| KABACINSKI, (KABACZYNSKI?)
Jozef
KABACINSKI, Michalina, wife KABACINSKI, Henryka, daughter KABACINSKI, Tadeusz, son KABACINSKI, Wanda, daughter KACALA, Stanislaw KACHNOWSKI, Anna KACHNOWSKI, Maria, daughter KACZMAR, Antonina KACZMAR-KLIMOWSKI, Joanna,
daughter? sister? does not appear on the 1999 list, but did before
KACZMARCZYK, Jan (1920-) (not related) KACZMARCZYK-WITEK, Stanislawa (1922-) sisterJan and Stanislawa lived with their parents in the village of Stroze, near Zakliczyn, on the river Dunajec. They had as neighbors Berek and Mojzesz Flaumenhaft. The two young men were taken to a forced labor camp in Lipie and later to Bedzieszyn (Tarnow prov.), from which they escaped. Jan sheltered Berek while Mojzesz found refuge with another farmer. The brother and sister did this in secret from their parents, who had lost already two sons, priests, killed because they were members of the underground. Both Berek and Mojzesz survived thanks to the help of several farmers. See: Grynberg, op. cit. KACZMARCZYK, Jozef (not related) KACZMARCZYK-ROTMAN, Stanislawa (1914-) (not related) Stanislawa lived in the country near Pruszkow. She hid on her farm Jakub Rotman and organized for him false papers, which enabled him to go to Warsaw. After the fall of the Warsaw Uprising (1944) he was in the Pruszkow camp, from which Stanislawa extricated him. He stayed with her till the end of the occupation. See: Grynberg, op. cit. KACZMAREK, Franciszek
KACZMAREK, Franciszek, (another
one, not related)
KACZMAREK, Jadwiga (not related)
Jadwiga lived in Warsaw with a son and a daughter. The son, Lucjan, was killed in the Warsaw Uprising. Her husband fought in the September Campaign (1939) and later in the British Air Force, in the famous Polish Squadron 303. Jadwiga rented a room to Kazimiera Czaskis, although she knew that she was a Jewess without any documents. She provided her with a false Kennkarte. Sometimes Kazimiera's brother visited her. Also stayed with them for some months the Czaskis' cousin, Blanche Goldszpiner, with her 15 years old daughter. Before the Warsaw Uprising Kazimiera's brother brought over to Jadwiga his wife, Mira and her brother Izaak Blass with his wife Rosa and two small sons. Neighbors started to talk. Jadwiga had to place her guests with other people. All, except Blanche, survived and went to France or Israel. In 1981, Kazimiera Czaskis made a glowing deposition about Jadwiga's disinterestedness and devotion. See: Grynberg, op. cit. KACZOROWSKI, Aniela KACZOWKA, Stanislaw
The Ziss sisters, who after the war settled in Dabrowa Tarnowska, owe their life to the inhabitants of Kanna (Tarnobrzeg prov.) and mostly to the farmers Kaczowka. See: Wronski & Zwolakowa, op. cit. KADLUBOWSKI, Bronislaw
KAJSZCZAK, Bronislaw
A peasant from Lomianki, Warsaw prov., gave generous help to members of the ZOB, Jewish Fighting Organization. See: Bartoszewski & Lewin, op. cit. KALBARCZYK, Zbigniew (1913-)
The couple lived in Warsaw and had access to three other addresses beside their own. The liaison-officer of the ZKN, Jewish National Committee, Borman, alias Dworakowski, transmitted to their care Jews who were hiding on the "Aryan" side. Kalbarczyks' help consisted in escorting escaped Jews through the sewers to places of shelter, be it their own apartment or that of other people or finding them new ones, as well as providing with food and financial aid. Sixteen (16) people benefited from their help: the Wizenbergs with their 15 years old son Jozef, Regina Haytler, Wolman with his daughter Zofia, Wanda Grinwaser. The Gutfrajnd sisters, who maintain contacts with the Kalbarczyks, testified in 1983 that their help was absolutely disinterested. See: Grynberg, op. cit. KALEK, Weronika
KALINOWSKI, Franciszek (1903-)
Franciszek was a house-administrator
and Waclawa a hairdresser in Warsaw. They were in contact with Zegota
and many Jews passed through their house. Among others, the Kalinowskis
helped the following: Adam Wajsman, a lawyer from Cracow, Henryk Streng,
a known painter from Lvov, who after the war became a professor at the
Academy of Arts in Warsaw. Maciej Viertel, also from Lvov, and Karol
Ferster, a writer who, after the war wrote in the periodical "Szpilki",
were also assited by the Kalinowskis. Ferster stated in 1978 that
from April 1943 till August 1944 he stayed in their home and got from them
his false documents and that the Kalinowskis' home was always open to Jews. They
were recognized in 1981. See: Grynberg, op. cit.
KALINOWSKI, Roman (not related)
KALISZCZAK (KALISZCZUK, KALISZCZYK)
Jan
According to the declarations of Judel Pitluk and Aron Lach made on Feb. 6, 1947 before the Provincial Jewish Committee in Bialystok, Jan Kaliszczuk provided them with food and shelter for a week during the "Action" (roundup, massacre) in the Bialystok ghetto in February 1943. This saved them from being taken to the Treblinka camp. Aron, who was a partisan in the Alexander Matros group, adds to this that Jan took him by car to the Zielona forest and supplied them there with provisions and medicines. The two brothers were recognized as "Righteous" by a letter dated July 6, 1994. Case No. 5283. Their cause was started in 1990. The family maintains in their letters to this researcher that their name is KALISZCZYK KALISZCZUK-KOZACZUK, Helena
(not related) see KOZACZUK, Jozef, father?
KALWINSKI, Wojciech (1899-1964)
(not related)
The family lived in Lvov. In 1942 Germans deported 70,000 Jews to the Belzec extermination camp, killed several thousands on the spot, while several thousands more were deported to the Janowski camp. Then the Hoch family, ten persons in all, showed up at the Kalwinskis. With the aid of Szulim Hoch, Wojciech built a bunker in the cellar near the stable normally used for storing beets. He equipped the bunker with electricity and radio. Soon other Jews found their way to the shelter: the families Herches, Kessler, Prokocimer, Kaczanos, Korman and others. Altogether, twenty three (23) Jews survived the war on their farm. One of them, Weliczker, wrote his memoirs in the bunker. He is now a well-known author writing under the name of Wells. Due to a Ukrainian denunciation, the Gestapo found thirty six (36) Jews hidden in a nearby farm belonging to Kazimierz and Maria Jozefek (Jozefak). All were killed and even left hanging for three days with fitting commentary for all to see, but the Kalwinskis kept their guests till the end of the war. The Jozefeks, Bronislaw, Kazimierz and Maria appear here under the numbers 194, 195 and 196 among those who paid with their lives, but without the details presented now. See: Grynberg, op. cit. KALUCKI, Maria, mother
In 1940, Sabina Gotfreund with her 3-year old daughter, Ania, came to stay with Maria Kalucki in her Cracow apartment. She remained there for three years. Sabina befriended Maria Kalucki-Kot, Maria's daughter, of the same age. Lucja Nowak, her aunt, took care of the small Ania. In 1943, because of the growing danger, Tadeusz Kot, member of AK, escorted Sabina and her little daughter Ania to Warsaw and found Sabina's parents living on the "Aryan" side. The family was recognized as "Righteous" on October 16, 1999 in Cracow, as announced by the Israeli Embassy in Poland. KALUSZKO, Zofia (-1976)
Zofia and Jan lived in Warsaw not far from the ghetto. Already by 1941, Jan had entered several times the ghetto and came to know several families, among them the Zalensztains and Sochs whom he proceeded to help. In 1942 came to his apartment Prof. Josif Sack, representing the Jewish National Committee, whose wife and daughter Jan placed with the Filiszczak family. Icchak Cukierman, the representative of the Jewish Fighting Organization, visited him there. Jan found shelter also for the Fajwlowicz family. Others who benefited from Jan's help were Machtej from Gdansk, Ziuta, the couple Soch with two children and their cousin Ziuta, the couple Audite from Lodz, Leon who escaped from the camp in Poniatowa and two sisters Helena and Marysia Rauchfeld. All of them survived and left Poland. See: Grynberg, op. cit. KALUZA, Jan
KAMINSKI, Alexander alias HUBERT, (1903-1978) Alexander Kaminski was head of the Polish Scouts, which in Warsaw alone counted approximately 6,000 boys and girls. The organization fought the virulent German anti-Semitic propaganda, by destroying its posters, disturbing its film projections and serving as liaison with the Jewish youth organization, Hashomer Hatzair. Kaminski was also the chief of the Bureau of Information and Propaganda of the Warsaw District ZWZ-AK. In September 1943 he mediated between Arie Wilner, alias Jurek and Henryk Wolinski, alias Waclaw, representing the AK, to help in organizing the Jewish resistance in the ghetto. In 1942 as editor of the "Biuletyn Informacyjny" (underground publication - over 43 thousand copies) he accepted an article by Antoni Szymanowski about the liquidation of the Warsaw ghetto. In June 1943 he helped in the publication of the book by Maria Kann (q.v.) "Na Oczach Swiata" (In the eyes of the world) about the extermination of Jews. In 1944 he published a chronicle of the fate of Jews in Poland 1939-1944, with short but terrifying descriptions of their extermination. In the "Biuletyn Informacyjny" there is the following statement: "To help any person, who manages to avoid death and hides from the German assassins, is the human, Christian and Polish duty". See: Prekerowa, op. cit., Grynberg, op. cit., Bartoszewski & Lewin, op. cit. KAMINSKI, Jozef (not related)
Jozef and Aniela lived at Gorzen Gorny near Wadowice. In August 1943 there came to them Zygmunt Ehrenhold, who managed to escape from a deportation to Auschwitz. He remained with them till May 1944 and stated in 1982 that their help was totally and completely disinterested. See: Grynberg, op. cit. KAMINSKI, Kazimierz (not
related)
KAMINSKI-MAJKOWSKI, Leokadia
(not related)
KAMINSKI, Maria (not related) KAMINSKI, Ryszard (not related) KAMINSKI, Stefan (not related) KAMINSKI-HALKIEW, Weronika see HALKIEW, Michal, husband (not related) KAMINSKI, Zbigniew (not related)
Zbigniew and Franciszka lived
in Przemysl. They harbored fourteen (14) people for one to three
years. All of them survived and left Poland. The persons thus
assisted were: Natan Feid, Hela Finkenstein,Goldman, Pola and Henry Hister,
Dora Hofner, Pener with a daughter, the couple Berta and Dr. Schattner
and their two daughters Fela and Olga, Gala Stemberg. Other people
also benefited from their help: Dr. Rephan and two persons of his family,
Boleslaw Stemberg, Dr. Schmidt and others, who were hid by the Kaminskis
for a few days until they found another place for them. See: Grynberg,
op. cit.
