Polish Towns, Villages, and Districts that aided Jews

This is a compilation of 161 Polish towns, villages and districts that participated in the aid and rescue of Jews in Nazi-occupied Poland. (We have added some towns located in Lithuania.) This is a preliminary list and we will be adding further sources as they are researched. We have not, at this point, added the rescue of Jews by districts within large cities. We will be researching this area.

The material was organized alphabetically by location. Some of the text was edited.

Source: Mark Paul, editor and compiler. Wartime Rescue of Jews by the Polish Catholic Clergy: The Testimony of Survivors. Polish Educational Foundation in North America, Toronto, 2009. [Downloaded from http://www.savingjews.org/docs/clergy_rescue.pdf on 10/31/2021.]

Adamy

Aided Jews.

Edward Prus, Holocaust po banderowsku: Czy Żydzi byli w UPA? (Wrocław: Nortom, 1995), p.144.

Aleksandria, Polish settlement in Volhynia

“A Polish settlement near Aleksandria in Volhynia where all the villagers knew about and assisted the sisters Cypa and Rywa Szpanberg. Andrzej Żbikowski, ed., Polacy i Żydzi pod okupacją niemiecką 1939–1945: Studia i materiały (Warsaw: Instytut Pamięci Narodowek—Komisja Ścigania Zbrodni przeciwko Narodowi Polskiemu, 2006), p.309

Bar (near Gródek Jagielloński), village of

“In Bar (near Gródek Jagielloński) villagers supplied a group of 18 Jews hiding in the neighbouring woods with food; they came into the village at night for their provisions and thanks to this help were able to hold out until the area was liberated by the Soviet Army.”

See Zdzisław Przygoda, Niezwykłe przygody w zwyczajnym życiu (Warszawa: Ypsylon, 1994), p.49.

“One of those rescued praises the “noble attitude of the entire population, without exception, of the Polish village of Bar” (near Gródek Jagielloński) who helped more than twenty people hiding in nearby forests to survive. See Berenstein and Rutkowski, Assistance to the Jews in Poland 1939–1945, pp.27, 45–46; Bartoszewski and Lewin, Righteous Among Nations, p.444.

Bełżec, village of

Irena Sznycer, a Jewish girl with Semitic features, who was hidden by a Polish woman in the village 294 of Bełżec, recalled

“I was well cared for by that lady and was not afraid of anything. Although the neighbours knew I was Jewish, this lady had no enemies so nothing [bad] could happen.”

See Anna Dąbrowska, ed., Światła w ciemności: Sprawiedliwi Wśród Narodów Świata. Relacje (Lublin: Ośrodek “Brama Grodzka–Teatr NN,” 2008), pp.56–61.

Bełżyce near Lublin

“Ryfka Goldiner, a young Jewish child, was rescued by Stanisław and Helena Wiśliński in Bełżyce near Lublin. Although the villagers were aware of her origin no one betrayed them. The local priest did not agree to formally baptize the child in the event her parents survived the war and returned for her, which they did. See Abraham Tracy, To Speak For the Silenced (Jerusalem and New York: Devora, 2007), pp.165–72.

Berecz, in Volhynia

“About twenty residents of Berecz, in Volhynia, were murdered during an action of that Polish settlement by Ukrainian police in November 1942 for assisting Jews who had escaped from the ghetto in Powursk (Powórsk). See Zajączkowski, Martyrs of Charity, Part One, Entry 482 (Stryj).

Berezne (Bereźne) near Kostopol, Volhynia,

“Jews hiding in the forests in the vicinity of Berezne (Bereźne) near Kostopol, Volhynia, received extensive assistance from Polish villagers and partisans. See Chodorska, Godni synowie naszej Ojczyzny, Part Two, pp.77–78. Wroński and Zwolakowa, Polacy Żydzi 1939–1945, pp. 324-325.

Berezołupy near Rożyszcze, Polish village

“When I arrived in the Polish village, someone told me that five kilometers from there, here was another Polish village where I might find my brother … I went there and asked the farmers about him. They told me where to go, and I found him in a forest, with a group of six other Jews. … They too had spent the winter in the forest, and at night they had brought potatoes and bread from the Polish village. … I was accepted by an older couple … My brother also got a job with another Polish farmer, about four kilometers from the village where I was. … I stayed with that farmer for almost a year, until the Russians freed our area in April 1944.”)

Denise Nevo and Mira Berger, eds., We Remember: Testimonies of Twenty-four Members of Kibbutz Megiddo who Survived the Holocaust (New York: Shengold, 1994), p.257.

Bielsko in Upper Silesia,

Joseph Dattner, from Bielsko in Upper Silesia, recalls:

“I survived, like my brothers, by pretending to be Christian. I took the name Poluk but I was well-known and most people knew I was Jewish.”

See the account of Ludwika Fiszer in the web site Women and the Holocaust (Personal Reflections—In Ghettos/Camps), Internet:

Białozoryszki, near Wilno

The neighbors of a Polish family in Białozoryszki near Wilno were aware that that family was sheltering a Jewish boy. See Wiktor Noskowski, “Czy Yaffa Eliach przeprosi Polaków?” Myśl Polska (Warsaw), July 20–27, 1997.

Blizhov

“In the area of Blizhov there were no attacks or denunciations of Jews.” E. Leoni, ed. Rokitno (Volin) ve-ha-sevivah: Sefer edut ve-zikaron (Tel Aviv: Former Residents of Rokitno in Israel, 1967), translated as Rokitno-Wolyn and Surroundings: Memorial Book and Testimony.

Bójki village, Parczew-Ostrów Lubelski area

Jewish partisan Gustaw Alef-Bolkowiak identifies the Bójki village in the Parczew-Ostrów Lubelski area as one where

“almost the entire population was actively engaged in helping fugitives from the ghettos”:

See “Marian Małowist on History and Historians,” in Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry, vol. 13 (2000): p.338.

Bokowo Wielkie near Sierpc village of

“In the small village of Bokowo Wielkie near Sierpc four Jews were rescued by diverse Polish farmers. Testimony of Henryk Prajs, January 2005, Internet:

Bolimów near Warsaw, village of

When Abram Jakub Zand, a tailor from the village of Bolimów near Warsaw,

“stole back to his village; the local peasants welcomed him back, and he was passed from house to house, working a week or two in each. … ‘If I were to thank everyone, whole villages would have to visit me.’”

Gutman and Bender, The Encyclopedia of the Righteous Among the Nations, vol. 5: Poland, Part 2, p.927.

Borszczów

“Markus Lecker, who joined up with a large group of Jews living in a forest bunker in the vicinity of Borszczów, describes their relations with a Polish settlement that provided them with food:

“The colony … consisted of six houses with six Polish families living there. … These 6 Polish families were the main support for us Jewish outcasts who lived in the bunker. We used to go to the Polish colony at night and exchange whatever we had left for food … But I must say these Polish colonists did supply us with some food … even if we didn’t have what to give them in return …”

See Abraham Morgenstern, Chortkov Remembered: The Annihilation of a Jewish Community (Dumont, New Jersey: n.p., 1990), pp.83–84, 98.

Bortnica in Volhynia

Aided Jews

Isaiah Trunk, Jewish Responses to Nazi Persecution: Collective and Individual Behavior in Extremis (New York: Stein and Day, 1979), pp.250–52

Budki, village of

“In the Polish village of Budki some Jews survived ... In the same area, in the Polish village of Okopi [sic], some tens of Jews were saved thanks to two special individuals… the Catholic priest [Rev. Ludwik Wrodarczyk] and the village teacher.

