately in my heart. From that day on I lived in the house on Hoża Street. The Sisters found me a job. I know, I saw with my own eyes, and I can attest that many Jewish people went through the convent, and especially a great number of small children (Paris, 1993).
To save Jews, Mother Getter and the Sisters collaborated with priests in parishes, with the town councils, with the Zegota, the Polish underground, with other Polish congregations and religious, and with the laity. In saving Jews, the Sisters accomplished what their conscience obliged them to do, aware of the inestimable value of human life. Mother Getter said: I am saving man. They saved the lives of over 500 children and young people and of nearly 250 elderly people; short-term assistance was given to approximately 400 people, and more than 100 people received help for extended periods of time. Many were of Jewish origin. People who were saved still continue to contact the Congregation in search of their roots.
Jews who were saved asked that the medal Righteous among the Nations be given to Mother Getter (1985). In 2009, the Polish National Bank honoured the 3 persons of particular merit in the action of helping the Jews by issuing two coins with the inscription Poles Who Saved the Jews: Irena Sendlerowa, Zofia Kossak, and Sister Matylda Getter.
This is only a small part of the widespread activities of Franciscan Sisters of the Family of Mary, who, in the years of the German occupation, opened their hearts and the doors of their convents to save Jews. The same action was also deployed by other Congregations and female religious orders in Poland, as well as by priests, bishops and men religious; many Poles, including even entire Polish families, selflessly did the same, knowing that it meant risking their lives. Undoubtedly, they too, even without medals, are Righteous Among the Nations. (source: Sister Antonietta Frącek)
Ulma family
Józef, Wiktoria
children: Antoni, Barbara, Franciszek, Maria,
Stanisława, Władysław, unborn child
In Auschwitz, together with Chief Rabbi of Poland Michael Schudrich, there was a catholic priest Fr. Stanisław Ruszała, a pastor of the parish of Markowa, where Józef and Wiktoria Ulma and their seven children were killed for saving Jewish people.
Józef and Wiktoria Ulma lived in the village of Markowa in what before the war was the Lwowskie province, and now is the Podkarpackie region. The village had four and a half thousand residents.
During the German occupation, most probably in late 1942, despite poverty and risk, the Ulmas gave shelter to eight Jews: Saul Goldman and his four sons whose names are unknown (in Łańcut, they were referred to as the Szalls), and two daughters and a grand-daughter of Chaim Goldman from Markowa – Lea (Layka) Didner with her daughter (name unknown) and Genia (Golda) Grünfeld. Józef and the men he was hiding were tanners. The Ulmas were probably denounced to the Germans for harbouring Jews by Włodzimierz Leś, a navy-blue policeman from Łańcut. On March 24, 1944, in the morning, five German gendarmes and several navy-blue policemen arrived in front of the house of the Ulmas. They were commanded by Lt. Eilert Dieken. They first shot the Jews, and next Józef and Wiktoria (who was in the seventh month of pregnancy). Then, Dieken decided to kill the children. Within a few minutes, seventeen people lost their lives (including the baby whom Wiktoria started giving birth to at the moment of the execution).
In 1995, Wiktoria and Józef Ulma were posthumously awarded the Righteous Among the Nations title. In 2010, they were honoured with the Commander’s Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta by the President of the Republic of Poland, Lech Kaczyński. In 2003, the Ulmas’ beatification process was initiated in the Diocese of Przemyśl, and is currently under way at the Vatican.
The Rescue of Jews by Polish Catholic Priests
The rescue efforts of Polish Catholic priests on behalf of endangered Jews in German-occupied Poland is a story that has never been fully told or explored. Approximately, 1,000 Polish priests who rescued Jews have been identified by name. In addition, nuns sheltered Jews in some 300 convents and institutions throughout Poland.
Today, more than 70 years after the end of the Second World War, it is still being laboriously pieced together. Since the Catholic clergy did not go out of its way to take credit for their rescue activities, surprising new testimony keeps emerging.
Approximately, 1,000 Polish priests who rescued Jews have been identified by name. This is not an insignificant number taking into consideration the context and the statistics. The Polish Catholic clergy, which numbered approximately 18,000 priests and male religious in 1939, was the only Christian clergy in all of Europe that was systemically persecuted by the Nazis. Some 4,000 Polish clergymen including six bishops were interned in concentration camps or prisons. Almost 2,800 of them perished.
Clergymen who helped Jews cover the entire spectrum: from bishops to parish priests to monastics. They came to the assistance of Jews both in large cities and the countryside. In addition, nuns sheltered Jews in some 300 convents and institutions throughout Poland.
A few representative accounts will serve to illustrate the range of activities Polish priests engaged in – at great personal risk and not always successfully – to protect Jews.
The Divine Mercy Picture is one of the most famous pictures of Jesus in the world. This picture was revealed to Sister Faustina Kowalska, at the time when her confessor and spiritual director was Father Michael Sopoćko. Few people know that blessed Father Sopoćko, a great spiritual leader was also involved in saving Jewish people. He helped saved about 100 Jewish lives from the ghetto in Vilnius issuing forged Catholic birth certificates, which were necessary to make an official ID and escape from the ghetto.