KAMSKI-GBUREK, Maria see GBUREK, Franciszek & Franciszka, parents? KANABUS, Feliks, surgeon
Dr. Kanabus worked in the Children's Hospital in Warsaw. That hospital took in 12-15 children of very visible Semitic features, brought there by Dr. Goliborski. The hospital kept the children until refuge was found for them. Dr. Kanabus performed 7 nose operations and over 50 operations to obliterate circumcision. He went also several times to the ghetto and provided medical care to his friends, the Winawers, the Maliniaks and others. In February 1943 he extricated from the ghetto his colleague, Dr. Mieczyslaw Tursz, whom he harbored till January 1944. See: Grynberg, op. cit. and Bartoszewski & Lewin, op. cit. KANDEL, Celina see VETTER, Jan, father KANN, Maria, alias HALINA, KAMILLA (1916-) Maria Kann was a writer from Warsaw. She wrote in scouting publications and during the war she was the editor-in-chief of "Zaloga" and "Wzlot". In co-operation with Zegota, she found places of refuge especially for children. Her wish was to make known to the world the sufferings of Jews. She got encouragement and material from Aleksander Kaminski (q.v.) and Wladyslaw Bartoszewski, (q.v.). The pamphlet written in April 1943 and published in June of that year was even smuggled abroad as the first publication about the tragedy of the Jewish people, entitled "Na Oczach Swiata" (Under the eyes of the world). It contained many original documents. Maria Kann was one of the firsts to be recognized as "Righteous" in 1963. See: Grynberg, op. cit., Bartoszewski & Lewin, op. cit., Prekerowa, op. cit. KANTON, Antoni
KAPUTEK, Jerzy (1910-1967) Jerzy harbored in his apartment Hersz Garfinkel, Wanda Edelman and later also Dr. Klara Mesz and her daughter Hanna. Jerzy himself lived then at his second apartment in Warsaw in which was hidden likewise Edward Bernsztok and his son, Samuel. But due to a denunciation he was locked up in the Pawiak prison and the Jews, thanks to a bribe, were only taken to the ghetto. After two months, incredibly, Jerzy was released. He sent news to the ghetto, proposing to the women to return again. He found for them another shelter and paid for their upkeep. At the beginning of 1943 he helped also Henryk Mesz, the husband of Dr. Klara, to get out of the ghetto, and provided him with false documents, but due to another denunciation he had to transfer the mother and daughter to another location. Henryk Mesz returned to the ghetto and died there. The Bernsztok family emigrated to the USA, while Hersz Garfinkel went to Israel. See: Grynberg, op. cit. KARASEK, Leon
KARSKI, Jan, real name KOZIELEWSKI (1914-2000) professor Karski, who graduated from the Lvov University, worked before the war for the Foreign Affairs Ministry. He took part in the September 1939 campaign as a second lieutenant of horse drawn artillery, escaped Soviet captivity and was very active in the underground. At the beginning of 1940 he was sent to France, as a courier of the Delegate in Warsaw of the Polish Government in Exile in London, to alert the Allies about the German crimes against Poles and Jews. When crossing the border on his return he was caught and tortured. He cut his veins. Fortunately Germans brought him to a hospital in the hope that they could extract important information from him, but with the help of the underground he succeeded to escape from the hospital. In 1942 he went as a courier again, this time to London. But before that he stole into the ghetto and into the Belzec extermination camp, disguised as a Latvian soldier. He met two important Jewish leaders, representatives of the Bund and of Zionists who asked him to transmit to the Allies the desperate situation of the Jews: "We cannot defend ourselves, and no one in Poland can defend us. The Polish underground authorities can save some of us, but they cannot save the masses" they told him. They requested him to transmit to the Allies their extraordinary demands for massive bombings of German cities and for executing any Germans found in Allied countries. Karski arrived in London in December 1942. He wrote: "Since my arrival in London I have been swamped with literally hundreds of conferences.from 9:00 A.M. to midnight every day.". He met important Polish and Jewish leaders, was received by the members of the British and American Government, including Roosevelt, representatives of the Church and of the mass media. The West was thoroughly informed. Karski wrote the "Story of the Secret State" London 1944. See: Iranek-Osmecki, op. cit. and many other sources. KARSOV-SZYMANIEWSKA, Stanislawa (1908-1978) From February 1941 she was in charge of a counter-intelligence group at the Military Command of the Warsaw District. Thus she had access to denunciations intercepted by the postal workers working for the underground. She not only warned the people so endangered, but provided them with all the necessary false documents. Many Jews thus benefited from her help, among them Eugenia Tlusty and her family, Henryk Markiewicz, Henryk Cederbaum, Janina Wolman and her husband and Tadeusz Wolowski. She harbored in her home the small daughter of Lucja and Henryk Deutsch, with very Semitic features, and later paid for her upkeep in another place till the liberation. Also, Jadwiga Sawicki (a Jewish woman) was registered in her house as a paid housekeeper. The entire family of Stanislawa was engaged in the underground and especially in helping Jews: her mother, Janina Radwan Przedpelski, (q.v.), Stanislawa's teenage daughter Lilian Szymaniewska ( (later Buczwinska). See: Bartoszewski & Lewin, op. cit. KARTASZEW, Jakub (-1967)
The couple lived in Warsaw. Jakub
was a guard at the Greek orthodox cemetery. They harbored the parents of
Beniamin Miedzyrzecki and his teenager sister. Beniamin himself did not
have to hide as he did not look like a Jew and he helped Jakub in his work.
Wladka Fejgele Peltel-Miedzyrzecki (See" the notice under
Kartaszew) published "Fun bejde zajtn getta" (On both sides of the ghetto
wall) in 1948 in the USA, a book in which she related the story of her
husband. She herself was a liaison of the Coordinating Commission
of the Bund on the "Aryan" side.
KARWOWSKI, Franciszek
KARWOWSKI, Franciszek (another
one, not related))
KARWOWSKI-KOLATAN, Jadwiga (not related) KASJANO, Maria (1914-)
alias Brygida
KASPERAK-PRZENIOSLO, Jozefa
see PRZENIOSLO, Jan & Maria, parents?
KAZMIERSKI, Helena
Mother and son lived in Warsaw. Ryszard was a musician who earned his living by playing in restaurants. In their apartment they sheltered five (5) Jews for 18 months: Gorske, Morris Lanker and his wife and Henryk Milstein and his wife. After the fall of the Warsaw Uprising (1944), Helena and Ryszard left Warsaw, but the Jews waited till the end of the German occupation in the Kazimierskis' home and emigrated to Australia except for Lanker's wife who died during the war. See: Grynberg, op. cit. KAKOL, Jan
Jan was a forester to whom Jozef Zwonarz (q.v.) brought a certain Wallach's young daughter for shelter. He himself harbored four people in secret before his own wife. See: Paldiel, op. cit. KELLER-MALECKI, Maria see
MALECKI-KELLER, M.
KEMNITZ, Wojciech (1870-1947)
Father and son lived in Warsaw.
The father was a tin and lead products industrialist and Edward became
the head of the company before the war. He took part in the 1939
campaign and in December of that year joined the underground.
KENAR, Maria
KERN-JEDRYCHOWSKI, Tadeusz, alias SZRAPNEL (1917-) engineer Tadeusz knew the two Kiselhoff brothers from Czestochowa from his school years. During the occupation they stayed for a certain time with their wives in Tadeusz's apartment and in that of his in-laws, as both brothers had false identifications. For security reasons Tadeusz obtained for them from Dr. Gorski an operation to obliterate their Semitic characteristics. Tadeusz, a high-ranking officer, was an instructor of the "Szare Szeregi" (scout organization of the underground) and as the commander of a group of Cadet officers during the Ghetto Uprising on April 23, 1943, he liquidated a S.S. guard-post under the ghetto walls. One of the two Kiselhoff brothers took part in the Warsaw Uprising as a soldier of the Chrobry XI Batallion, fell in battle and was decorated postmortem with the Cross of the Warsaw Insurgents. See: Bartoszewski & Lewin, op. cit., Grynberg, op. cit., Wronski & Zwolakowa , op. cit. KEDRA, Michalina
KIDA, Jozef (1898-1989)
They lived on a 6.5 hectares farm at Kepa Rudnicka, near Ulanow, Tarnobrzeg prov. In 1942 The Ulanow ghetto of 1,400 Jews was to be liquidated and eight (8) persons of the Gersten family, which maintained business and friendly relations with the Kidas, asked for shelter for a short time; their stay stretched into two years. They were: Nusim, his sister Chaja, brothers Samuel and Zalman and their mother Genendla. There were also the three grandchildren of Mojzesz and Genendla. The Kidas made them a shelter, first in the haystack and later under the barn. Most of the food came from their farm, but the neighbors expressed astonishment why they baked so much bread and cooked so much soup, but nobody informed on them. The Kidas were very exact in delivering to the occupiers the ordered levies of grain, milk, potatoes, livestock and taxes in order not to have visits from the Germans. In July 1944 the Soviet soldiers came and the Gerstens were free. They went to the USA but maintain contact with their saviors. See: Grynberg, op. cit. KIEK, Leon
KIELAN, Franciszek
In the summer 1942 the Kielans took into their home two girls, Janina Prot and Roma Laks who were the schoolmates of their daughters and treated them as members of the family. Janka (diminutive of Janina) called them mama and daddy, just like their own daughters did. Janina and Roma settled in the USA. Krystyna, is a researcher at the University of Buffalo with a doctorate in physiology. This case, No. 4836, was started in 1987 and the recognition as "Righteous" came by letter of Yad Vashem of January 2, 1991 and of March 10, 1991 (additional for the younger of the two sisters, Zofia). Dr. Krystyna Rybicki, asked in an interview how it was to harbor Jews in Poland, replied with simplicity: "Helping was the right thing to do". She was honored on May 23, 1993 at a special ceremony at the University of Buffalo, N.Y. See the photos of the family and their inscription on the wall of honor at Yad Vashem (at the beginning of the present work) KIELCZYK-WALCZYNSKI, Regina
KIELBASA-WYSOCKI, Helena
see WYSOCKI, Mikolaj & Anna, parents
KIERSTYN (KIERSZTYN?) Maria (1908-) Maria lived at Legionowo, near Warsaw. When in October 1942 the ghetto in the nearby town of Ludwisin was being liquidated and its inhabitants deported to Treblinka, a neighbor of Maria, Nachman Kazimierek, with his wife and a five years old son, asked her to hide them. In the one room apartment there were already three other persons. The wife and son of Nachman were unfortunately arrested on the street and were never seen again. Nachman survived and went to Germany. See: Grynberg, op. cit. KIERSZNIEWSKI, Roman
Before the war the couple lived in Warsaw, but after the return of Roman from the September 1939 campaign, they moved to Zielonka, near Warsaw. They learned of the plight of Hania Rubin, who had lost her place as a maid with a rich family, afraid of keeping a Jew. They searched for Hania and found her and her aunt in dire conditions. They took Hania into their house and placed her aunt with some acquaintances at Marki, not far from Warsaw. In March 1944 the German police from Radzymin searched their house and Hania managed to flee by the window, wearing only her nightgown and slippers. Roman went to the woods where she was hiding and brought her clothes and a blanket. A month later there was another inspection. Krippo (German criminal police) came on a suspicion that the couple concealed Jews. Hania was not home. Before the Warsaw Uprising (1944) the owner of the house, having discovered an old identification of Hania, requested that Kierszniewskis leave his house immediately. Roman and Irena, with their small son, moved to Warsaw, but to separate apartments and Hania had to change her documents and her place of shelter several times. Roman, working in a mechanic's shop, helped also Mieczyslaw Prozanski with food and clothes and paid the ransom when the latter was denounced by another Jew in the ghetto and apprehended. But later unfortunately he was shot. Hania and a sister of hers went to India. See: Lukas: Out of the Inferno, op. cit. KIJOWSKI, Wladyslaw
KISIEL, Zofia (not related)
KLEPACKI, Maria (not related)
KLIMCZAK, Nusia (Anastazja ?) If Nusia is a diminutive
of the female name Anastazja, then this is the extraordinary wife of Karol
Klimczak, with whom she saved 56 Jewish people in Drohobycz. One
night, in the spring of 1943, somebody knocked on the window. It
was a poorly dressed woman with a girl 8-9 years old, Regina and Sylvia. Karol,
realizing that they were Jewish, took them in. His wife Anastazja crossed the
river Tysmienica and brought two more Jews by night, Jozef Grossman and his nephew
Leon Fasman. The nephew of Anastazja brought by cart from the Drohobycz ghetto
five more Jews hidden in straw.
Then Anastazja, crossing the river again, brought three more: Ignacy Stembach,
his wife and his six year old nephew and besides, the couple Dym.
When she brought Jakub Drymer, his wife and three children, Karol Klimczak
decided that the actual hiding place, a room across their own, hidden by
hay, was too small. He transferred the five Drymers and some newcomers:
the Wajs brothers, and one of their wives, to his brother- in-law, Jan
Sawinski (q.v.?). Some of the guests had money, but others did not
have any, even clothes were a problem. Anastazja gave her dresses
and underwear to the women; Karol similarly helped the men. In summer
1944 there burst into the house a group of retreating German soldiers and
seeing a room full of hay, ordered their horses to be fed with it.
Karol, with the help of his wife, swiftly cut some oats, just maturing
in his field, and gave it to the horses, so that the Germans did not insist
on the hay any more. After the arrival of the Soviets (and the supposed
"liberation"), Klimczak visited the Grossmans in Gliwice. But later
they left for Israel (in 1946 or so) and the Klimczaks lost contact with
all their rescuees. See: Wronski & Zwolakowa, op. cit.
KLIMEK, Antoni
KLIMEK-STRUZIK, Maria(nna) (not related) see STRUZIK,Tadeusz, brother KLIMEK, Wincenty (not related)
KLIMOWICZ, Andrzej (1918-) Andrzej, a University student in the Political Science Academy in Warsaw, was active in the youth organization "Spartacus" and became member of the executive of the Democratic Club. He fought in the September 1939 campaign. His vulcanization workshop served as a meeting point of Jewish underground activists: like Adolf Berman, Leon Feiner, Salo Fiszgrund with the Polish members of the underground. There they exchanged news, plans, documents, and transferred money from Zegota to hiding Jews. According to the testimony of Salo Fiszgrund and others, Andrzej risked his life many times. See: Grynberg, Prekerowa, op. cit. KLIMOWSKI-KACZMAR, Joanna,
see KACZMAR-KLIMOWSKI, J.