Butrimonys (Butrymańce)

“A Jewish woman from Butrimonys (Butrymańce) recalled the widespread assistance of the local Polish minority in interwar Lithuanian territories:

“Parankova [Parankowa] became known among us unfortunate Jews as a Polish hamlet where nobody would hand you over to the murderers; ‘to me Parankova is truly the Jerusalem of Lithuania’.”

See Ephraim F. Sten, 1111 Days In My Life Plus Four (Takoma Park, Maryland: Dryad Press, in association with the University of Wisconsin Press, 2006), pp.66–67.

Chrząstów, villages of near Mielec.

Everyone was aware that Jews, some of them with a Jewish appearance, were being sheltered, yet no one betrayed them.

See Mark Verstandig, I Rest My Case (Melbourne: Saga Press, 1995), pp. viii, 109–13, 130–32.

Chełm, area south of

“Klamen Wewryk describes the assistance he received from numerous peasants as he wandered from village to village in an area south of Chełm populated by decent but frightened Poles and Ukrainian Baptists. A family of five Jews hid in Teresin near Chełm:

“Everybody in the hamlet knew that this family was hiding, but nobody knew where and they didn’t want to know. Moishe told me how they were loved in that hamlet—there were decent people there.”

See Andrzej Żbikowski, U genezy Jedwabnego: Żydzi na Kresach Północno-Wschodnich II Rzeczypospolitej. Wrzesień 1939–lipiec 1941 (Warsaw: Żydowski Instytut Historyczny, 2006), p.69.

Czajków near Staszów, village of

“The villagers of Czajków near Staszów were known for the support they gave to Jews who were hiding from the Germans:

“it was something exceptional to see the humane way the villagers behaved. These simple people helped us of their own free will, and without receiving any money in return. From them we often heard some kind words, quite apart from the money, loaves of bread and boiled potatoes they gave us from time to time.”

Ellen Land-Weber, To Save a Life: Stories of Holocaust Rescue (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2000), pp.204–206, 246.

Czekanów near Sokołów Podlaski

“Alfreda and Bolesław Pietraszek sheltered several Jewish families consisting of 18 people on their farm in Czekanów near Sokołów Podlaski for a period of two years. Although they had to rely on the assistance of neighbors for food for their charges, no one betrayed them. See Alina Cała, The Image of the Jew in Polish Folk Culture (Jerusalem: The Magnes Press, The Hebrew Univeristy, 1995), pp. 209–10.

Czermna near Jasło,

“Marian Gołębiowski, who was awarded by Yad Vashem, placed Dr. Bernard Ryszard Hellreich (later Ingram) and his future wife Irena Szumska, who went by the names of Zbigniew and Irena Jakobiszyn, in the village of Czermna near Jasło, where their presence was known to all the villagers, and they enjoyed the protection of the owners and manager of a local estate.

Czortków, small town near

“Shlomo Berger, who passed as a Pole in a small town near Czortków, working for Tadeusz Duchowski, the Polish director of a company, recalled:

“I rented a room in Niźniów with one of the Polish workers. I learned from him that the man who was in charge of the office was the son of a judge who was a Jew who had converted to Catholicism. The son was probably raised as a Christian, but by German criteria he was still Jewish. The people at the office knew who he was, but nobody said anything.”

See Carole Garbuny Vogel, We Shall Not Forget! Memories of the Holocaust, Second edition (Lexington, Massachusetts: Temple Isaiah, 1995), p.280, and also p.276.

Dąbrowa Rzeczycka near Stalowa Wola

“The case of author Jerzy Kosinski and his parents, who lived openly in Dąbrowa Rzeczycka near Stalowa Wola, is another example. The Kosiński family attended church in nearby Wola Rzeczycka, obtained food from villagers in Kępa Rzeczycka, and were sheltered temporarily in Rzeczyca Okrągła. Other Jews were also assisted by the local villagers. Philip Bialowitz, as told to Joseph Bialowitz, Bunt w Sobiborze: Opowieść o przetrwaniu w Polsce okupowanej przez Niemców (Warsaw: Nasza Księgarnia, 2008), pp. 214–15.

Dąbrowica near Ulanów, village of

“A poor Jewish tailor survived the war by being passed from home to home in the village of Dąbrowica near Ulanów. See Sven Sonnenberg, A Two Stop Journey to Hell (Montreal: Polish-Jewish Heritage Foundation of Canada, 2001).

Drzewica

A teenaged boy and his mother, who lived in a damaged, abandoned house in Drzewica where he openly played with village boys, survived the war despite his Semitic appearance. Reuben Ainsztein, Jewish Resistance in Nazi-Occupied Poland (with a historical survey of the Jew as fighter and soldier in the Diaspora) (London: Paul Elek, 1974), pp.450–53

Dubeczno, villages in the vicinity of

“A teenager, Marian Finkielman wandered the villages in the vicinity of Dubeczno where he was employed as a farmhand by various farmers:

“In 1941 and 1942 many young Jews wandered from village to village, offering their services in exchange for room and board. The peasant farmers knew who they were, and for some time took advantage of their help, just as the farmer in the village of Kozaki benefited from my situation.” In Kozaki, “Luckily, during my stay there from April through July 1942, … none of the inhabitants of the village, Ukrainians or Poles, informed of Jurek’s [a Jewish boy from Warsaw who also worked as a herdsman] or my existence. It seemed that there were no informants in this village …”

See Kalmen Wawryk, To Sobibor and Back: An Eyewitness Account (Montreal: The Concordia University Chair in Canadian Jewish Studies, and The Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies, 1999), pp.66– 68, 71.

Dziurków, village of near Radom

“In the village of Dziurków near Radom, a local Jew lived openly throughout the war with two Polish families under an assumed identity furnished by the Home Army, and even took seasonal employment with the Germans, without being betrayed. See Władysław Bartoszewski and Zofia Lewinówna, eds., Ten jest z ojczyzny mojej, Second revised and expanded edition (Kraków: Znak, 1969), pp.741–42.

Dźwinogród near Buczacz

Aided Jews.

Elżbieta Isakiewicz, Harmonica: Jews Relate How Poles Saved Them from the Holocaust (Warsaw: Polska Agencja Informacyjna, 2001), pp.106–108

Gałuszowice and Chrząstów, villages of near Mielec.

See Mark Verstandig, I Rest My Case (Melbourne: Saga Press, 1995), pp. viii, 109–13, 130–32.

Głowaczowa near Dębica

“A teenage boy with a Semitic appearance, the son of a Jewish beggar woman, lived openly in the village of Głowaczowa near Dębica, with the Polish farmer who had taken him in, without being betrayed. See Bartoszewski and Lewinówna, Ten jest z ojczyzny mojej, 2nd ed., pp.709–710.

Glowno [Główne] village of

“I heard from Jews of Glowno [Główne] how peasants helped them during the whole of the winter. A Jew who went out to a village in search of food usually returned with a bag of potatoes … In many villages, the peasants showed open sympathy for the Jews. They threw bread and other food [through the barbedwire fence] into the camps … located in their neighborhood.” Emanuel Ringelblum

Głuchów near Łańcut village of

See Gutman and Bender, The Encyclopedia of the Righteous Among the Nations, vols. 4 and 5: Poland, Part 1, p.197; Part 2, p.670. Many villagers in Głuchów near Łańcut were also engaged in sheltering Jews and did so with the support of the entire community. Gutman and Bender, The Encyclopedia of the Righteous Among the Nations, vols. 4 and 5: Poland, Part 1, p.197; Part 2, p.670.