Father Adam Sztark, a Jesuit from Słonim, a town in Poland’s former Eastern Borderlands, helped Jews in diverse ways. He raised money to help pay the levy imposed by the Germans on the Jewish community, he brought food to the ghetto, he issued false baptismal certificates, and he urged his parishioners to extend help to them. Father Sztark also brought abandoned Jewish children to the convent of the Sisters of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, where he was the chaplain. These activities eventually came to the attention of the Germans and cost Father Sztark and two nuns – Bogumiła Noiszewska (Sister Maria Ewa) and Kazimiera Wołowska (Sisters Maria Marta) – their lives. They were executed on December 19, 1942. All three of them were recognized by Yad Vashem as Righteous Gentiles. Their beatification process is underway.
Hundreds of Jews survived thanks to baptismal and birth certificates they received from priests. Eugene Lebenstein turned to Adolf Szelążek, the bishop of Łuck and an acquaintance of his, for documents. The bishop was extremely sympathetic and provided birth and baptismal certificates of deceased Poles for the entire family. Although Eugene Lebenstein was seized by the Germans in a street raid and executed, his wife, Carolyn Feffer, continued to pass as a Pole and placed her young daughter, Halina, in a Catholic convent. After she was recognized by some Ukrainians, Carolyn applied for work in the Reich. She survived the war in Austria with her daughter passing as Polish Catholics.
Father Bolesław Wróblewski of Saint Sigismund (Zygmunt) parish in Częstochowa is mentioned in several Jewish testimonies. He provided false documents to Miriam Rubin (later Rothschild) and Celina Alter (later Kristine Magidsohn) and placed several Jewish children in orphanages run by nuns. Providing false documents was not without its peril. Father Teodor Popczyk of Saint Barbara’s parish in Częstochowa was shot on June 16, 1943, after being identified by someone who had received a false baptismal and birth certificate from this parish.
Monasteries and institutions run by religious orders opened their doors to many Jews. At Poland’s largest monastery in Niepokalanów, Franciscans welcomed some 1,500 Jewish refugees who had been expelled from their homes in Western Poland. Under the direction of Father Maximilian Kolbe, they were housed, fed and clothed. When they eventually left, a spokesperson for the Jews stated: We’ve been treated here with much loving concern … We’ve always felt someone close to us was sympathetic with us … But words are inadequate for what our hearts desire to say. Father Kolbe and many other Polish priests were later imprisoned in Auschwitz. There Father Kolbe befriended Sigmund Gerson. He knew I was a Jewish boy, Gerson recalled. That made no difference. His heart was bigger than persons—that is, whether they were Jewish, Catholic, or whatever. He loved everyone. He dispensed love and nothing but love. Eddie Gastfriend, another Jewish survivor, stated: There were many priests in Auschwitz. They wore no collars, but you knew they were priests by their manner and their attitude, especially toward Jews. They were so gentle, so loving.
The Jasna Góra (Bright Hill) monastery in Częstochowa is mentioned in several Jewish accounts. Abraham Jabłoński, who served there as an altar boy in 1943–1944, expressed his gratitude to the Pauline Fathers and stated: I felt safe here and believed in the Divine Providence that watched over me. The Polish welfare agency sent 13-year-old Artur Ney to a boarding school for boys run by the Salesian Fathers in Warsaw. I was sent to an institute which was run by Father Jan Kapusta. He was there as a civilian, hiding from the Germans, Ney recalled. His real name was Jan Mazerski. He was a good person. Father Stafanowski also knew about me, and he was good to me too. During the Warsaw Uprising, Artur was protected by the commander of his Home Army unit and by an unidentified chaplain, both of whom knew he was Jewish.
Many priests who rescued Jews were not identified by name by their charges and many cases of rescue will never be known. Rarely did it take just one Pole to save a Jew. Priests were often part of a wider network.
Clemens Loew and his mother came to Warsaw with false identity documents they procured with the assistance of a priest in their hometown of Stanisławów, in Eastern Galicia. His mother turned to an unidentified bishop for a shelter for her five-year-old son who had a Jewish appearance. He was placed with nuns in an orphanage in Otwock, on the outskirts of Warsaw, where he remained hidden for two years. I had several close calls, Loew recalled. One time I was outside playing in the sandbox when a nun rushed over to me, grabbed me, and dragged me inside. She slid me under a bed, whispering, The Gestapo are coming to search for Jews. I lay there terrified until the coast was clear. Another time the Gestapo did find me. The officers were actually dragging me away! One was yanking me out the door when a elderly priest living in the convent hobbled down the wide steps and yelled, If you take him, then you have to take me too. He put his life on the line for me! The Nazis could easily have taken both of us, but for whatever reason they left me alone.
Unfortunately, such miracles were few and far between. Assisting Jews in any way in occupied Poland was punishable summarily by death. Hundreds of Polish rescuers – often entire families – were killed for that reason. That was not the case in other occupied countries, where helpers usually faced no punishment or a monetary fine or a short term of imprisonment.
No nation in Europe put on the altars as many victims for helping the Jews as have the Poles. These people bore witness to the fact that man is willing to sacrifice his own life in the name of love of his neighbour—said Archbishop Stanisław Gądecki, President of the Polish Bishop’s Conference—in his homily during the Mass celebrated at the opening ceremony of the Museum which bears the name of the Ulm Family, murdered by the German military police on 24 March 1944 in retaliation for hiding Jewish People. Parents with six young children and an unborn child were killed. Their beatification process is also underway.
According the newest research, there were more than 1000 Poles killed for saving Jewish People. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.
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