* KLUBA, Stanislaw (1897-1944)
The family lived at Kamyk, near Bochnia, community of Lapanow. They helped Franciszka, owner of the mill at Nieznanowice, Mojzesz Landner and Irena Rajs. At first, the three hid in the woods and from the fall 1941 at the house of a woman at Sokolow. The Klubas brought them food throughout all that time. When that became dangerous, Stanislaw took them into his house. Informed upon, he was arrested and shot with his guests. Recognized as "Righteous", he was mentioned here previously in the list of "Those, Who Paid with Their Lives". See: Grynberg, op. cit. KLUSKA-JEKIELEK, Maria
KLOSS-GEDYCH, Jadwiga Danuta Jadwiga lived at Wlochy near Warsaw, in her own tenement house, where seven families lived. Prof. Witold K. stated that from the turn of 1941-42 he stayed there with his wife, Nina, her mother Idalia and his child and that Jadwiga, knowing the risk of renting to Jews, did not ask for any additional material gains. She was particularly helpful to him when he was in the Offlag (officer POW camp) after the Warsaw Uprising (1944). See: Grynberg, op. cit KLYMKO, Jan
KMIECINSKI, Maria, born FRACKIEWICZ
Not just the two above persons, but their entire family took part in saving the four Kupferblums: Jozef, Felicja and their two sons, Wiktor and Ludwik, who had come to Vilna from Warsaw in 1939, under the false name of Miedzinski. The daughter of Maria, Sabina Jesmanowicz, provided food to her colleague Wiktor. When the Kupferblums stole from the ghetto, there was a horse cart waiting for them; they were driven to the estate of Czarnoliszki, district of Swieciany, belonging to Maria Frackiewicz, Maria's mother. But some unknown people started searching the neighborhood. It was necessary to move the family further, to the estate of Wanda and Waclaw Kanczanin, called Malinowka. Jozef Kupferblum was ill with cancer. Maria' s sister, Jadwiga, now Bydelski, provided him with medicines and when he succumbed to it, the parish priest helped by giving him internment in the Catholic cemetery. As the Kmiecinskis feared a possible indiscretion, they brought the widow and sons to Vilna, to another of Maria's sisters, Helena Frackiewicz, who hid them in her home. She accompanied Wiktor on foot to the Catholic convent of the Dominican Sisters, where he worked in the orchard. Ludwik joined the Berling Army (Polish units under Russian command) advancing from Russia toward Germany and with it crossed the border. Felicja settled in Lodz. Both her sons went to France. Jozef met one of them abroad. Yad Vashem recognized Jozef and his mother, Maria as "Righteous", by letters dated June 10 and July 26, 1982. Case No. 2309c. Their cause was started in 1981. The other members of the Frackiewicz family have not been recognized up to now. KMIEC, Piotr
KMITA, Mikolaj (not related)
Sara Gewirtzman, a 20 years old Jewish woman, avoided the roundups and massacres of Jews in Lvov and Kowel and went over to Elsa Kmita's house. The latter provided her with false identification. Sara intended to go with it to Germany for work, which then seemed safer. But Elsa's mother-in-law, Karolina, dissuaded her, bandaged her eye to make her appear suffering from some ailment and took her to her home. To the neighbors she presented Zosia, as the Kmitas called her, a relative who came from the city to lend a hand. In September 1942 four other Jews found their way to the Kmitas. The Kmitas dug a pit beyond their garden and the Jews remained there for a week. Then the Kmitas found them another shelter sending them there with food, money and clothes. On October 30 their farm went up in flames. There remained only one room. The Germans proclaimed widely an automatic death sentence for anybody helping Jews and offered high monetary rewards for informing on them. Mikolaj told Zosia that they could not keep her any longer; he could face the risk himself, but not his grandchildren. But his wife, Karolina thought otherwise. She concealed Zosia in a temporary place in the garden under leaves and at night conducted her to the woods, to a pit she dug there and covered with straw, providing her with warm clothes and blankets, which she changed periodically. During four months, every night she brought her food, covering herself with a white sheet, walking or crawling in the snow, covering her traces with a pine branch. A shepherdess, looking for a lost animal, discovered Zosia in the pit and told everybody. Karolina hurried to take her from there herself and concealed her in the loft. There was another Jewish girl, Dora, but at first the Kmitas kept this a secret from each of the girls. In the fall of 1943, some German soldiers looking for arms burst into the room, saw the girls and accepted the story that they are hiding from the Bandera Ukrainian bands and left, taking along only the food. In October 1943 two other Jewish sisters joined the group. When Russian soldiers arrived in summer 1944 it turned out that the Kmitas had given shelter also to others, to any person persecuted, be they Jews, POW's, Ukrainians, etc. All survived. See: Bauminger: Righteous among the Nations, op cit. also Paldiel, op. cit. KNOFLICZEK, Jan
KOBYLEC, Piotr
Piotr and Karolina, with sons Eryk, Mieczyslaw, Alojzy and Wiktor, were miners at Michalkowice, in Upper Silesia, not far from Katowice. The occupier considered them to be "unreliable" and stamped their documents as "staatlos" (deprived of citizenship). Eryk, threatened with death, escaped to Cracow. Mieczyslaw, threatened with deportation to a camp, followed him and established contact with Jews. First, there came to the family a Jewish girl, Kazia Szancer, whom Mieczyslaw presented to his mother as his fiancée, next day there came Fela Kac and then he told his mother the truth. They hid in the garret. For a month the father knew nothing, but more and more Jews found their way to the house. When Piotr learned about them he grumbled a little but said:"we cannot throw them out". They decided to build a bunker and to provide it with electricity, ventilation and an alarm system. Alojzy and Wiktor took care of the food supply, bicycling to Katowice. The refugees with false documents left sometimes the bunker and rented rooms from local farmers as tourists, to return after a fortnight to the bunker as another group went on leave. Their bunker was not the only one. Another was at the Zawiszowski's house, at Zofia Klemens' (q.v.) in Katowice, at Myszkow and Czechowice. One of the Jews, Majer, who, having a very Semitic appearance never left the bunker, had contacts with a Jewish organization abroad. He asked Mieczyslaw to find people smuggling goods across the frontier with the Czech Protectorate. Mieczyslaw found Roman Brzuchanski, who smuggled the first group of five people across the border. Mieczyslaw alone conducted nine such groups from 8-10 people each. But on January 9, 1944 he was arrested. It was Brzuchanski who, to save his life, agreed to collaborate with the Germans. Two days after the last transport left Karolina's house, the Germans searched her house thoroughly. She was terribly beaten and told that her husband and sons are all arrested and would be killed for hiding Jews. Mieczyslaw met his father in the death block in Auschwitz. Only a coincidence saved their life. Mieczyslaw received many grateful letters from the people saved by the family. See: Bartoszewski & Lewin, op. cit. KOBYLINSKI, Lucja
KOCZERKIEWICZ, Mieczyslaw (1907-1966) Mieczyslaw lived in Lvow. He saved three women physicians: Dr. Maria Haler, Dr. Barbara Hochberger-Beiser and Dr. Lucja Reich. See: Grynberg, op. cit. KOCZNUR, Stanislaw
KOCZOROWSKI, Zygmunt (not
related)
KODZIS, Boleslaw
The Kodzis family farmed in the Vilna region. From June 1942 till the liberation, they harbored the teacher Fania Selbst-Fuchs, who had managed to flee from the Dzisna ghetto. She maintains regular contact with Maria. See: Grynberg, op. cit. KODZIS, Jozef (not related)
KOLASINSKI-LEOPOLD, Helena
Helena lived before the war in Lodz and was a high school teacher. In the same school taught also Maria Goldman. In December 1939 Helena moved to Lowicz, to her sister, Janina Kutkowski. She remained in contact with Maria, even when the latter was forced to move into the ghetto, from which she escaped in August 1942. When Maria had to change her refuge from Janina Kutkowski, Helena placed her with an acquaintance in Warsaw. Maria went after the war to Paris and keeps contact with Helena. See: Grynberg, op. cit. KOLASINSKI, Jozef (not related) Henryk Joffe described in
a most moving way the feats of Jozef Kolasinski in the Polish language
paper Izraelskie Nowiny i Kurier, of Dec. 10, 1965 in Tel Aviv.
KOLCZEWSKI, Mieczyslawa
KOLACZ-PIKULA, Stanislawa
(not related)
KOLKOWSKI, Stanislawa, (1892-1944)
The Kolkowskis lived at Adolfow (Sokolow Podlaski district). Before the last deportation of Jews from the ghetto to Treblinka some members of the Kreplak family managed to flee to the Kolkowskis: Herszek, his wife Chana and Jankiel, who however was killed at Kosowo during a roundup. The Kolkowskis also helped Chaim Zylberman and the 14 year old Inka Akselrode, who stayed with them till the end and whom they helped to locate her family. She emigrated to Israel. Some of them maintain contacts with Stanislawa and Ludwik. See: Grynberg, op. cit. * KOLLATAJ-SRZEDNICKI, Jan, General As the head of the Polish Red Cross in Hungary he was shot for giving false documents to Jews. His name has to be added to the list of 704 Polish Christians killed for helping Jews. Mentioned here already after the mass executions. He is the 26th among the Poles killed recognized by Yad Vashem as "Righteous"; KOLODZIEJ, Jan
Marian from Michalkowice was very helpful to his friends Kobylec (q.v.) in bringing Jews from the ghetto to their bunker. Germans recruited him into the German army, but he escaped. He made the attempt to extricate from the ghetto the well-known Dr. Liberman, but German soldiers circling the ghetto noticed him and shot him and murdered the doctor. See: Bartoszewski & Lewin, op. cit. KOLODZIEJ, Tekla (not related) KOLODZIEJ, Wladyslaw (not
related)
KOLTAN, Aleksander
KOMAR, Albin
Albin and Halina, residents
of Warsaw, gave refuge to Anna Witkind from 1943.
KOMARNICKI, Wladyslaw (-1983)
They lived in the village of Komarniki, near Stryj (incorporated into Ukraine). During 1942-1944 they sheltered Estera Langenauer, from Turek. Estera lives now in Israel and stays in contact with them. See: Grynberg and also Bartoszewski & Lewin, op. cit. KOMIAZYK, Aleksander
KONARZEWSKI, Helena
Edward started to help his schoolmate, Wolf, in 1940, even when the latter was taken to a forced labor camp. When in 1943 this camp was liquidated and the workers had been killed, Wolf managed to escape from it and came over to the Konarzewski family where he remained till the war's end. Halina and Edward were recognized already in 1990, and Marianna only in 1999. She was honored Dec. 15, 1999 in Warsaw, as announced the Israeli Embassy in Poland. KONDRATOWICZ, Jozefa
KONIECZNY, Maciej (1890-1974)
The family farmed at Dzieraznia, Kielce prov. In the fall of 1942 Germans liquidated the nearby Dzialoszyce ghetto, killing 1500 Jews, among them twenty five (25) young women hidden in an attic. Nine persons came to the Koniecznys: the Olmer couple with a three year old son, Lolek, Tonia, Olmer's sister and brother-in-law Borys Ickowicz, Uszer Rafalowicz , seven years old Zelik Frenkel and also the Laufer couple from Lodz. Proclamations were widely published that any help to Jews, even selling them food, would automatically be punished by death. The family built a bunker under the house in which they placed the Olmers and another bunker under the farm buildings. When neighbors asked why they were cooking so much food, Honorata replied that it was for partisans of the underground. One day, gendarmes arrived and ordered the father and Honorata to give up their Jews. Honorata protested vigorously that there are no Jews and that they can verify it themselves. They searched with no results and left. All people sheltered since November 1942 till January 1945 survived. Sydney Olmer wrote in 1987 that Honorata, besides the farm work, cooked, baked bread and fed them all on time, taking care that the bunkers were well covered, but although she seems to be the most meritorious, she does not appear on the 1999 list, probably by error. See: Grynberg, op. cit. KONOPCZYNSKI, Wojciech
KONOPKO, Stefan (1906-) colonel (not related) He lived with his wife Marcjanna and their 13 years old son, also named Stefan, in Warsaw. In 1940 he directed some building construction and among others hired some Jewish workers. When he conducted demolitions in the ghetto area, in understanding with the AK (Home Army) he helped Jews whom he found in the ruins. From January 1943 he took into his home Leon Krotowski. According to Leon's attestation he was always treated by the Konopkos as a member of the family without any ulterior motives. See: Grynberg,. also Wronski & Zwolakowa, op. cit. KONRAD, Stanislaw KONTOWICZ-ZAREMBA, Maria Maria administered several houses in Warsaw. Mr. Mitelberg asked her to take in her administration his building. Eleven other Jews, owners of buildings, asked the same. Maria, who sympathized and mingled socially with Jews, provided them financial help from the rentals. Thanks to this office she was able at the beginning of the occupation to take off the registers the true names of the Jewish inhabitants and later reregistered the same persons under new, false names. In her registers she had several "dead souls" (nonexistent people) for whom she received food cards, which she distributed among the most needy. She was also in charge of registration cards, important documents, and often registered Jews under addresses at which they never lived. Some she took in her apartment and provided them with food. She helped particularly the family of Zygmunt Gersznabl, her closest neighbor. When a German official came to search her apartment for Jews, she being ill, feigned an attack of vomiting, while Zygmunt jumped under her feather bed. Later he left her apartment. She helped him again in 1944. See: Grynberg, op. cit. and also Lukas: Out of the Inferno, op. cit. KONWERSKI, Krystyna
KOPERA, Piotr "The Jewish Congregation
of Cracow hereby declares that the following persons, known to them personally,
Piotr Kopera, resident of Dobczyce, Wojciech Krupa (q.v.) Wladyslaw Piwowarczyk
(q. v.) . Katarzyna Siwek (q.v.) . gratuitously helped the Jews in hiding
during the Nazi occupation of 1940-1945."