Głupianka village of

“Isadore Burstyn, as a boy of eleven, was able to survive through the friendship of people in the village of Głupianka near Otwock (outside of Warsaw), where his father was confined in the ghetto:

“In my case the entire village sheltered me even though I know there were still about 20 per cent anti-Semites among them.”

Elżbieta Rączy, Pomoc Polaków dla ludności żydowskiej na Rzeszowszczyźnie 1939–1945 (Rzeszów: Instytut Pamięci Narodowej–Komisja Ścigania Zbrodni przeciwko Narodowi Polskiemu, 2008), p.128.

Gołąbki near Warsaw

“Jerzy and Irena Krępeć, who were awarded by Yad Vashem, sheltered and otherwise assisted a number of Jews on their farm in Gołąbki near Warsaw. Their son, a 14-year-old boy at the time, recalled:

“the fact that they were hiding Jews was an open secret in the village. At times, there were 20 or 30 people living on the farm. Many of the visitors were urban Jews who spoke Polish with an accent. Their children attended underground schools that moved from house to house. ‘The neighbors knew. It would have been impossible to manage this without people finding out. But everyone knew they had to keep quiet—it was a matter of life or death.’”

In fact, many of the Krępeć’s Polish neighbours helped, “if only to provide a meal.” See Jolanta Chodorska, ed., Godni synowie naszej Ojczyzny: Świadectwa nadesłane na apel Radia Maryja (Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Sióstr Loretanek, 2002), Part Two, pp.161–62.

Gorzyce near Dąbrowa, village of

Aided Jews.

Stanisław Wroński and Maria Zwolakowa, Polacy Żydzi 1939–1945 (Warsaw: Książka i Wiedza, 1971), p. 349.

Goszcza near Miechów, village of

“In the village of Goszcza near Miechów, everyone was aware that Jews, some of them with a marked Semitic appearance, were being sheltered yet no one betrayed them. See Bartoszewski and Lewinówna, Ten jest z ojczyzny mojej, 2nd ed., pp.643–44. Similar reports come from the villages of Gałuszowice and Chrząstów near Mielec.

Grodzisk, outside Warsaw

“In Grodzisk, a small community just outside Warsaw, an elderly Jewish teacher married to a Polish Catholic woman was able to live openly with his wife throughout the war: “Everybody knew my uncle was Jewish but no one reported him to the Gestapo.” This family took in other Jews, also without incident. See Bartoszewski and Lewinówna, Ten jest z ojczyzny mojej, 2nd ed., p.640.

Grodzisko near Leżajsk

“It was well known that the young daughter of Reb Moshe of Grodzisko near Leżajsk was sheltered in an orphanage run by nuns in that village, yet no one betrayed her. See Mary Rolicka, “A Memoir of Survival in Poland,” Midstream, April 1988, pp.26–27.

Hanaczów

“Scores of Jews were helped by the Polish villagers of Hanaczów, about 40 km east of Lwów. See Marcus Lecker, I Remember: Odyssey of a Jewish Teenager in Eastern Europe (Montreal: The Concordia University Chair in Canadian Jewish Studies, and The Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies, 1999), p.56.

Helenów near Stołpce

“The Krepski family of Helenów near Stołpce sheltered Shimon Kantorowicz for two years. Even though almost the entire village was aware of this, no one betrayed them. See Anna Eilenberg-Eibeshitz, Remember! A Collection of Testimonies (Haifa: H. Eibeshitz Institute for Holocaust Studies, 1999), pp.285–306.

Hołosko Wielkie, near Lwów

Aided Jews.

Stepan Makarczuk, “Straty ludności w Galicji Wschodniej w latach II wojny światowej (1939–1945),” in Polska–Ukraina: Trudne pytania, vol. 6 (Warsaw: Światowy Związek Żołnierzy Armii Krajowej, Związek Ukraińców w Polsce, and Karta, 2000), p.240

Horochów, village near

Aided Jews.

Sonya Tesler-Gyraph, “Memories from the Nazi Period,” in Yosef Kariv, ed., Horchiv Memorial Book (Tel Aviv: Horchiv Committee in Israel, 1966), p.63

Horyhlady or Horyglady near Tłumacz

Aided Jews.

Shlomo Blond, et al., eds., Memorial Book of Tlumacz: The Life and Destruction of a Jewish Community (Tel Aviv: Tlumacz Societies in Israel and the U.S.A., 1976), column clxxiv; Alicia Appleman Jurman, Alicia: My Story (New York: Bantam, 1988), pp.149, 157.

Hucisko near Brzeżany, a Home Army base

“The Polish village of Hucisko near Brzeżany, (a Home Army base). Spontaneous assistance was much more frequent than is often assumed, as illustrated by the following example. In October 1942, after the liquidation of the ghetto in Zdołbunów, the Germans and Ukrainian militiamen combed the town to locate any signs of survivors:

“[Fritz] Germ would point to a certain house, always one occupied by Polish citizens, and the guards would crash through the door or a window, emerging with a family and the Jews whom they had hidden. The fate was the same for the rescuers as it was for the Jews. This occurred at four or five different homes.”

Hersch Altman, One the Fields of Loneliness (New York and Jerusalem: Yad Vashem and The Holocaust Survivors’ Memors Project, 2006), 139ff.

Hucisko Olejskie near Złoczów

“Testimony of Rose (Raisel) Metzak, posted at (Hucisko Olejskie near Złoczów— “It is a Polish village … The gentiles were also very kind. We were there. We slept in barns. We slept here a day, here a day, here a night.” David Ravid (Shmukler), ed., The Cieszanow Memorial book (Mahwah, New Jersey: Jacob Solomon Berger, 2006), pp.190–91 300

Huta Brodzka

Aided Jews.

Edward Prus, Holocaust po banderowsku: Czy Żydzi byli w UPA? (Wrocław: Nortom, 1995), p.167.

Huta Olejska, near Lwów

Aided Jews.

Donald L. Niewyk ed., Fresh Wounds: Early Narratives of Holocaust Survival (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1998), p.164

Huta Pieniacka, near Brody

In Huta Pieniacka (near Brody), the Polish villagers were murdered, and their homes and farmsteads burned in German actions (the primary perpetrators were the SS Galizien forces) brought on in part by long assistance provided to local Jews. Reuben Ainsztein, Jewish Resistance in Nazi-Occupied Poland (with a historical survey of the Jew as fighter and soldier in the Diaspora) (London: Paul Elek, 1974), pp.450–53. ee Zajączkowski, Martyrs of Charity, Part One, pp.154–55; Tsvi Weigler, “Two Polish Villages Razed for Extending Help to Jews,” Yad Washem Bulletin, no. 1 (April 1957): pp.19–20.

“Feiwel Auerbach, a Jew from Sasów, made the following deposition shortly after the war:

“There were 30 of us [Jews] in the forest. We hid in Huta Werchobuska and Huta Pieniacka. The Polish inhabitants of those villages helped us. The peasants were very poor and were themselves hungry, but they shared with us their last bits of food. We stayed there from July 1943 until March 1944. Thanks to them we are alive. When there were manhunts, the village reeve warned us. Once 500 Germans encircled the forest, but since they were afraid to enter deep into the forest they set their dogs on us. We were saved because our Polish friends warned us of the impending danger. Because of a denunciation [by the Ukrainian police] all of the villagers of Huta Pieniacka and Huta Werchobuska were killed. Some of them were burned alive in a barn. The village was burned to the ground.”

Na Rubieży, no. 12 (1995): pp.7–20 (Huta Pieniacka); Na Rubieży, no. 54 (2001): pp.18–29.

Huta Sopaczewska near Sarny

Aided Jews.

Denise Nevo and Mira Berger, eds., We Remember: Testimonies of Twenty-four Members of Kibbutz Megiddo who Survived the Holocaust (New York: Shengold, 1994), p.209.

Huta Stepańskain in Volhynia

“Where both the Polish underground and Polish villagers were extremely helpful to Jews who hid in the forest. Yitzhak Ganuz, ed., Our Town Stepan, Internet: translation of Ayaratenu Stepan (Tel Aviv: Stepan Society, 1977), p.287; Daniel Kac, Koncert grany żywym (Warsaw: Tu, 1998), p.183.

Huta Werchobuska, near Złoczów

“In Huta Werchobuska or Werchobudzka (near Złoczów) and Huta Pieniacka (near Brody), the Polish villagers were simply annihilated, and their homes and farmsteads burned down in German pacifications (the primary perpetrators were the SS Galizien forces) brought on in part by longstanding assistance provided to Jews. Reuben Ainsztein, Jewish Resistance in Nazi-Occupied Poland (with a historical survey of the Jew as fighter and soldier in the Diaspora) (London: Paul Elek, 1974), pp.450–53.

Jabłoń near Parczew

“Marian Małowist, who survived the war in the village of Jabłoń near Parczew, said:

“The family with whom I lived knew everything about me—in fact, two families knew. After the war it came out that more families knew, and also the chief of the navy-blue police, a Pole, a very decent person. Juliusz Kleiner was hiding in the neighbourhood; in the next village there was a Jewess; in that area many were hiding.”

See Bertha Ferderber-Salz, And the Sun Kept Shining… (New York: Holocaust Library, 1980), p.199.

Janówka, near Tarnopol

Irene Gut Opdyke, a Polish rescuer recalled:

“There was a priest in Janówka [near Tarnopol]. He knew about the Jews’ escape—many of the Polish people knew about it. … Many people brought food and other things—not right to the forest, but to the edge—from the village. The priest could not say directly ‘help the Jews,’ but he would say in church, ‘not one of you should take the blood of your brother.’ … During the next couple of weeks there were posters on every street corner saying, ‘This is a Jew-free town, and if any one should help an escaped Jew, the sentence is death.’”

See Irene Gut Opdyke with Jeffrey M. Elliot, Into the Flames: The Life Story of a Righteous Gentile (San Bernardino, California: The Borgo Press, 1992), p.139.

The warnings soon became a horifing scene when the town square in Tarnopol

“was choked with a milling, bewildered crowd. SS men abruptly pushed me into the middle of the square, just as they had the others, with a command not to leave. A scaffold had been erected in the center of the square, and what appeared to be two separate families were slowly escorted through the crowd to the block. A Polish couple, holding two small children, were brought up first, followed by a Jewish couple with one child, all three wearing the yellow Star of David. Both groups were lined up in front of dangling nooses. They were going to hang the children as well! Why didn’t somebody do something? What could be done? Finally, their ‘crimes’ were announced—the Polish family had been caught harboring the Jewish family! Thus, we were forced to witness the punishment for helping or befriending a Jew.”

See Carol Rittner and Sondra Myers, eds., The Courage to Care: Rescuers of Jews During the Holocaust (New York: New York University Press, 1986), pp.47–48.

Jedlanka village

“Jewish partisan Gustaw Alef-Bolkowiak identifies the Jedlanka village in the Parczew-Ostrów Lubelski area as one where:

“almost the entire population was actively engaged in helping fugitives from the ghettos”:

See “Marian Małowist on History and Historians,” in Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry, vol. 13 (2000): p.338.

Jelna, village of

Aided Jews.

Stanisław Wroński and Maria Zwolakowa, Polacy Żydzi 1939–1945 (Warsaw: Książka i Wiedza, 1971), p. 353.

Jezierna-near Zborów

Maria Fischer Zahn, who hid near Zborów, stated: 298

“Everybody in the neighborhood knew we were hiding, but nobody told the Germans. The people in Jezierna were good people. They didn’t give us away. They helped us with food. We couldn’t have survived without them.”

See Maria Hochberg-Mariańska and Noe Grüss, eds., The Children Accuse (London: Vallentine Mitchell, 1996), p.206.

Kajetanówka, village of

“Tema Rotman-Weinstock from the Lublin area presents a similar story. Dressed as a peasant, during the last stage of the war she roamed the familiar countryside moving from employer to employer, most of whom were hungry themselves and found it hard to feed her. She met a cousin who lived with his wife in a bunker in the forest, but he refused to let her join them. Once when she was on the verge of collapse, kind peasants took her into their home. After a month, afraid to keep her, they directed her to a woman who lived on a farm with her daughter in the village of Kajetanówka. She remained there until the liberation, even though the word had spread that she was Jewish.

“Fortunately, no bad consequences followed because she found a powerful protector in the local priest. He baptized Tema and defended her … ‘The priest stood up for me, arguing that conversion was a wonderful Christian deed.’”

See Nechama Tec, Resilience and Courage: Women, Men, and the Holocaust (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2003). Eva

Kałuszyn, village of

“Yitzhak Kuniak from Kałuszyn hid among peasants for whom he was sewing secretly. He moved about in a few villages where he was fed and sheltered. See Krystian Brodacki, “Musimy ich uszanować!” Tygodnik Solidarność, December 17, 2004.

See Layb Rochman, “With Kuniak in Hiding,” in A. Shamri and Sh. Soroka, eds., Sefer Kaluszyn: Geheylikt der khorev gevorener kehile (Tel Aviv: Former Residents of Kaluszyn in Israel, 1961), 437ff., translated as The Memorial Book of Kaluszyn,

Kańczuga, villages near

“Faiga Rosenbluth, a penniless teenage Jewish girl from Kańczuga, roamed the countryside moving from one village to the next for some two years; she helped out by very many peasants and was not betrayed, even though she was readily recognized as a Jew. James Park Sloan, Jerzy Kosinski: A Biography (New York: Dutton/Penguin, 1996), pp.7–54. 289

Karaczun near Kostopol

Aided Jews.

Karaczun near Kostopol, where both the Polish underground and Polish villagers were extremely helpful to Jews who hid in the forest), 287 (Huta Stepańska); Stanisław Siekierski, ed., Żyli wśród nas…: Wspomnienia Polaków i Żydów nadesłane na konkurs pamięci polsko-żydowskiej o nagrodę imienia Dawida Ben Guriona (Płońsk: Zarząd Miasta Płońsk, Miejskie Centrum Kultury w Płońsku, and Towarzystwo Miłośników Ziemi Płońskiej, 2001), p.121 (Karaczun near Kostpol) Yitzhak Ganuz, ed., Our Town Stepan, Internet: , translation of Ayaratenu Stepan (Tel Aviv: Stepan Society, 1977), pp.213ff.

Kępa Rzeczycka, village of

Kielce Voivodship

An eyewitness writes:

“In Kielce Voivodship I know of cases where an entire village knew that a Jew or a Jewess were hiding 291 out, disguised in peasant clothes, and no one betrayed them even though they were poor Jews who not only could not pay for their silence but had to be fed, clothed and housed.”

See Frank Morgens, Years at the Edge of Existence: War Memoirs, 1939–1945 (Lanham, Maryland: University Press of America, 1996), pp.97, 99.

Klimkówka, village of

Aided Jews.

Stanisław Wroński and Maria Zwolakowa, Polacy Żydzi 1939–1945 (Warsaw: Książka i Wiedza, 1971), p. 353.

Kolonia Dworska near Piszczac,

Aided Jews.