KOPICZAK, Jaroslawa
KOPYT, Marianna Marianna facilitated the escape from the Radom ghetto (shortly before its liquidation), of Baruch Silberszlak, whom she already knew, and of his daughter, Illana Szochat and nephew Henryk Silber. She harbored all three in her home. She has been honored as a "Righteous" on January 14, 1999 in Warsaw, as announced by the Israeli Embassy in Poland KORALEWSKI, Weronika (1907-1986)
They lived in Warsaw and stayed in the apartment of Salomea Gleichgewicht, who was forced to abandon it to settle in the ghetto. Weronika brought her food and other necessities into the ghetto. She extricated from the ghetto her niece Zofia Wasseng, her daughter Irena Rozenkranc with her husband Henryk and took them into her apartment for a certain time. Stanislaw Zimerman, who later perished in the Warsaw Uprising (1944) also found shelter there. Weronika also kept, and restituted after the war the jewelry of the family Rozenkranc. Blackmailers caused her arrest but miraculously she returned from the SS headquarters on Aleja Szucha See: Grymberg, op. cit. KORBONSKI, Stefan (19033-1989) alias ZIELINSKI At 15 he took part in defending Lvov from the Ukrainians in 1918. In 1920 he volunteered again and in 1921 took part in the Silesian uprising against the Germans. Educated at the Poznan University he became a lawyer in Warsaw, leader of the peasant movement. In 1939 he was a lieutenant in the Polish Army, was taken prisoner by the Russians but escaped and returned to Warsaw to organize the Polish underground movement. In 1941 he was appointed head of the Civil Struggle Directorate, representative of the Delegate of the Polish Government-in-exile (London) organizing the sabotage in production and transport. He sent many telegrams to London to alert the world about the destruction of the Jews, telling that 700 daily were being loaded into freight wagons and dispatched to Majdanek (Treblinka rather?) where they were all gassed. But the BBC was silent, nobody abroad believed: neither the Jews nor the British authorities. London was flooded with telegrams about Jews being brought from the Balkans, Hungary, Holland to Auschwitz. Even Jews being thus transported from abroad in trains with suitcases and valuables and told by Germans that they are transferred for work, did not believe when some Polish railway men whispered them the truth. Similar warnings were transmitted by the clandestine radio SWIT (Dawn) from England, supposedly broadcast from Poland, which the Germans were unable to locate. Starting with March 1943, the Polish Government Civil Directorate in Warsaw published many warnings that the German collaborators of whichever origin (German, Ukrainian, Lithuanian, Polish or Jewish), blackmailers of Jews and of people helping them, would be punished with the utmost severity. The Secret Service of the Civil Directorate collected proof of collaboration with the enemy and special courts passed death sentence, of which 200 took place. The first death sentences of blackmailers of Jews were carried out in the summer of 1943 in Warsaw and Cracow, although during the occupation this was extremely difficult, especially in big cities. Korbonski was the last Polish Delegate of the London Government-in-exile and had to flee Poland with his wife, Zofia, in 1947 when threatened with arrest by the ruling Communists. In the USA he was chairman of the Polish Council of Unity in the United States and was 8 times chairman of the Polish Delegation to the Captive Nations. He published several important books: "Fighting Warsaw". New York, Macmillan Co., 1956, "Warsaw in Chains": New York, Macmillan, Co., 1959, "Between the Hammer and the Anvil". New York, Hippocrene Books, 1981; "The Polish Underground State - a Guide to the Underground, 1939-1945". New York, Columbia University Press, 1978 and "The Jews and the Poles in World War II". New York, Hippocrene Books, [c1989] and others See: Bartoszewski & Lewin, op. cit. KORCZAK, Franciszek
KORDASIEWICZ, Maria (1877-1958)
Maria and her three children lived at Podburze, Drohobycz district. She took seven (7) persons of the Maurer family into her house consisting of one room, kitchen and cellar: Aleksander, his mother Augusta, his wife Szalota, his sister Stefania and her husband Henryk Szwind-Skornicz with their parents. She did this of her own initiative and without any payment. She made for them a shelter in the cellar and bought food in another village 3 km. away. All survived. See: Grynberg, op. cit. KORDUS, Michal
KORKUC, Kazimierz A resident of Gorzeszowo (Kamienna Gora district), in the Vilna region, he helped ca. 50 Jews and received many letters of thanks, some beginning with: "Dear Savior". He provided shelter, food, false documents, even arms. 34 among them survived. They were the families of Tabacznik, Samcz, Somolanski, Rogowski, Michalowski, Lewin, Jaranski and others. He was arrested and tortured but did not betray any of his charges. See: Wronski & Zwolakowa, op. cit. KORNACKI, Stanislaw Dana Akselrod as a young girl had "Aryan" papers. She found her way to a children's home and told the officer there, Stanislaw Kornacki, that she lost both parents and that she is Jewish. He took her into the children's home and invited her often to his house. After the war he adopted the girl and married her. Stanislaw was honored on Dec. 15, 1999 in Warsaw, according to an announcement of the Israeli Embassy in Poland. KORNIECKI, Jozefa
KORWIN-PIOTROWSKI, Stanislaw
The couple and their small
baby son lived in Warsaw. In December 1942
KORYZNA, Stanislaw
KORZENIOWSKI, Zofia (not related) Zofia lived in Warsaw and helped many Jews. For over two years she harbored two people, of whom one was Aleksander Unger from Cracow. When her apartment, with nine people, including four children, became too dangerous, she found another place for him in an unoccupied store, where she brought him food and necessities. Jews flocked to her especially during the Ghetto Uprising staying for a day or two or longer if necessary. See: Grynberg, op. cit. KOS-HABINIAK, Maria Barbara
see HABINIAK-KOS, M. B.
KOSSAK-SZCZUCKI-SZATKOWSKI, Zofia (1890-1968) alias WERONIKA The renowned writer lived in Warsaw. During the occupation she was the head of the Front for the Rebirth of Poland, a Catholic organization. From the beginning of the occupation she, and a handful of her friends, belonging also to the democratic movement, started to help Jews individually. Money came mostly from estate owners and the intelligentsia. In the first days of August 1942 she published a pamphlet, called "Protest", which was secretly distributed in 5,000 copies, in which she directly opposed the persecution of Jews, writing: "The World looks on this crime that exceeds all that history had ever witnessed, and it remains silent. Millions of helpless people are massacred amid an ominous universal silence. Neither England nor America is taking a stand, and even the influential international Jewry keeps silent. One cannot tolerate this silence any longer. Whatever be its reason - it is contemptible. One cannot remain passive in the face of crime. He who keeps silent in the presence of murder becomes the murderer's accessory. He, who does not condemn, acquiesces. The blood of the innocent calls to heaven for retribution". Other clandestine press responded to it calling on Jews to organize resistance and to escape from the ghettos, which many did. In September 1942 there came into being the Temporary Council for Help to Jews called by the fictitious name of Konrad Zegota, invented by Zofia Kossak. In the first two months it took under its protection 180 people, mostly children, a drop in the ocean of needs, but it was a beginning. The Warsaw delegation of the Polish Government-in -Exile (in London) entrusted its direction to Zofia Kossak, seconded by Wanda Krahelski-Filipowicz (q.v.). On October 31, 1942 a telegram was sent to London informing about the committee's foundation and asking for half a milion zlotys monthly for its activities. In December the word "Temporary" was dropped and the committee took the name of RPZ, i.e. Rada Pomocy Zydom. The Council for Help to Jews, or briefly "ZEGOTA". Transit centers were opened in Warsaw, and similarly branches in Cracow, Lvov, Brest Litovsk, Siedlce, Lublin, Kielce, Bialystok, Radom, Bochnia and elsewhere. In May 1943 Zofia Kossak wrote in "Prawda", being its editor: "We Catholics - who understand the meaning of these events.cannot remain passive before them. It is our duty to help the persecuted Jews." In 1943-44 she was taken to Auschwitz, which she described in the book "Z Otchlani" (From the abyss). After the war she went to England and married Mr. Szatkowski. See: Bartoszewski & Lewin, op. cit., Grynberg, op. cit., Prekerowa, op. cit., Tomaszewski & Werbowski, op. cit. KOSSEWSKI, Aleksander, alias CZARNY OLEK (1900-1986) He lived in Zakopane. His father died in Auschwitz. The son, caught in a roundup, was left in the Gestapo carpenter shop in Cracow, as he was needed as a carpenter. Here he made contact with Adam Salomon and started helping Jews, mainly by organizing their transfer across the frontier to Hungary. He hid the Jews at his house, prepared false documents and accompanied them across the border. He thus conducted the families of Salomon (10 people) of Abraham Singer (10 people), of Weinfeld, Landon, Gottesweld and of Maislich Seiden. Several times he carried on his shoulders the elderly woman Rubin, who was too weak to continue the difficult march across the mountains. See: Grynberg, op. cit. KOSSOBUDZKI, Stanislawa
KOSSUTH, Jan
The Kossuths lived in Warsaw. Janina knew the Eisenberg family from before the war. She took from Barbara Eisenberg her four years old daughter, Elzunia, whom the mother had brought in a sack to the place of work. Elzunia lived through the occupation with the Kossuths, as her parents had been killed. Janina registered the child with the Jewish Committee. Soon the little girl's uncle, Aron, who had returned from Russia, retrieved Elzunia. She was sent over to her grandparents' in Israel. See: Grynberg, op. cit. KOSSUTH-SLEDZIEWSKI, Leokadia
(not related) see SLEDZIEWSKI, Szymon & Anna, parents?
KOSTANSKI, Jan (not related)
KOSTKA-STASIAK, Erna (not
related)
KOSTRZEWA, Tomasz (not related)
KOSZUTSKI-ISSAT, Jadwiga-Danuta (1911-) Jadwiga helped Jews in Warsaw.
In 1942 she took into her flat two children from the ghetto, a brother
and a sister, and kept them until the war's end. She sheltered also
Irena Szenberg, whom she first placed with her friends and then at her
home. She harbored likewise Anna Rotenberg, who could not move on
her own power. Anna had not enough words of praise about Jadwiga's
tact: she undertook the most dangerous activities as if they were the most
normal thing to do and a duty of every human being. One of the children
saved is the well-known writer Bogdan Wojdowski, author of "Chleb Rzucony
Umarlym" (Bread thrown to the dead). See: Grynberg, op. cit.
KOSZYK-ZWIERZCH(AN)OWSKI,
Eugeniusz,
Brother and sister lived at Korolowka, near Czortkow. They took under their care Jerzy, the infant son of the local pharmacist, Szwarc. Jerzy's mother and grandparents perished, but his aunt, Lila Szwarc reclaimed the boy who went to Israel with his father. See: Grynberg, op. cit. KOSCIALKOWSKI, Anna
KOSCIALKOWSKI, Krystyna (not
related ) see BABINSKI, Zofia, mother
KOT, Tadeusz (not related)
Tadeusz brought Sabina Gotfreund with her baby from Cracow, from his mother-in-law, Maria Kalucki to Warsaw, to Sabina's parents hiding on the "Aryan" side. They were recognized on Oct. 16, 1999 in Cracow. KOTARSKI, Kazimierz
KOTAS, Antoni (1899-1978) Antoni was a career non-commissioned officer, active in the AK. With his wife and four children he lived at Zytyn-Cukrownia, near Rowne in Vohlinia and later in Rowne. Still from his Zytyn years, he knew the Jewish owners of a grocery, Finkielgluz. Motel and his son Abraham Finkielgluz perished in 1941. Only Estera, the daughter, managed to escape the massacre. She fled over to some Polish friends and later to Antoni's family. Antoni Kotas took her in and organized for her a false document under the name of Antonina Szorc, which she used for the entire occupation. Estera wrote from London a beautiful letter to Antoni, calling what he did for her more than heroism, the highest expression of humanism. See: Grynberg, op. cit. KOTOWICZ, Franciszka ((1912-) KOTOWICZ, Wiktor (not related)
KOTOWSKI, Alicja (Aniela)
Sister Klara, a nun
KOTOWSKI-HUNKER, Maria-Berta (not related KOTOWSKI, Stanislawa (not
related)
KOWALCZYK, Jan (not related)
KOWALCZYK, Jan (another one,
not related)
KOWALCZYK, Jan, (still another
one, not related) )
KOWALCZYK, Kazimierz (not
related)
KOWALCZYK, Marta (not related) see JAKSZ, Jerzy & Czeslawa, parents KOWALCZYK, Stanislaw (not
related)
KOWALEWSKI, Karol (not related)
KOWALEWSKI-HENNIUS, Maria (not related) see HENNIUS-KOWALEWSKI, KOWALIK, Anna
KOWALIK, Franciszek (not
related)
KOWALIK-MUSZYNSKI, Maria (not related) see MUSZYNSKI, Katarzyna, mother? KOWALSKI, Adam
KOWALSKI, Antoni (not related)
KOWALSKI, Weronika (not related)
KOWALSKI, Witold (1902-)
son
KOWALSKI, Wladyslaw, (another
one, not related)
KOWALSKI, Wojciech (not related)
KOWARZYK, Leon
KOZACZKO (KOZACZKA ) Franciszek
The Kozaczkos lived at Bren, Tarnow prov. Franciszek was the head of the village, which made it easier for him to help Jews. The family provided food mostly to people hiding in the forest, but also shelter in their house to some of them like Moses Grincwajg and his wife, Ludwik Orenstein and others. Maria Etinger wrote in 1988 from Israel that the Kozaczko family helped her, her sister and her brother-in-law and that she will never forget them. See: Grynberg, op. cit. KOZACZUK, Jozef
KOZAK, Wladyslaw (not related)
Wladyslaw, his sister Apolonia Kozak and Wladyslaw Hyziak, residing in the village of Wola Skrzydlanska, sheltered the Gruebl family in their homes. When it became too dangerous, the Gruebls moved to Helena Pazdur's home in the same locality. See: Bartoszewski & Lewin, op. cit. Hyziak has not been recognized yet. Another Wladyslaw Kozak, from the village of Swoszowa Wola, district of Jaslo, Kielce prov., was shot for sheltering on his farm seventeen (17) Jews. He does not figure on the previous list of people murdered for helping Jews. It is not clear which of the two Wladyslaws Kozaks Yad Vashem recognized as "Righteous". See: Wronski & Zwolakowa, op. cit. KOZAKIEWICZ, Florian (1912-) In 1946 Dr. Boleslaw Ratniewski wrote that Florian helped enormously Jews, skimping on essentials for him and his own. When the doctor and five other Jews were hidden in a bunker, Florian brought them food every day. Later, although German soldiers were staying 100 feet from his house, he took the doctor in. Thanks to him the doctor contacted a partisan unit. See: Grynberg, op. cit. KOZAKIEWICZ-SLIZIEN, Anna
(not related) see SLIZIEN, Leopold, father?
KOZLOWSKI, Antoni (not related)
Antoni delivered by car bread flour, beans, and cooking flour to the Plaszow camp. The Cracow branch of Zegota bought all this at inflated prices on the black market. See: Bartoszewski & Lewin, op. cit. KOZLOWSKI-BALICKI, Helena (not related) see BALICKI, Zygmunt & Jadwiga, parents KOZLOWSKI, Jan (not related)
KOZYRA, Marian Marian, from Lezajsk, helped around forty (40) Jews. According to a statement made in 1945, signed by seven Jews saved by him, he harbored the two Brodt brothers, provided food to Leon Strauch, Geclaw Kraut and his wife and to Ch. Potascher. He organized false documents for several Jewish women and covered the cost of their trip to Germany to work there as Poles. All the Jews came to him for help; he did not refuse anybody. Because of that he lost two brothers and had to hide from the Germans. See: Wronski & Zwolakowa, op. cit. KOZMINSKI, Maria
KOZMINSKI, Teresa (not related)
Teresa, her husband Karol and his son Jerzy lived in Warsaw. Tadeusz Gizycki, a friend of Karol asked him to hide some Jews. He took in the watchmaker S. Cytryn and his wife Fania as well as Rachmiel Kon from Lodz. On Kon's request Jerzy stole several times into the ghetto, even without a pass. There he met the Glazers, who decided to leave the ghetto for the "Aryan" side with his help. The day before the Ghetto Uprising when Jerzy came to conduct the Glazers out of it, he had difficulty to enter it but even more to leave it. The German police arrested him for a few days. Toward the end of April the Kozminskis got news that the Glazers did escape the burning ghetto. Some Polish women, Kalisz and Maria Widawski among them, put the Glazers up in a garret in the Wola district. The Glazer family consisted of Samuel, his wife Mina, her brother Jerzy Kryszek, her cousin Kryszek, brother-in-law Herman Herling and an 11 years old niece, Halinka Herling. Unfortunately a Jewish policeman caught Herling's wife. Jerzy moved all five, one by one, from the Wola District to his father's flat at Wawer, on the other side of the city. Soon the group grew to 13 people, including Kon's son and the Seifmans: father, mother and son, Samuel's brother Sewereyn Glazer, with his wife Fania, his father, his sister-in-law Basia Chwat, her husband and three others, who however were denounced and lost. It was urgent to move the Glazers. The Kozminskis took the elderly father, although he had a very Semitic appearance. Tadeusz Gizycki installed the others under the stage of the theatre "Stara Mewa". Jerzy, a member of the underground, brought the Jews two pistols with ammunition and taught them how to use them. He was arrested in a roundup, tortured and sent to Auschwitz and Mauthausen but did not betray anybody. Even this did not change the attitude of the Kozminskis. In their six square meter bunker, there stayed sometimes up to 22 persons. The brunt of the work fell on Teresa, who even found a way to feed so many people. She spread the news that an invalid nephew staying with her repairs watches. With the payments for the repairs by the watchmaker she ventured out of the bunker, sometimes under fire, to fetch food, and that, for 16 months. When the Germans ordered the evacuation of the population, she, with her two years old son and the 14 Jews stayed till the entrance of the Russians. See: Bartoszewski & Lewin, op. cit. and Paldiel, op. cit. Karol, the father and Tadeusz Gizycki are not recognized. KOZUCH, Helena KOZUCHOWSKI, Franciszek (1898-)
Residents of Dabrowa Gornicza, the Kozuchowskis knew many Jews, among them Henryk Starozum. He asked Marianna to take in his mother. She agreed. Soon followed Henryk and his wife, Ala, his brother-in-law, his mother-in-law, his daughter Wanda and two sons and two students, together ten (10) people, some of whom the Kozuchowskis helped to extricate from the ghetto. To feed and clothe this group the Kozuchowskis sold their furniture, carpets, pictures, etc. Major engineer W. Moskalik ("Rota") and Tadeusz Uthke, an engineer and Colonel of the Polish army, helped them in these transactions. Uthke later perished in Auschwitz. All the above Jews survived and most of them left Poland. See: Grynberg, op. cit. KRAHELSKI-FILIPOWICZ, Wanda, alias "ALINKA " (1888-1968) She was known before the
war for her activity in the Polish socialist movement.
KRAJEWSKI, Anna
KREICAREK, Michal Marian
(1908-1957)
Michal and Kazimiera, from Dubiecko, Rzeszow prov., harbored Bronislaw Felsen, David Frenkel and his child, Samuel Goldstein, his wife and two children, and Wilhelm Rek, his wife and a brother. In 1958 Bronislaw Felsen stated that the Kreicareks saved ten (10) Jews. From 1942 till the liberation in August 1944 they also fed them from their own modest resources. See: Grynberg, op. cit. KREISBERG-MAJEWSKI, Maria
see MAJEWSKI-KREISBERG, M.
KREPEC, Jerzy (1896-1981),
engineer
KROKOS, Katarzyna
KROKOWSKI, Jan (19130) engineer
The Krokowskis lived in Cracow. Jan knew Fryderyk Gans from his school years. When Fryderyk, who took part in the September 1939 campaign escaped from a German POW camp, Jan procured him a knew identity and hired him as a driver's helper till the end of the war. He found an apartment for Fryderyk and his fiancée and attested that they were Poles. He also cared for Fryderyk's parents, whom he took to Bochnia, which seemed safer. Fryderyk's father died from natural causes, but his mother escaped the massacre of 600 Jews there and Jan placed her in a safe place at Zabierzowo. Fryderyk Gans wrote in 1980: "If it were not for the enormous help of Jan Krokowski given to me and my parents, we could not have survived the occupation.risking his life and that of his family was without precedent." See: Grynberg, op. cit. KROWICKI-TYRYLLO, Genowefa
see TYRYLLO, Grzegorz & Stefania, parents?
KROL, Genowefa (not related) Genowefa harbored for five months a Jewish girl, Irena Zimmerman. In order to avoid denunciation by the janitor, Irena had to leave Genowefa and hide elsewhere outside of Warsaw, where she stayed till the liberation. Genowefa Krol was honored as "Righteous" on January 14, 1999 in Warsaw, as announced by the Israeli Embassy in Poland. KROL, Piotr (not related)
The Krol family harbored their friends, the six (6) members of the Steinlauf family from Krasne Potockie, who escaped from the ghetto, and that for almost three years. They hid them in their loft. This was particularly dangerous, as the house was not a good place for shelter: it was on a crossroads and far from the forest. In close vicinity, Germans carried out numerous "pacifications" (mass executions of civilians). The only person who knew about them was Jadwiga Aleksander, estate owner who from her manor provided them with food. The latter does not seem to be recognized. See: Wronski & Zwolakowa, op. cit. KROLIKIEWICZ-OCHALSKI, Krystyna see OCHALSKI, Przemyslaw, husband KROLIKIEWICZ, Wladyslaw (not
related)
KROLIKOWSKI, Maria (1914-1982) Maria moved from her hometown Borszczowo, Tarnopol prov. to Lisowiec, where there was a work camp for Jews. Seeing their tragedy she started to help them and continued for four years. First she took in Leon Waldman and his 13 years old daughter, Julia. Then she helped his relative, a lawyer from Lvov, Jozef Waldman, and an officer and physician, Rubinowicz. She also extended help to Mrs. Gicler and her three daughters, the Habers, Robert Kimelman, the Kruemers, Mrs. Miller and her daughters. All survived. See: Grynberg, op. cit. KROLIKOWSKI-DOBOSZ, Zygmunt
Bernard (not related)
KRUCZKOWSKI, Jadwiga (not related) KRUEGER, Henryk (1913-) Henryk, a businessman, living in Warsaw, helped Jews in the ghetto with food. The following benefited from his help: engineer Bruehl, Halina Wald and Minna Frydland. The latter he extricated from the ghetto, provided her three times with a false "Kennkarte" and placed her in three different shelters. When she was blackmailed and did not have money, it was Henryk who paid the ransom for her. After the fall of the Warsaw Uprising (1944) she was taken to Germany for forced labor and from there she went to Canada. Both Minna and Halina testified on his behalf in 1976. See: Grynberg, op. cit. KRUK, Bronislaw (not related to Helena who follows) KRUK-KORZENIEWSKI-KORAZIM (KORZENIOWSKI-KORAZIN) Helena Helena Kruk, daughter of an estate owner, lived in Warsaw. As a member of the resistance movement, she undertook on its behalf to work in the German price bureau but also helped Jews. Helena extricated from the ghetto six (6) persons and put them up with her paternal uncle and aunt. The people thus helped were: the Lichtensteins: Adam, Jozef and Cypora with her four years old daughter, and Natan Liliental with his wife. She helped also the judge, Maksymilian Szerter. She had to search for other shelters for them and in August 1994, during the Warsaw Uprising, she conducted the group by way of sewers to another place where they stayed till the liberation. After the war she married Adam, but divorced him and married a veterinarian, Jakow Korzeniewski-Korazim. With him she left for Israel in 1957. She belongs to the very small group of Poles recognized as "Righteous " already in 1964. See: Grynberg, op. cit., who however spells slightly differently her husband's name. KRUK, Maria (not related)
The Kruks were one of the families at the village Wisznie who harbored Jews. They hid several Jewish families in a dugout under the house. They saved Simcha Lieblich, Jerzy and Margot Dranger. Yad Vashem recognized them as "Righteous" and their decoration took place on Oct. 16, 1999 in Warsaw, as announced the Israeli Embassy in Poland. KRUPA, Wojciech A resident of Kurnatka, near Dobczyce, he is one of the four persons of whom the Jewish Congregation of Cracow declared that they "freely helped the Jews in hiding during the Nazi occupation 1940-1945". The other three were Piotr Kopera, (q.v.) Wladyslaw Piwowarczyk (q.v.) and Katarzyna Siwek (q.v.). The four saved the following Jews: Maciej and Czeslaw Jakubowicz, the Pistol family: Maria, Tadeusz, Aleksander, Adolf, Adolf's wife and two children, and Zofia; also saved by them were Helena and Krystyna Nichtberger, Stefania Graf, Aniela Parnes, Benek and Pola Kluger, 16 persons altogether. Wojciech Krupa had a house near the woods, in which some of the harbored spent some time intermittently. Maria Pistol, whose husband Szymon Schein was murdered in the Cracow ghetto, related that as a widow with a two years old son, Tadeusz, she hid in Wojciech's house from October 1944 till the end of the occupation. Her new husband, Maciej Jakubowicz, joined them in 1943. Aniela Parnes and Maciej Jakubowicz also spoke of the generosity of Wojciech Krupa. See: Bartoszewski & Lewin, op. cit. KRUPKA, Leonard
Leonard was the owner of a well-known company Autokrupka. In his villa on the Wilanowska Avenue in Warsaw he harbored many Jews; one of them, a woman, was registered as a governess and was treated as a member of the family. See: Bednarczyk, op. cit. "Zycie." KRUSINSKI, Jan
KRUSZYNSKI, Konrad
KRUSZYNSKI, Marianna (1919-) (not related) Marianna helped Hanka Rojer, a young Jewish girl who came to her after her second escape from the Warsaw ghetto. She provided her with food and placed her with an acquaintance, Mrs. Grzel. When this hideout became dangerous, Marianna led the girl to her mother living near Warsaw, in a small house in the woods. As Hanka felt threatened by the nearby stationing Germans and "Wlasowcy" (General Vlasov's soldiers, collaborating with the Germans), Marianna procured her false documents which enabled her to go to Germany to work as a Pole, where Hanka stayed till the liberation. See: Grynberg, op. cit. KRUSZYNSKI, Stanislaw (not
related)
KRYNSKI, Jan
KRYNSKI-BOGUSLAWSKI, Stefania (not related) KRYSIEWICZ, Stanislaw
Marianna Wolosik from Waniewo, district of Lapy, Bialystok prov., stated before the public prosecutor W. Monkiewicz on Nov. 21, 1968 that she lived about 300 meters from the house of the Krysiewicz couple. On Sept. 8, 1943 she saw gendarmes setting fire to all the buildings of the Krysiewicz farm and shooting anybody who tried to escape. Marianna also tried to escape fearing for her family, but the gendarmes ordered her husband to take Wladyslawa and her five children to Tykocin by horse drawn wagon. If Marianna were not willing to accept the children, the gendarmes would take them with them. Fearing that the five Krysiewicz children would also be shot, Marianna took them immediately. Wladyslawa was shot in Tykocin on the 2nd or 3rd day and neighbors found the bodies of Stanislaw and several men and women on the Krysiewicz farm. This couple was mentioned here previously, in the list of Poles who lost their life for helping the following Jews: Leyser Rozanowicz and his wife, Benjamine Rozanowicz and his wife, Shloma Jaskolka and his wife, Olsha from Sokoly and a young woman from Warsaw, eight (8) people altogether. See" Wronski & Zwolakowa, op. cit. KRYSINSKI-BIARDZKI, Antonina
KRZEMINSKI-STEINBERG, Roza KRZEMINSKI, Wladyslaw (not
related)
KRZESZOWIEC, Karol (1913-)
Karol and Janina lived at Gwozdziec, district of Kolomyja. In the second part of 1943 their old neighbors, who managed to flee from deportation to the Kolomyja ghetto, appeared at their house. They were Fryda and Mendel Bergman, David Neuberger with his wife, Stela and Zalman Preschel and Mosze Bergman. Karol built such a clever shelter in the stable, that a search in 1944 did not reveal the hidden Jews. In spite of that Janina was arrested, but incredibly, after a few weeks she was released. After the war the saved Jews left Poland for Israel, Argentina and the USA. See: Grynberg, op. cit. KRZESZOWSKI-MROZ, Jozefa
see MROZ, Maria, mother
KRZYCZKOWSKI, Zdzislaw (not
related)
KRZYSTANIAK, Kazimierz (1895--1973)
The family lived on their farm at Zasow, not far from Debica. At the beginning they procured food for five (5) persons of the Gertler family, who was in the ghetto: Ania, Leonia, Eda, Samuel and Leona. In the second part of 1942 the Gertlers asked Tadeusz to hide them at his parents' farm. The latter agreed. Tadeusz took four Gertlers from a prearranged place near the ghetto wall by horse cart and brought them home. Irena led the fifth person from the ghetto. The Krzystaniaks prepared three hideouts for greater security. All survived and maintain contacts with the Gertlers who stay in the USA. See: Grynberg, op. cit. KRZYSZTONEK, Aniela
KRZYZANOWSKI, Bronislaw (not
related)
KRZYZANOWSKI-ZALUSKI, Lidia
(not related) see ZALUSKI, Karolina, mother?