See Roman Soszyński, Piszczac: Miasto ongiś królewskie (N.p., n.p., 1993), p.95 (Kolonia Dworska near Piszczac), p.97 (Piszczac), See alsoDiane Armstrong, Mosaic: A Chronicle of Five Generations (Milsons Point, New South Wales: Random House, 1998), pp.576–81.

Konińsk near Sarny

Aided Jews

Wroński and Zwolakowa, Polacy Żydzi 1939–1945, p.263, Asher Tarmon, ed., Memorial Book: The Jewish Communities of Manyevitz, Horodok, Lishnivka, Troyanuvka, Povursk, and Kolki (Wolyn Region) [Tel-Aviv: Organization of Survivors of Manyevitz, Horodok, Lishnivka, Troyanuvka, Povursk, Kolki and Surroundings Living in Israel and Overseas, 2004], pp.39–40, 67– 68, 74, 85 (Konińsk near Sarny)

Korzec, Volhynia

“Polish villages in the vicinity of Korzec, Volhynia, helped Jews hiding in the forests. See the account of Seweryn Dobroszklanka, Jewish Historical Institute (Warsaw) archive, record group 301, testimony 1222; Wroński and Zwolakowa, Polacy Żydzi 1939–1945, pp.324–25.

Korzeniówka near Grójec

Aided Jews.

See Gedaliah Shaiak, ed., Lowicz, A Town in Mazovia: Memorial Book (Tel Aviv: Lowitcher Landsmanshaften in Melbourne and Sydney, Australia, 1966), pp.xvi–xvii. Hanna Mesz, along with her mother, spent the period September 1944 to February 1945 in the village of Korzeniówka near Grójec, working for various peasants who knew they were Jews. See Gedaliah Shaiak, ed., Lowicz, A Town in Mazovia: Memorial Book (Tel Aviv: Lowitcher Landsmanshaften in Melbourne and Sydney, Australia, 1966), pp.xvi–xvii.

Kosów near Kołomyja

Regarding conditions in Kosów near Kołomyja, Bronia Beker states:

“My aunt didn’t have to hide. She was so well loved and respected by all because she always helped the poorest of the poor, that while she was walking around freely, living among the ruins nobody gave her away. … The people in the town also made sure she had food at all times.” See her account in “Women of Valor: Partisans and Resistance Fighters,” See Rima Dulkinienė and Kerry Keys, eds., Su adata širdyje: Getų ir koncentracijos stovyklų kalinių atsiminimai;

With a Needle in the Heart: Memoirs of Former Prisoners of Ghettos and Concentraion Camps (Vilnius: Garnelis and Genocide and Resistance Research Centre of Lithuania, 2003), pp.319–20.

Kretówka, in Tarnopol voivodship

“Assistance by Polish villagers in Eastern Galicia and in Volhynia was also plentiful. Jewish historians Tatiana Berenstein and Adam Rutkowski list several examples of help extended by entire rural communities. In Kretówka, in Tarnopol voivodship, “several dozen Jews were able to move about almost freely because the whole village shielded them from the Nazis.” See Zdzisław Przygoda, Niezwykłe przygody w zwyczajnym życiu (Warszawa: Ypsylon, 1994), p.49.

Króle Duże, village of

“Rywka Chus and her husband, a grain merchant from Ostrów Mazowiecka, were protected by the villagers of Króle Duże who respected and helped them survive the war. See Luba Wrobel Goldberg, A Sparkle of Hope: An Autobiography (Melbourne: n.p., 1998), p.63.

Kubra near Radziłów, villagers of

“The villagers of Kubra near Radziłów (in the Białystok District) did not betray the family of Helena Chilewicz when the Gestapo came looking for them in July 1942, and she and her mother survived the war penniless moving from village to village. See Marian Finkielman, Out of the Ghetto: A Young Jewish Orphan Boy’s Struggle for Survival (Montreal: The Concordia University Chair in Canadian Jewish Studies and The Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies, 2000), pp.34–36.

Kurdybań Warkowicki, in Volhynia

Aided Jews.

Isaiah Trunk, Jewish Responses to Nazi Persecution: Collective and Individual Behavior in Extremis (New York: Stein and Day, 1979), pp.250–52

Landowa (Lendowo near Brańsk), village of

Survivors from Sokoły recall:

“The village Landowa [Lendowo near Brańsk] had a good name among the Jews who were hiding in the area around Sokoly, 293 and they regarded it as a paradise. Many Jews began to stream there. … there wasn’t a house in Landowa where there weren’t three or four Jews.” (Liba Goldberg-Warobel) “Finally, we came to the village of Landowa [Lendowo]. … we knocked on the door of a house, not far from the forest. An old farmwoman brought us into the house. … I remained alone with the old farmwoman. … Over time, it became known to all of them that I was not related to her family and that I didn’t even know Polish. The farmwoman did not hesitate to admit that she had adopted me, a Jewish girl, as her daughter. … The farmwoman began to teach me Christian prayers, and on Sundays I went with her to church. … The goyim, residents of the village who knew I was Jewish, did not hand me over to the Germans.” (Tzipora Tabak-Burstein)

See Dariusz Libionka, “Polska ludność chrześcijańska wobec eksterminacji Żydów—dystrykt lubelski,” in Dariusz Libionka, ed., Akcja Reinhardt: Zagłada Żydów w Generalnym Gubernatorstwie (Warsaw: Instytut Pamięci Narodowej–Komisja Ścigania Zbrodni przeciwko Narodowi Polskiemu, 2004), p.325.

Internet: survivor witnesses:

“This village Lendowo became a refuge for a lot of wandering Jews, they called this village the Garden of Eden. … here they opened wide the doors without having any fear. Soon there were Jews in every house.”

Łaskarzew

Jews were aided near Łaskarzew is documented in Małgorzata Niezabitowska, Remnants: The Last Jews of Poland (New York: Friendly Press, 1986), pp.118–124: See also Wiktoria Śliwowska, ed., The Last Eyewitnesses: Children of the Holocaust Speak (Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University Press, 1998), pp.120–23.

Leńce, village of near Białystok.

“Several Jews were hidden in a forest bunker near the village of Leńce near Białystok. The villagers in the area knew about these Jews, but no one denounced them. See Al Sokol, “Holocaust theme underscores work of artist,” Toronto Star, November 7, 1996.

Libratova, village of

Aided Jews.

Stanisław Wroński and Maria Zwolakowa, Polacy Żydzi 1939–1945 (Warsaw: Książka i Wiedza, 1971), p. 349.

Łowicz, several villages near

Several villages near Łowicz who aided Jews are recalled by Joseph Szmekura. See Władysław Bartoszewski and Zofia Lewin, eds., Righteous Among Nations: How Poles Helped the Jews, 1939–1945 (London: Earlscourt Publications, 1969), p.361.

Lublin, village near

A Jewish woman who survived in a village near Lublin testified

“the entire village rescued me. They all wanted me to survive. And when the Germans were routed, I left the village and shall never return there.” When asked why she didn’t want to see the people who saved her life, she replied: “Because I would be beholden to the entire village. So I left and won’t return.”

Mariusz Kamieniecki, “Ratowali Żydów przed zagładą,” Nasz Dziennik, November 24, 2005. and 5: Poland, Part 1, p.95 (villages near Lublin), p.317 (villages near Lublin), p.326 (villages near Lublin), pp.343–44

Lwów, about 12 miles outside of

“About 12 miles outside Lwów, Abraham Trasawucki, dressed only in rags, jumped from a death train headed for Bełżec in the middle of winter. Although he was easily identifiable as a Jew on the run, the villagers did not betray him, rather he was offered temporary shelter, food, clothing and money at two random Polish farmsteads, and given rides in the wagons of other Poles. He was sold a train ticket by an official, allowed on the train by a guard who checked his ticket, and not denounced by the passengers, even though everyone recognized him as a Jew. See Zylberklang, Z Żółkiewki do Erec Israel, pp.181–84.