KUBICKI, Jan
Jan Kubicki, Waclaw Nowinski (q.v.) Zygmunt Okon and Elias Pietruszka were some of the "Blue" (Polish) policemen, who in spite of German pressure to execute their orders, co-operated with the underground and helped Jews instead. See: Prekerowa, op. cit. Okon and Pietruszka do not seem to have been recognized. KUBICZ-BRODOWSKI, Helena KUBICZEK, Edward Edward, a graphic artist, was famous for his masterly execution of false documents, even the most difficult ones, especially the signatures. He was one of five such men who worked at the back of what was supposedly the beauty parlor of Wanda Janowski (q.v.). In fact, this room served as the meeting place for members of the Cracow Zegota, of whom each had under his/her care several dozen Jews, to whom they distributed monthly stipends. See: Prekerowa, op. cit. KUBICZEK, Mieczyslaw
KUBIK, Czeslaw Kubik, resident of Polaniec (Tarnobrzeg prov.) had a Jewish friend from his high school years, Marek Verstaendig, and an esteemed teacher, Joel Czortkow, both from Mielec. As a commander of a Peasant Battalion (Polish underground military organization) he learned that the Jews from Mielec would be deported to an extermination camp. Marek Verstaendig appeared at Kubik's home but found there already three Jewish girls, colleagues of Tola, Kubik' sister, Giza, Mania and Roza. As the house was not a suitable place for hiding people, Marek went to Warsaw and Czeslaw placed the girls at Leon Kieszkowski's house in the country. Czeslaw went to Mielec to save his teacher. He found him already in the railway car prepared for deportation. For a hefty sum, Marek got two liters of water and managed to forward them to Joel. Unfortunately the latter refused to try to escape. After three days the train started in the direction of Wlodawa. Czeslaw drove to Wlodawa, found his teacher in the synagogue, but the latter again refused to escape and so did his daughter. Then Czeslaw led out of the Synagogue three women and three children, unknown to him, brought them to Polaniec and placed them in a secure shelter. In the meantime Marek managed to get out of the Warsaw ghetto and sent news to Kubik. He asked him to bring to Warsaw Marek's wife, Frieda, who was hiding at the house of Kubik's father-in-law in Polaniec. Once in Warsaw, the driver took Czeslaw and Frieda straight to the post of the "Blue" police. After some difficulties the police let them go, but took their belongings. When the Verstaendigs found themselves in danger again, Kubik brought them over to his house in Polaniec, placing them later with another colleague, Marian Walcerz at the nearby town of Tursk Maly. After the war Marek and Frieda went to Australia and asked Yad Vashem for the Kubik's recognition in 1987. See: Grynberg, op. cit KUBLICKI, Maria
KUCHARZAK-SZEMLEI, Felicja
Irena was a teacher in Warsaw and member of a unit commanded by Major Tadeusz Bednarczyk (q.v.). Under the fictional name of Maria Checinski, she organized one of the most useful hideouts for 10-20 Jews. Maria Pawlicki helped in that work and some Jews who sheltered there contributed with money. It consisted of four rooms with a movable partition. When the apartment was detected, it became necessary to move the Jews elsewhere. Marek Edelman, the last living ZOB (Jewish Fighting Organization) commander of the Ghetto Uprising, stayed in this new location for a few days. All survived. In 1966 Irena got the statement from one of her charges, that she saved 10-20 Jews, confirmed by the Israeli Ministries of Justice and Foreign Affairs and even by the USSR consulate, stating that the shelter was militarily protected. See: Bednarczyk, Zycie Codzienne.op cit. Irena was recognized already in 1969, but Felicja only in 1992 and Jan in 1993. KUCHMISTRZ, Kazimierz
KUCHTA Jan
The Kuchta family received their medal and certificate as "Righteous" on June 9, 1999 in Wroclaw, according to the announcement of the Israeli Embassy in Poland KUCINSKI, Janina Janina lived with her parents in Warsaw. She had many contacts with Jews. Eleonora Hopfenstand escaped to her house from the "Umschlagplatz" (train station in the ghetto from which Jews were deported to Treblinka) in January 1943. Eleonora remained there for a few months, until Helena organized false documents and another, safer place for her. Eleonora's mother, Gustawa Szach, also benefited form Helena's help. In 1987 Eleonora wrote that Helena's helping hand and sympathy for Jews attracted more and more visitors from the ghetto and neighbors started to talk about it. See: Grynberg, op. cit. KUCZATY Karol
KUCZKOWSKI, Stefan (1917-) Stefan and his parents resided in the village of Lipce, in the district of Skierniewice. He was a member of the (BCH) Peasant Battalions command. In the fall of 1944 Dr. Jakub Hajman, who probably hid on the "Aryan" side of Warsaw, asked him for shelter. Stefan put him up with his colleague, where Hajman's wife, Eliza, later joined the doctor. When that apartment had to be occupied by the German soldiers, Stefan took the couple into his home. The doctor, in spite of his pronounced Semitic features, was fearless and provided medical attention to the sick and wounded. He became later director of a Hospital in Lodz. In 1987 his widow wrote that thanks to the outstanding and disinterested help of Stefan, both survived the war. See: Grynberg, op. cit. KRUPA, Wojciech A resident of Kurnatka, near Dobczyce, he is one of the four persons of whom the Jewish Congregation of Cracow declared that they "freely helped the Jews in hiding during the Nazi occupation 1940-1945". The other three were Piotr Kopera, (q.v.) Wladyslaw Piwowarczyk (q.v.) and Katarzyna Siwek (q.v.). The four saved the following Jews: Maciej and Czeslaw Jakubowicz, the Pistol family: Maria, Tadeusz, Aleksander, Adolf, Adolf's wife and two children, and Zofia; also saved by them were Helena and Krystyna Nichtberger, Stefania Graf, Aniela Parnes, Benek and Pola Kluger, 16 persons altogether. Wojciech Krupa had a house near the woods, in which some of the harbored spent some time intermittently. Maria Pistol, whose husband Szymon Schein was murdered in the Cracow ghetto, related that as a widow with a two years old son, Tadeusz, she hid in Wojciech's house from October 1944 till the end of the occupation. Her new husband, Maciej Jakubowicz, joined them in 1943. Aniela Parnes and Maciej Jakubowicz also spoke of the generosity of Wojciech Krupa. See: Bartoszewski & Lewin, op. cit. KRUPKA, Leonard
Leonard was the owner of a well-known company Autokrupka. In his villa on the Wilanowska Avenue in Warsaw he harbored many Jews; one of them, a woman, was registered as a governess and was treated as a member of the family. See: Bednarczyk, op. cit. "Zycie." KRUSINSKI, Jan
KRUSZYNSKI, Konrad
KRUSZYNSKI, Marianna (1919-) (not related) Marianna helped Hanka Rojer, a young Jewish girl who came to her after her second escape from the Warsaw ghetto. She provided her with food and placed her with an acquaintance, Mrs. Grzel. When this hideout became dangerous, Marianna led the girl to her mother living near Warsaw, in a small house in the woods. As Hanka felt threatened by the nearby stationing Germans and "Wlasowcy" (General Vlasov's soldiers, collaborating with the Germans), Marianna procured her false documents which enabled her to go to Germany to work as a Pole, where Hanka stayed till the liberation. See: Grynberg, op. cit. KRUSZYNSKI, Stanislaw (not
related)
KRYNSKI, Jan
KRYNSKI-BOGUSLAWSKI, Stefania (not related) KRYSIEWICZ, Stanislaw
Marianna Wolosik from Waniewo, district of Lapy, Bialystok prov., stated before the public prosecutor W. Monkiewicz on Nov. 21, 1968 that she lived about 300 meters from the house of the Krysiewicz couple. On Sept. 8, 1943 she saw gendarmes setting fire to all the buildings of the Krysiewicz farm and shooting anybody who tried to escape. Marianna also tried to escape fearing for her family, but the gendarmes ordered her husband to take Wladyslawa and her five children to Tykocin by horse drawn wagon. If Marianna were not willing to accept the children, the gendarmes would take them with them. Fearing that the five Krysiewicz children would also be shot, Marianna took them immediately. Wladyslawa was shot in Tykocin on the 2nd or 3rd day and neighbors found the bodies of Stanislaw and several men and women on the Krysiewicz farm. This couple was mentioned here previously, in the list of Poles who lost their life for helping the following Jews: Leyser Rozanowicz and his wife, Benjamine Rozanowicz and his wife, Shloma Jaskolka and his wife, Olsha from Sokoly and a young woman from Warsaw, eight (8) people altogether. See" Wronski & Zwolakowa, op. cit. KRYSINSKI-BIARDZKI, Antonina
KRZEMINSKI-STEINBERG, Roza KRZEMINSKI, Wladyslaw (not
related)
KRZESZOWIEC, Karol (1913-)
Karol and Janina lived at Gwozdziec, district of Kolomyja. In the second part of 1943 their old neighbors, who managed to flee from deportation to the Kolomyja ghetto, appeared at their house. They were Fryda and Mendel Bergman, David Neuberger with his wife, Stela and Zalman Preschel and Mosze Bergman. Karol built such a clever shelter in the stable, that a search in 1944 did not reveal the hidden Jews. In spite of that Janina was arrested, but incredibly, after a few weeks she was released. After the war the saved Jews left Poland for Israel, Argentina and the USA. See: Grynberg, op. cit. KRZESZOWSKI-MROZ, Jozefa
see MROZ, Maria, mother
KRZYCZKOWSKI, Zdzislaw (not
related)
KRZYSTANIAK, Kazimierz (1895--1973)
The family lived on their farm at Zasow, not far from Debica. At the beginning they procured food for five (5) persons of the Gertler family, who was in the ghetto: Ania, Leonia, Eda, Samuel and Leona. In the second part of 1942 the Gertlers asked Tadeusz to hide them at his parents' farm. The latter agreed. Tadeusz took four Gertlers from a prearranged place near the ghetto wall by horse cart and brought them home. Irena led the fifth person from the ghetto. The Krzystaniaks prepared three hideouts for greater security. All survived and maintain contacts with the Gertlers who stay in the USA. See: Grynberg, op. cit. KRZYSZTONEK, Aniela
KRZYZANOWSKI, Bronislaw (not
related)
KRZYZANOWSKI-ZALUSKI, Lidia
(not related) see ZALUSKI, Karolina, mother?
KUBICKI, Jan
Jan Kubicki, Waclaw Nowinski (q.v.) Zygmunt Okon and Elias Pietruszka were some of the "Blue" (Polish) policemen, who in spite of German pressure to execute their orders, co-operated with the underground and helped Jews instead. See: Prekerowa, op. cit. Okon and Pietruszka do not seem to have been recognized. KUBICZ-BRODOWSKI, Helena KUBICZEK, Edward Edward, a graphic artist, was famous for his masterly execution of false documents, even the most difficult ones, especially the signatures. He was one of five such men who worked at the back of what was supposedly the beauty parlor of Wanda Janowski (q.v.). In fact, this room served as the meeting place for members of the Cracow Zegota, of whom each had under his/her care several dozen Jews, to whom they distributed monthly stipends. See: Prekerowa, op. cit. KUBICZEK, Mieczyslaw
KUBIK, Czeslaw Kubik, resident of Polaniec (Tarnobrzeg prov.) had a Jewish friend from his high school years, Marek Verstaendig, and an esteemed teacher, Joel Czortkow, both from Mielec. As a commander of a Peasant Battalion (Polish underground military organization) he learned that the Jews from Mielec would be deported to an extermination camp. Marek Verstaendig appeared at Kubik's home but found there already three Jewish girls, colleagues of Tola, Kubik' sister, Giza, Mania and Roza. As the house was not a suitable place for hiding people, Marek went to Warsaw and Czeslaw placed the girls at Leon Kieszkowski's house in the country. Czeslaw went to Mielec to save his teacher. He found him already in the railway car prepared for deportation. For a hefty sum, Marek got two liters of water and managed to forward them to Joel. Unfortunately the latter refused to try to escape. After three days the train started in the direction of Wlodawa. Czeslaw drove to Wlodawa, found his teacher in the synagogue, but the latter again refused to escape and so did his daughter. Then Czeslaw led out of the Synagogue three women and three children, unknown to him, brought them to Polaniec and placed them in a secure shelter. In the meantime Marek managed to get out of the Warsaw ghetto and sent news to Kubik. He asked him to bring to Warsaw Marek's wife, Frieda, who was hiding at the house of Kubik's father-in-law in Polaniec. Once in Warsaw, the driver took Czeslaw and Frieda straight to the post of the "Blue" police. After some difficulties the police let them go, but took their belongings. When the Verstaendigs found themselves in danger again, Kubik brought them over to his house in Polaniec, placing them later with another colleague, Marian Walcerz at the nearby town of Tursk Maly. After the war Marek and Frieda went to Australia and asked Yad Vashem for the Kubik's recognition in 1987. See: Grynberg, op. cit KUBLICKI, Maria
KUCHARZAK-SZEMLEI, Felicja
Irena was a teacher in Warsaw and member of a unit commanded by Major Tadeusz Bednarczyk (q.v.). Under the fictional name of Maria Checinski, she organized one of the most useful hideouts for 10-20 Jews. Maria Pawlicki helped in that work and some Jews who sheltered there contributed with money. It consisted of four rooms with a movable partition. When the apartment was detected, it became necessary to move the Jews elsewhere. Marek Edelman, the last living ZOB (Jewish Fighting Organization) commander of the Ghetto Uprising, stayed in this new location for a few days. All survived. In 1966 Irena got the statement from one of her charges, that she saved 10-20 Jews, confirmed by the Israeli Ministries of Justice and Foreign Affairs and even by the USSR consulate, stating that the shelter was militarily protected. See: Bednarczyk, Zycie Codzienne.op cit. Irena was recognized already in 1969, but Felicja only in 1992 and Jan in 1993. KUCHMISTRZ, Kazimierz
KUCHTA Jan
The Kuchta family received their medal and certificate as "Righteous" on June 9, 1999 in Wroclaw, according to the announcement of the Israeli Embassy in Poland KUCINSKI, Janina Janina lived with her parents in Warsaw. She had many contacts with Jews. Eleonora Hopfenstand escaped to her house from the "Umschlagplatz" (train station in the ghetto from which Jews were deported to Treblinka) in January 1943. Eleonora remained there for a few months, until Helena organized false documents and another, safer place for her. Eleonora's mother, Gustawa Szach, also benefited form Helena's help. In 1987 Eleonora wrote that Helena's helping hand and sympathy for Jews attracted more and more visitors from the ghetto and neighbors started to talk about it. See: Grynberg, op. cit. KUCZATY Karol
KUCZKOWSKI, Stefan (1917-) Stefan and his parents resided in the village of Lipce, in the district of Skierniewice. He was a member of the (BCH) Peasant Battalions command. In the fall of 1944 Dr. Jakub Hajman, who probably hid on the "Aryan" side of Warsaw, asked him for shelter. Stefan put him up with his colleague, where Hajman's wife, Eliza, later joined the doctor. When that apartment had to be occupied by the German soldiers, Stefan took the couple into his home. The doctor, in spite of his pronounced Semitic features, was fearless and provided medical attention to the sick and wounded. He became later director of a Hospital in Lodz. In 1987 his widow wrote that thanks to the outstanding and disinterested help of Stefan, both survived the war. See: Grynberg, op. cit. KUCZYNSKI, Aleksander
KUCZYNSKI, Jozef (not related)
KUCZYNSKI, Wlodzimierz (not
related)
KUDELSKI, Stanislaw (1898-1989)
The Kudelskis lived in Warsaw. Stanislaw, a plumber and a member of the AK, registered persons living in some buildings (during the occupation all the people had to be registered with the registration bureau). This allowed him to produce false documents. In 1941 he came to know Elzbieta Rozenblum. Touched by her tragic conditions he took her in and later also her family: the father, her daughters Danuta and Pola, and her sons Jozef and Marian. The Kudelski couple, with their 12 years old son, often went to the country to buy food, in order not to attract the attention of their neighbors. This situation lasted until the Warsaw Uprising. Other Jews who also benefited from the help of the Kudelskis were Dr. Grabowski, Dr. Mieczyslaw Manski, Dr. Ludwika Hulewicz. Jozef Roslan, one of those saved, sent already in 1959 a beautiful testimony about the complete disinterestedness of Stanislaw and Julia. Elzbieta Lewenthal and Daniela Labendz, also from America, sent similar letters. See: Grynberg, op. cit. KUJAWSKI-BAR NATAN, Celina Celina lived in Warsaw and worked in a café. In 1943 she led out of the ghetto Alina and Elzbieta and moved with them to Anin, near Warsaw. She also helped Alina Gelbard de Tajberg, Alina Rakower and Felicja Nowensztejn. All these Jewish women survived and left for Argentina or Israel. Celina also went to Israel and married Bar Natan. See: Grynberg, op. cit. KUJAWSKI-RACZKOWSKI, Franciszka
(not related) see
KUJTKOWSKI. Maria (1907-)
The three sisters helped Jews. Maria took care of Anna Snowska, who escaped from the ghetto. Maria brought her to her sister Genowefa, where conditions seemed safer. Genowefa registered Anna as her cousin from Ostroleka. But in 1943 Anna fearing a blackmailer had to go to another shelter. During the Warsaw Uprising Genowefa visited Wilhelmina Skroczynski (q.v.) who harbored several Jews. The latter was in such straits that she did not have money even for food. To help her Genowefa took in one of Wilhelmina's guests, Janek (13). After the fall of the uprising, Genowefa, with her niece and Janek, found herself in the Pruszkow camp and later in Cracow, where an artist painter took Janek into his home. Janek is now in Israel. See: Grynberg, op. cit. KUKLO, Franciszek
KUKOLEWSKI, Jan
Jan and Zofia, owners of a twenty hectare farm at Angleniki (Vilna area), participated in the saving of several Jews. They were: Dr. Abel Gabaj, of Butrymance, his wife, their 10 month old baby Benjamin and their four years old daughter Renana, their relations Jakub Fink and his three year old son, Wili. The person who undertook the risky expedition, by horse drawn cart from Zielona Farma to Vilna, was Janina Zienowicz-Zagala, young and unprepared for such a task. Experienced help came from Maryla Abramowicz-Wolski (q.v.) and her husband Feliks Wolski (q.v.). See Bartoszewski & Lewin, op. cit. KUKULSKI-TYRYLLO, Janina see TYRYLLO, Grzegorz & Stefania, parents? KUKULSKI, Maria (not related)
KULIK, Maria (not related)
KUNZ, Adam
Lili Thau, born Chuwis was
12 years old when the war broke out. Her parents had both university
educations from Lvov University. Lili was their only child.
Her father served as an officer in the Polish Army in the medical corps,
as he was a dentist. He left Poland with that army to Hungary, but
returned home in rags, after a month to help his family. Russians
entered Poland on Sept. 17, 1939 and soon occupied Lvov. On June
22 1941 the Germans attacked the Russians and occupied the city.
Lili's father was badly beaten on the street by the new masters.
They shot also the rector, and professors of the university, writers and
other Jewish and Polish intelligentsia. The Ukrainians broke also
twice in the family home. A terrible hunger afflicted all.
Once a German officer came to Lili's father, as a patient, brought his
colleagues and thanks to that the family was not forced to enter the ghetto.
But soon they arrested him, Lili's grandmother and aunt and took them to
Belzec extermination camp. In August 1942 the Germans conducted one
of the worst "Aktion". When they entered the house her mother, a
frail person, incredibly showed aside the heavy iron safe and pushed Lili
into the chimney entrance, which was located behind it. Her
mother was arrested but managed to send her a "grips" (note from prison)
with these words: "My dearest, we probably will never see each other again.
Try to become a worthy human being". That was her testament.
Lili wanted to be taken by the Gestapo. A Jewish colleague Sonia,
encouraged her to save herself and organized for her false papers as Ludwika
Muszynski, Pole and Catholic. She counseled her to leave Lvov for some
small locality. She went to Kopyczynce. The Bartoszyn Polish
family gave her refuge and through them she got work in a wood company
working for the Germans. Its head, Poldek Papierkowski, who, or his
father, became Christian (she does not know exactly) and worked in the
underground, understood that she is Jewish and offered her his help. For
the first time in two years she admitted that she is Jewish and cried.
To the Bartoszyns came the gendarmes asking about the Jewish girl and Lili
saw her photograph with description on an electrical pole. Poldek
sent her to Brzezany, to a young couple, Adam and Nela Kunz. (The
Yad Vashem list of 1999 gives her name as Stefania). They never inquired
about her origin and treated her as a younger sister. She worked
for that company and was able to bring food from the peasants. When
the Ukrainians wanted to break in their apartment, Adam cursed in German
and they desisted. The Kunz decided to go to their aunt to Rabka,
near Cracow and decided to send Lili, called Lidka, to Nela's parents to
Sambor, with a plea to treat her as if she was their own daughter.
Lili went to Israel in 1945. She invited Nela in 1988, as her husband
was dead already. She asked Nela why they saved her. Nela replied:
"How could we not do it, you were so young, just a child?"
KUPCZAK, Maria
KURIATA, Aleksander
* KURIATA, Jozef (1884-1943)
(not related)
The family farmed at Woronowka,
district of Kostopol, Wohlinia. Jews from nearby towns and villages
came often to them for food, like others hiding in the forest: the Golubs,
the Tyntyns, the Zlotniks... In November 1941 Zygmunt and his father
Jozef went for wood to the forest. They met there a small Jewish
boy, Szyja Fleisz, whom the young couple, Zygmunt and Olga took into their
home. They had already there a four years old son, Henio and an orphan
girl. On April 13, 1943 German gendarmes irrupted into the farm.
The young couple with the children was at that moment in the forest.
The Germans made a search. They did not find the Jewish boy, but
they plundered the farm and set it on fire, killing the old Kuriata couple.
Zygmunt and Olga lost their son Henio in 1945. The local rabbi M.
Szapiro stated on Dec. 2, 1946 that Zygmunt Kuriata at the risk of his
life saved Szyja Fleisz and gave him up into the care of the Mosaic Religious
Union at Dzierzoniow, thanking him for his noble behaviour. See:
Grynberg, op. cit.
KURIATA, Mikola (not related) Resident of the village Piplo, district of Kostopol, Wohlinia, Mikolaj helped over fifty (50) Jews. Borys Slomianek, lawyer, Pejsach Kechcar, businessman, Aba Gutman, Josef Gibr, shoemaker, Zofia Kechcar, teacher, Mordko Gilber, book-keeper and Grojsfejs wrote a statement, from which here is a quotation: "During the German occupation, and especially from August 1942 till January 1944, Mikolaj Kuriata helped all fleeing Jews, with whatever he had. He harbored them in his home, prepared for them shelters in the woods, fed them, gathered for them food and garments, advised them about dangers and tried to find for them new places of refuge. He thus exposed himself and members of his family to the risk of death. He did everything possible to save every Jew who asked for his help". See: Wronski & Zwolakowa, op.cit. KURJANOWICZ, Ignacy see KURIANOWICZ,
I.
KURKOWSKI-BRONIK, Marianna (1910-) Marianna Kurkowski was a nurse to the child of a Jewish woman, Eleonora Hopfenstadt. When Eleonora had to transfer to the Warsaw ghetto, Marianna often stole into the ghetto to bring her food. In August 1943 Eleonora succeeded to dispatch her four years old daughter, Julianna, to the "Aryan" side. Marianna took her into her home. Annoyed by an inquisitive neighbor, she put her up with the "Grey Nuns" on Czerniakowska Street, as her niece, paid for her upkeep and visited her often. Both, mother and daughter survived. See: Grynberg, op. cit. KURKOWSKI, Wlodzimierz (not
related)
KUROWSKI, Jan (not related)
KUROWSKI, Stanislaw (not
related)
The world reknown immunologist, Prof. Ludwik Hirszfeld, M. D. (1884-1954) wrote in his book "Historia Jednego Zycia" (Story of one life) Warszawa, Pax, 1957, that during the war he was engaged in studies on the effects of hunger. In the hospital in which he worked, there were no more good incubators. The engineer, a major in the reserve, Stanislaw Kurowski, sent him an incubator, telling him that the professor would pay for it when he would be able to do so. (Translation of the professor's words): "In times when showing sympathy to people incarcerated behind walls was threatened with punishment, this man did not hesitate to devote a sizable sum of money in order to make my work possible. The incubator was beautiful. It was the symbol of the generosity of the Polish people. I would dearly love that Jewish philanthropic organizations returned after the war to the engineer Kurowski the cost of the incubator and thanked him for the fine gesture, which in those times time threatened with death or concentration camp". See: Bartoszewski & Lewin, op cit. KURYLOWICZ, Boguslaw J.