Majdan Niepryski

“In Majdan Niepryski, several families sheltered a young Jewish girl thrown from a train headed for Bełżec. See Bartoszewski and Lewinówna, Ten jest z ojczyzny mojej, 2nd ed., pp.721–22.

Makoszka village, Parczew-Ostrów Lubelski area

“Jewish partisan Gustaw Alef-Bolkowiak identifies the Makoszka village in the Parczew-Ostrów Lubelski area as one where:

“almost the entire population was actively engaged in helping fugitives from the ghettos”:

See “Marian Małowist on History and Historians,” in Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry, vol. 13 (2000): p.338.

Matejkany

“Estera Bielicka was taken in by the Myślicki family in Matejkany where she lived openly. Although the villagers knew she was Jewish, no one betrayed her. See Irene Tomaszewski and Tecia Werbowski, Zegota: The Rescue of Jews in Wartime Poland (Montreal: Price-Patterson, 1994), pp.117– 18; and the revised edition Żegota: The Council for Aid to Jews in Occupied Poland, 1942–1945 (Montreal: Price-Paterson, 1999), p.110.

Matuszówka near Buczacz

Aided Jews.

Etunia Bauer Katz, Our Tomorrows Never Came (New York: Fordham University Press, 2000), pp.98–99

Mchy near Krasnystaw

Aided Jews.

See Thomas Toivi Blatt, From the Ashes of Sobibor: A Story of Survival (Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University Press, 1997), pp.207ff.

Mętów near Głusk, outside of Lublin

More than a dozen villagers in Mętów near Głusk, outside of Lublin, sheltered Jews. See Zajączkowski, Martyrs of Charity, Part One, pp.123–24, 228.

Międzyrzec near Równe, Volhynia

Aided Jews.

Account of Mordechai Tennenbaum in Israel Zinman, ed., Memorial for Greater Mezirich: In Construction and Destruction (Haifa: Organization of Meziritsh Association, 1999).

Mielec

“A Jewish lawyer was able to continue his practice in Mielec, in defiance of a Nazi ban, with the collusion of the town’s entire legal profession, until he was denounced by a fellow Jew, first to the Gestapo and then to the Justice Department. See Vincent A. Lapomarda, The Jesuits and the Third Reich (Lewiston/Queenston and Lampeter: The Edwin Mellen Press, 1989), p.130.

Mińsk Mazowiecki, village near

“Franciszka Aronson, from a village near Mińsk Mazowiecki, wandered about many villages, including villages where she was known, before she was taken in by nuns at a convent in Ignaców where several Jews and a Gypsy woman were sheltered. See Bartoszewski and Lewinówna, Ten jest z ojczyzny mojej, 2 nd ed., pp.572–73.

Mizhantz (Mieżańce), hamlet of

“Meir Stoler, who escaped the German massacre of Jews in Raduń on May 10, 1942, managed to reach the tiny Polish hamlet of Mizhantz (Mieżańce), where the villagers took him in and gave him food. There are other examples of aid to Jews by Mizhantz. See Leon Kahn (as told to Marjorie Morris), No Time To Mourn: A True Story of a Jewish Partisan Fighter (Vancouver: Laurelton Press, 1978), pp.55, 124. See also Martin Gilbert, The Righteous: The Unsung Heroes of the Holocaust (Toronto: Key Porter, 2003), p.19.

Mulawicze near Bielsk Podlaski, village of

“A 9-year-old Jewish boy by the name of Wintluk (Wintel), who 290 had lost his mother and three fingers when shot at by Germans while escaping, was taken in by a poor Polish family in Mulawicze near Bielsk Podlaski and then cared for and protected by the entire village who took pity on him:

“The entire village, which was more aware of the danger, took responsibility for his survival. The village administrator gave warning of visits by the Germans, who were stationed in the village school. Thanks to this collective effort, the boy survived the war.”

See the account of B. Idasiak, “Jedwabne: Dlaczego kłamstwa?,” Nasz Dziennik, February 26, 2001.

Netreba and Okopy near Kisorycze,

“in the village of Netrebe [sic], tens of Jews from Rokitno and the area found shelter. They were helped by the villagers who not only did not harm them but also hid them near the village during the day. At night they took them to their homes. Many Jews survived there until the liberation by the Red Army. In the Polish village of Budki some Jews survived ... In the same area, in the Polish village of Okopi [sic], some tens of Jews were saved thanks to two special individuals… the Catholic priest [Rev. Ludwik Wrodarczyk] and the village teacher. The priest used to give sermons to his followers telling them not to be involved in the extermination of Jews. He asked them to help the Jews to survive … The village teacher also had compassion for the unfortunate Jews. Their suffering touched her heart and she helped in any way possible. She was killed by a Ukrainian gang 299 on the way from the village of Rokitno where she was helping a Jewish family. The priest was burned alive in his church.”),

Niedźwiada near Opole Lubleskie, the village of

“Jewish partisan Gustaw Alef-Bolkowiak identifies the village of Niedźwiada near Opole Lubleskie, the foresters sheltered several Jewish families with the knowledge of the entire village. See “Marian Małowist on History and Historians,” in Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry, vol. 13 (2000), Stanisław Wroński and Maria Zwolakowa, Polacy Żydzi 1939–1945 (Warsaw: Książka i Wiedza, 1971), p.269

Nowosiółka Koropiecka near Buczacz

AidedJews.

Yehuda Bauer, “Buczacz and Krzemieniec: The Story of Two Towns During the Holocaust,” in Yad Vashem Studies, vol. 33 (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, The Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Authority, 2005), p.298

Obórki

Aided Jews

Wroński and Zwolakowa, Polacy Żydzi 1939–1945, pp. 361, 389.

Okopy near Kisorycze,

“In the same area, in the Polish village of Okopi [sic], some tens of Jews were saved thanks to two special individuals… the Catholic priest [Rev. Ludwik Wrodarczyk] and the village teacher. The priest used to give sermons to his followers telling them not to be involved in the extermination of Jews. He asked them to help the Jews to survive … The village teacher also had compassion for the unfortunate Jews. Their suffering touched her heart and she helped in any way possible. She was killed by a Ukrainian gang 299 on the way from the village of Rokitno where she was helping a Jewish family. The priest was burned alive in his church.”),

E. Leoni, ed. Rokitno (Volin) ve-ha-sevivah: Sefer edut ve-zikaron (Tel Aviv: Former Residents of Rokitno in Israel, 1967), translated as Rokitno-Wolyn and Surroundings: Memorial Book and Testimony, Yehuda Bauer, “Sarny and Rokitno in the Holocaust: A Case Study of Two Townships in Wolyn (Volhynia),” Steven T. Katz, ed., The Shtetl: New Evaluations (New York and London: New York University Press, 2007), 273 (Okopy, Budki Borowskie, Dołhań, and Netreba)

Olsztyn, village of near Częstochowa

“In the village of Olsztyn near Częstochowa, four Jewish families passed as Polish Christians with the collusion of the villagers. See Tadeusz Kozłowski, “Spotkanie z żydowskim kolegą po 50 latach,” Gazeta (Toronto), May 12–14, 1995.

Osiny, village of

In the village of Osiny,

“the peasants arranged among themselves that each would hide a Jewish girl for a certain period so that ‘everyone would be guilty, and no one could inform.’”

Zbigniew Pakula, The Jews of Poznań (London and Portland, Oregon: Vallentine Mitchell, 2003), p.51.

Ostra Mogiła near Skałat:

“The people in this village were friendly to the Jews and provided them with whatever they could. … Twenty-nine Jews survived in Ostra-Mogila.”) Abraham Weissbord, Death of a Shtetl, Internet: translation of Es shtarbt a shtetl: Megiles Skalat (Munich: Central Historical Commission of the Central Committee of Liberated Jews in the U.S. Zone of Germany, 1948), p.65

Otwok, villages near

Aided Jews

Gutman and Bender, The Encyclopedia of the Righteous Among the Nations, vols. 4 and 5: Poland, Part 1, pp. 927

Ozorków

Hercek Cedrowski, Tojwje Drajhorm and Jankiel Borkowski wrote in 1947:

“The Jews of Ozorków maintained contact with the Poles. The Polish population did not help the Germans in the liquidation of the Jews. They traded with the Jews and brought food to the ghetto. The Jews were afraid of speaking with Poles, and Poles were afraid of helping Jews, but there were no denunciations of Jews.”

Philip Friedman, Their Brothers’ Keepers (New York: Holocaust Library, 1978), p.116.

“Dr. Zofia Szymańska, who was sheltered by the Grey Ursulines in Ożarów, received material care and an abundance of spiritual comfort from many nuns and priests, without any effort on their part to convert her. News of her stay was widely known to the villagers, but no one betrayed her, not even when a German military unit was, at one point, quartered in the convent. Her 10-year-old niece, who had a very Semitic appearance, was sheltered by the Sisters of the Immaculate Virgin Mary in Szymanów, along with more than a dozen Jewish girls. All of the nuns were aware that their young charges were Jews, as were the lay staff, the parents of non-Jewish children and many villagers. None of the Christian parents removed their children from the school despite the potential danger, and in fact many of them contributed to the upkeep of the Jewish children. Dr. Szymańska wrote:

“The children were under the protection of the entire convent and village. Not one traitor was to be found among them.”

See Ewa Kurek, Dzieci żydowskie w klasztorach: Udział żeńskich zgromadzeń zakonnych w akcji ratowania dzieci żydowskich w Polsce a latach 1939–1945 (Lublin: Clio, 2001), p.116.

Pańska Dolina near Dubno in Volhynia

Aided Jews

Wroński and Zwolakowa, Polacy Żydzi 1939–1945, p.263 (Konińsk near Sarny), p.265; Isaiah Trunk, Jewish Responses to Nazi Persecution: Collective and Individual Behavior in Extremis (New York: Stein and Day, 1979), pp.250–52.

Parczew-Ostrów Lubelski area

“Jewish partisan Gustaw Alef-Bolkowiak identifies the following villages in the Parczew-Ostrów Lubelski area as ones where

“almost the entire population was actively engaged in helping fugitives from the ghettos”:

“Rudka, Jedlanka, Makoszka, Tyśmienica and Bójki. He also states that in the village of Niedźwiada near Opole Lubleskie, the foresters sheltered several Jewish families with the knowledge of the entire village.

See “Marian Małowist on History and Historians,” in Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry, vol. 13 (2000): p.338. See Isaac Kowalski, Anthology on Armed Jewish Resistance, 1939–1945, vol. 3 (Brooklyn, New York: Jewish Combatants Publishers House, 1986), p.308 (two villages near Parczew)

Piszczac near Biała Podlaska

Aided Jews.

See Diane Armstrong, Mosaic: A Chronicle of Five Generations (Milsons Point, New South Wales: Random House, 1998), pp.576–81

Podwierzbie near Magnuszew

“Henryk Prajs survived the war passing as a Pole in the village of Podwierzbie near Magnuszew where the fact that he was Jewish was widely known, with the protection of the head of the village. Berenstein and Rutkowski, Assistance to the Jews in Poland, 1939–1945, p.27; Krzysztof Czubaszek, Żydzi z Łukowa i okolic (Warsaw: Danmar, 2008), p.252.

Poniatowa

“Ludwika Fiszer was one of three women who escaped naked from an execution pit where Jews from the Poniatowa labour camp were taken by Germans and their Ukrainian henchmen. Roaming from village to village, despite their dishevelled appearances, they received various forms of assistance, even though the peasants were clearly terrified of Ukrainian retaliation. Although most peasants were reluctant to keep them for any length of time, no one betrayed them, and several weeks later they met up with a Polish woman who took them to Warsaw. Irene Tomaszewski and Tecia Werbowski, Żegota: The Council for Aid to Jews in Occupied Poland, 1942–1945 (Montreal: Price-Patterson, 1999), pp.131–32.

Powiłańce, village of, Wilno region

“A Jew from the Wilno region testified to the assistance he and his father received from the villagers of Powiłańce on several occasions:

“The village was composed of some forty houses strung out side by side on a single street. Each house was inhabited by Poles, but my father knew many of them and had done favours for them in the past. At each house, we knocked and explained our plight. Only a few turned us down … Very soon our wagon was filled with butter and eggs and flour and fresh vegetables, and my father and I wept at their kindness and at the realization that we had been reduced to beggars. The people of Powielancy were so generous … Now we sent out a food gathering group each evening to beg in the neighbouring villages where most of the people felt kindly toward us. One of the villages in this area was Powielancy whose people had filled our cart with food when father and I had come from the Radun [Raduń] ghetto. They helped us again most willingly for they sympathized with our plight.”

See Pola Wawer, Poza gettem i obozem (Warsaw: Volumen, 1993), p.71.

Poznań, in Western Poland

“In Poznań, in Western Poland, a stronghold of the National Democratic (Endek) Party, relations with the Jews imprisoned in the Stadion labour camp in 1941–1943 were amicable. Samuel Bronowski, who appeared as a witness in the trial of Arthur Greiser, Gauleiter of the socalled Wartheland, made the following deposition before the Supreme National Tribunal:

“The only help possible was aid in kind by supplying food. In the camp we received 200 grams of bread and one litre of turnip soup per day. Obviously, those who had no help from outside were bound to die within a short time. A committee was formed in Poznań for the collection of food. This was no easy matter since everything was rationed under the food coupon system. Many a time, we received bigger parcels which reached us secretly at the construction sites where we worked and met the Polish people. Parcels were also thrown into the camp by night. It is not easy to describe the attitude of the civilian population outside the camp—to say that it was friendly, would be too little. There was marked compassion. There has not been a single case in Poznań of a Pole who would betray a Jew escaping the camp. There has not been a single case on the construction site of a foreman striking a Jew without immediate reaction on the part of the Polish co-workers. Those Jews who survived did so only thanks to the help from the Polish population of Poznań.”

Yad Vashem, case no. 5844.

“Maks Moszkowicz, another inmate of the Stadion labour camp, stated in his 302 deposition for Yad Vashem:

“I wish to stress that the behaviour of the Polish population in Poznań towards us, the Jewish prisoners, was very friendly and when our labour battalions were coming out of the camp, people— mostly women—waited for us in the street in order to throw us food in spite of severe interdictions and punishment.”

Przebraże in Volhynia

Aided Jews

Wroński and Zwolakowa, Polacy Żydzi 1939–1945, p. 392; Daniel Kac, Koncert grany żywym (Warsaw: Tu, 1998), p.183

Przydonica village of

Aided Jews.

Stanisław Wroński and Maria Zwolakowa, Polacy Żydzi 1939–1945 (Warsaw: Książka i Wiedza, 1971), p. 353.