KURZELA, Marcela (1896-1982) Marcela lived in Warsaw. Her nephew, Tadeusz Kurzela told his aunt about the predicament of Leokadia Zoltek, who succeeded to steal from the ghetto. In 1942 Marcela took her and later her family into her apartment, consisting of one room and a kitchen: Leokadia's father, Bronislaw, her husband, Rafal and several other members of her family were later placed elsewhere. The Zolteks remained with Marcela, who organized "Kennkarten" for them. Following a denunciation in 1944, the Zolteks had to move to the country near Zyrardow, where farmed Marcela's sister. Leokadia taught there the local children and with her husband saw the end of the occupation. Lili Irena Zoltek, who also benefited from Marcela's help, wrote in 1987 that Marcela's door had always been open for them, and that she never sent away any person, without giving him or her food or lodging or finding other generous people who would offer assistance. "She deserves the highest esteem and recognition, which will keep her memory alive and testify to the love of the people she saved. Blessed be her memory". See: Grynberg, op. cit. KUSEK-PRZYBYSZEWSKI-MAJCHEROWICZ,
Albina
Wojciech and Feliksa lived in Warsaw in a building located next to the municipal tram depot. Helena Kohn was sheltered in their apartment from October 1942 and her brother, Arie Kohn from November 1943 both till the end of the war. Uniformed Germans were stationed in the depot, where the cash box of the head office was also located. Polish underground members often visited the place to pilfer the money. Naturally the Germans searched the place, including the apartments of the area. Brother and sister stayed in a closed room. Wojciech gave Arie a baptismal certificate and a tram conductor's uniform. See: Grynberg, op. cit. KUSTAl-BRONIC, Anna KUSZEWSKI, Zbigniew, engineer On June 11, 1971 Adolf Zeberko and his wife Eugenia signed at the Polish Consulate in Montreal, Canada, a written statement under oath, that the engineer Zbigniew Kuszewski saved them disinterestedly in Warsaw. He hid them from the spring of 1942 till the end of the occupation. The Zeberkos were then under the assumed names of Jozef and Maria Zlotnickis. It was positively resolved on August 22, 1993 and Zbigniew received his medal of the "Righteous" on Feb. 18, 1994 in Warsaw from the hands of the Israeli Ambassador, Gershon Zohar. Case No. 5821. His cause was started in 1984. KUSMIERZ, Helena see
CYGAN, Edward, brother
KWASNIEWSKI, Inka (Kazimiera) Stella Kreshes resided with her parents in Jaslo. At the outbreak of the war the family moved to Drohobycz. Her father, owner of a soft drink factory, was killed immediately when the Germans ordered Jews to gather for work. The widow with two small daughters (Stella, the elder one was 12, her sister 8 years old) first hid in the attic of their grandmother. One of her uncles found a hideout for one person. Stella protested. The uncle was very touched by her tears and found people, who were ready to hide them and he bought them a house. She was a Ukrainian, Anastazja Kobelczuk, called Nastka and her husband was a Pole, Piotr Kucyk, with a baby. In that house was absconded also Stella's future aunt, her father and another Jew, whom it was safer to hide also, as he knew the address. The conditions in this hideout were very bad: there were plenty of rats, insects and a minuscule kerosene lamp. The hidden paid for their upkeep but did not resent it. When the money finished they asked for help Kazimiera Kawasniewski, called Inka. She became a courrier between the two shelters, where lived separately the two uncles of Stella. The richer uncle, hid with the Woloszanskis (q.v.), helped them with the money. Inka's husband was a Polish officer killed later at Katyn by the Soviets. She came to know a Gestapo officer. She went to him and asked to save anywhere between ten to twenty Jews. He, although he had killed many Jews, did not dare to refuse. The fugitives were very hungry. Nastka befriended some German guards of the Soviet POW and got from them scraps, supposedly for pigs, which she brought them as food. Her husband visited them often and tried to lift up their spirits, which was not the case of his wife. When the Russians came, they lived for a year and a half with some friends of their uncle, as their grandmother's home was destroyed. They decided to go to Poland (Drohobycz became part of Russia) and the travel from Drohobycz to Cracow lasted one week. The uncle, who was a lawyer, went to Gliwice to search for an apartment; he found one, without any furniture, but good Silesian people gave them all that was necessary. There they invited Inka Kwasniewski, who also did not have where to live. With her came her grandmother, and her daughter Dusia with her husband Tadeusz Landoch. Stella moved to Israel in 1949. She read an article by Shewach Weiss, (1935-) also saved by two women, a Ukrainian and a Pole. He emigrated to Palestine in 1946. In 1969 he headed the Dept. of Political Sciences at the Haifa University, and from 1992 to 1996 was the head of the Knesset. Now he is the Israeli ambassador in Poland. That article made her think of getting recognition as "Righteous" for the people who had saved them. Inka Kwasniewski got it posthumously. Tadeusz died and she found only Dusia his wife. She tried to get her recognized too. As to Nastka she was deported with her husband to Siberia by the Soviets. See: Isakiewicz, op. cit. KWIADARAS, Weronika KWIATEK, Franciszek
Aleksander Allerhand came
from a family residing in Cracow. His father, who studied medicine,
was in 1914 in the Polish Army and the Russians deported him to Siberia.
His mother run a small business in which the father worked too, when he
lost his work as a clerk. In the 2nd World War his father was in
the Polish Army and became a POW in Germany for the rest of the war.
At home in Cracow remained Aleksander's mother, grandmother, twin sisters
and himself. The Germans confiscated all their belongings.
They organized the ghetto at Podburze, a poor suburb of Cracow and massed
ca 15,000 Jews where before lived 3,000 people. His mother to avoid
the ghetto, moved with them to Czyzyny, and then to Mogila, where they
stayed in 5 persons in one small room. Aleksamder who was then 13
years old got work at the airport at Rakowice. This was his first
camp; he went through 5 more. In 1942 there took place the deportation
to Belzec, where finished one of the grandmother's sons. The grandmother
who was ill went to the hospital, and the Germans killed all its patients.
This took place in Wieliczka near Cracow. His mother conducted
his two sisters to some Poles, who knowing that they are Jewish, hid them.
Aleksander and his mother tried to sneak under the wires of the ghetto
but it proved impossible. The Germans with their usual "Aktion" gathered
8,000 Jews. His mother showed to the German officer the letter of
her husband in which he wrote that according to the Geneva Convention the
families of POW are to be protected in time of war. He read it, tore
it and hit Aleksander's mother on the head. The Germans drove the
Jews into trains, one hundred in each wagon, so tightly that they hardly
could just stand. Poles brought water to the unhappy Jews.
Two boys jumped through a small window; Aleksander did the same on the
wish of his mother. She promised him to try later to jump too.
A woman did it and died but it is not certain that it was his mother.
As he was a rather Slavic type, he managed, half living, to return to Cracow
by train and went straight to their clients from before, Franciszek and
Maria Kwiatek, who helped them till the end of the war. They had
two children, a daughter Irena and a son Ryszard (Rysiek). They helped
them when the Germans liquidated their commerce. The mother, then
still living, wrapped him in the cloth from the shop, covered it with an
overcoat and sent him many times a day to the Kwiateks, thus saving some
of their belongings. Another family though, after his mother's disappearance,
denied having any of her stuff. Maria Kwiatek fed him and put him
for the night. As in this area all knew him, she sent him to Mogila
where his sisters stayed. Aleksander went to the Judenrat (Jewish
Council, chosen by the population of the community, who received their
orders from the Germans) to present his situation. He received for
himself and his two sisters a corner of one room. Every day he was
leaving the ghetto to work in the airport and her sisters remained in that
room. One day, in 1942, the Germans arrested all the workers and
put them in a work camp: this was the Plaszow camp, later a concentration
camp. The girls remained alone. But Aleksander maintained contact
with the Kwiateks, who sold little by little the stuff belonging once to
Alexander's family, which enabled him to send some parcels to his father
in Germany. Aleksander had also contacts with another upright Polish
family, Stanislaw and Salomea Kowalczyk, he a postal clerk, she a seamstress
sewing garments for his mother. They had five sons, very talented
for music. They planned to expedite the two twins to Monasterzyska,
near Stanislawow (today in Ukraine). They found a woman who brought
first one and then the other there. Soon the population there understood
that they are Jewish and sent one back to bring documents for both.
She also went to the Kowalczyks, who hid her under the bed. Mrs.
Kowalczyk told that sister that people suspect that she id Jewish.
So she left, as the false documents could not be obtained. A Mrs.
Hnidowa took her for a night or two, and then brought her bread and milk
to the open field where she stayed. She got ill with the cold and
got tuberculosis. Helena Przebindowski, Mr. Kowalczyk's sister, who
had three children, took her in. The children knew that she is Jewish
but did not utter a word. Maria Kwiatek helped giving them small
amounts of money for their upkeep. Later Helena found work for her
to deliver flowers in another suburb. In the meantime the other of
the two twins returned to Cracow, as the Polish-Ukrainian couple with which
she stayed for a year, sent her off. On the train she met a priest,
Alfons Walkiewicz, who took care of her, brought her to his friends in
Bydgoszcz, who moved to a small locality Kocmyrzowo, to Roman and Genowefa
Klosowscy, who received her as if one of the family. She slept in
a bed with Czesia, the maid. Only after the war they told to each
other the truth, that both were Jewish. Now Czesia lives in Jerusalem.
Aleksander went from one camp to another. At one he met a honest
Paul, Andrzj Partyka, who guarded the inmates. Being able to leave
the ghetto he brought from the Kwiatek couple some money for bread for
Alexander, receiving 10% for the trouble. Later Aleksander worked
in Wieliczka, even in its famous salt mines, in Gross-Rosen and found himself
on the "Schidler's list". With seven hundred others he was transferred
to the camp in Bruennlitz, in Czechoslovaquia, where he stayed till the
end of the war.
KWIATKOWSKI, Eugeniusz Eugeniusz lived at Turczyn, Wohlinia, and worked in the municipal Office. He met there Ewa Kosoki, whom he took into his apartment. He also helped Israel Stern, who had fled from the Turczyn ghetto. After the war he married Ewa and they went to Israel in 1971. He died in 1990 in Jerusalem. See: Grynberg, op. cit KWIATKOWSKI-BIERNACKI, Wanda (not related) Wanda lived with her parents and an older sister, Leokadia, in Warsaw. Before the war Wanda belonged to socialist organizations, and met several Jews. Among them she came to know in 1940 Benon J. as Eugeniusz Gdowski. On his request Wanda took care of his two sons, nine and ten years old, of whom the younger, Andrzej, she kept in her apartment, the other she placed with some of her acquaintances. The sister-in-law of Gdowski, Barbara P. who succeeded to leave the ghetto with her two years old baby girl received from Wanda documents and a shelter in the orphanage named for the priest Baudouin. Wanda's cousin, the nun Helena Michalak, seconded her. Wanda also helped Jola Perec and her husband, and the Sieroszewski family (four persons) with documents obtained from Edward Chadzynski. She went to Lvov with documents for Jews there and brought from that city one Stefan Nachs. Her family helped her all the way. See: Grynberg, op. cit. KWIATKOWSKI-SZAROWARO, Zofia
(not related) see SZAROWARO, Kazimiera, mother?
KWIECINSKI, Janina (1900-1972)
The mother and her three daughters lived in Warsaw. Before the war she was an actress and then a clerk. She helped many Jews; some she harbored in her apartment, while for others she found shelters elsewhere. Zygmunt Keller stayed in her apartment for one year (1941-1942). Helena Nowacka and her son Andrzej stayed at the Kwiecinskis until the Warsaw Uprising (1944) and after it roamed together with them until the end of the war. The Nowackis left Poland and after many quests for their saviors found Janina's daughters, calling them "their guardian angel". See: Grynberg, op. cit. KWIETNIEWSKI, Andrzej
KWOS, Janina Regina Janina worked in Warsaw,
as a midwife. Her husband Edmund was the president of the Polish
Red Cross. Both were active in the underground. In 1940 the
Gestapo arrested her husband. Janina provided food for two children
who visited her from the ghetto. She extricated Mojzesz Chmielarz
from his factory of enamel pots in Radom, where he was under arrest to
give the secret of his profession. Janina went to Radom and after
many efforts succeeded to get him out, unfortunately already gravely ill.
She took him into her apartment, nursed him in his illness for eight months,
until he died. His relative, Olga Rotenberg, wrote in 1948 that Janina
did this completely disinterestedly. Janina helped also a Jewish
girl, Lidzia, to go to Germany for work. See: Grynberg, op. cit.
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