Przemyśl

An entire street in the city of Przemyśl was aware of a Jewish hideout. Stanisław Wroński and Maria Zwolakowa, Polacy Żydzi 1939–1945 (Warsaw: Książka i Wiedza, 1971) p.322

Radzymin, villages near

Aided Jews

Gutman and Bender, The Encyclopedia of the Righteous Among the Nations, vols. 4 and 5: Poland, Part 1, pp. 692, 927

Rakowiec near Lwów

Aided Jews.

Rakszawa, village of

Aided Jews.

Stanisław Wroński and Maria Zwolakowa, Polacy Żydzi 1939–1945 (Warsaw: Książka i Wiedza, 1971), p. 353.

Rokitno

“tens of Jews from Rokitno and the area found shelter. They were helped by the villagers who not only did not harm them but also hid them near the village during the day. At night they took them to their homes. Many Jews survived there until the liberation by the Red Army.

Różki near Żółkiewka

“The Wajc family, consisting of Mendel and Ryfka and their two young sons, Jankiel and Zygmunt, survived in the village of Różki near Żółkiewka, where they were known to the villagers. Goldberg (Shie Chehever), The Undefeated (Tel Aviv: H. Leivick Publishing House, 1985), pp.166–67.

Rudka, Parczew-Ostrów Lubelski area

“Jewish partisan Gustaw Alef-Bolkowiak identifies the Rudka village in the Parczew-Ostrów Lubelski area as ones where

“almost the entire population was actively engaged in helping fugitives from the ghettos”:

See “Marian Małowist on History and Historians,” in Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry, vol. 13 (2000): p.338.

Runów near Grójec

Aided Jews.

Stanisław Wroński and Maria Zwolakowa, Polacy Żydzi 1939–1945 (Warsaw: Książka i Wiedza, 1971), p. 343

Rzeczyca Okrągła, village of

Rzeszów area

Menachem Superman, who was survived in the Rzeszów area, wrote:

“the entire village knew that I was Jewish, but [my rescuer] always said to me that I shouldn’t be afraid, because no one will hand me over to the Germans.”

See Michał Grynberg and Maria Kotowska, comp. and eds., Życie i zagłada Żydów polskich 1939–1945: Relacje świadków (Warsaw: Oficyna Naukowa, 2003), p.488.

Sandomierz

“A Jewish boy of seven or eight years named Abraham, who tended geese for a farmer near Sandomierz, was known to the peasants as “Żydek” (little Jew). See Chaim Zylberklang, Z Żółkiewki do Erec Israel: Przez Kotłas, Buzułuk, Ural, Polskę, Niemcy i Francję, Second revised and expanded edition (Lublin: Akko, 2004), 169, pp.171–72.

“The Idasiak family took in a teenaged Jewish boy by the name of Dawid, whom they sheltered for almost two years. The neighbours were fully aware that he was Jewish and also helped him. He herded cows and played with the village children. Eva Feldenkreiz-Grinbal, ed., Eth Ezkera—Whenever I Remember: Memorial Book of the Jewish Community in Tzoymir (Sandomierz) (Tel Aviv: Irgun yots’e Tsoizmir be-Yisra’l: Moreshet, bet iedut ‘a. sh. Mordekhai Anilevits’, 1993), p.544.

Sikórz, village of

“Izaak Zemelman of Płock recalled the assistance provided by a large number of Polish families in the nearby village of Sikórz where he and his family took shelter: Stawiski, Romanowski, Górski, Danielak, Adamski, Kłosiński, and others. See Michał Grynberg, Żydzi w rejencji ciechanowskiej 1939–1942 (Warsaw: Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 1984), p.134.

Siedlce

“Eva Safszycka, not yet 20 at the time, left the ghetto in Siedlce, obtained false identity documents with the help of a Pole, a stranger she happened to encounter, and took a position as a domestic on an estate owned by a Pole. She recalled:

“I met with so much kindness from the Poles, so many were decent and helpful that it is unbelievable. … They hid other Jews, one of them a girl of eleven.”

See Nechama Tec, Resilience and Courage: Women, Men, and the Holocaust (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2003).

Skierniewice, villages near692,

Aided Jews

Gutman and Bender, The Encyclopedia of the Righteous Among the Nations, vols. 4 and 5: Poland, Part 1, pp. 343-344.

Słowikowa, village of

Aided Jews.

Stanisław Wroński and Maria Zwolakowa, Polacy Żydzi 1939–1945 (Warsaw: Książka i Wiedza, 1971), p. 353.

Snodovich (Snodowicze),

“in a Polish village near Snodovich [Snodowicze], we found a few Jewish families working in the houses and fields of the villagers”) E. Leoni, ed. Rokitno (Volin) ve-ha-sevivah: Sefer edut ve-zikaron (Tel Aviv: Former Residents of Rokitno in Israel, 1967), translated as Rokitno-Wolyn and Surroundings: Memorial Book and Testimony.

Stakliškės or Stokliszki, villages near

Aided Jews.

See also If I Forget The…: The Destruction of the Shtetl Butrimantz. Testimony by Riva Lozansky and Other Witnesses (Washington, DC: Remembrance Books, 1998), passim; and the testimony of Sarah Epstein (Sara Epshteyn) in Joshua Rubenstein and Ilya Altman, The Unkown Black Book: The Holocaust in the GermanOccupied Soviet Territories (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, in association with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 2008), p.297

Stara Huta near Szumsk, in Volhynia

A report about the village of Stara Huta near Szumsk, in Volhynia, states:

“The people of a small Polish village named Stara Hota [sic] welcomed a group of Jews to stay and hide in their homes. The Ukrainians found out about the Jewish presence in the village. They informed the Germans right away. The Poles had managed to help the Jews run into the fields, but they were all caught and killed during their escape.”

See Nyuma Anapolsky, “We survived thanks to the kind people—Ukrainians and Poles,’ in Boris Zabarko, ed., Holocaust in the Ukraine (London and Portland, Oregon: Vallentine Mitchell, 2005), pp.10–11.

Świnarzyn near Dominopol

Aided Jews

Wroński and Zwolakowa, Polacy Żydzi 1939–1945, p. 266

Szczawnica

“Mary Rolicka, whose mother, one other Jewish woman and two Jewish men were sheltered by the Sisters of Charity, with the assistance of their chaplain, Rev. Albin Małysiak, in the Helcel Institute in Kraków and later at an old age home in Szczawnica. Rev. Małysiak recalled:

“All of the charges of the institute as well as the personnel (nuns and lay staff) knew that there were Jews hidden among us. It was impossible to conceal that fact, even though it was known what danger faced those who were responsible for sheltering Jews. After the passage of weeks and months many of the residents of Szczawnica learned of the Jewish boarders. No one betrayed this to the Germans, who were stationed in the immediate vicinity.”

See Zofia Szymańska, Byłam tylko lekarzem… (Warsaw: Pax, 1979), pp.149–76.

Szymanów,

“The Dr. Zofia Szymańska, who was sheltered by the Grey Ursulines in Ożarów, received material care and an abundance of spiritual comfort from many nuns and priests there. Her 10-year-old niece, had a very Semitic appearance, was sheltered by the Sisters of the Immaculate Virgin Mary in Szymanów, along with more than a dozen Jewish girls. All of the nuns were aware that their young charges were Jews, as were the lay staff, the parents of non-Jewish children and many villagers. None of the Christian parents removed their children from the school despite the potential danger, and in fact many of them contributed to the upkeep of the Jewish children. Dr. Szymańska wrote:

“The children were under the protection of the entire convent and village. Not one traitor was to be found among them.”

See Ewa Kurek, Dzieci żydowskie w klasztorach: Udział żeńskich zgromadzeń zakonnych w akcji ratowania dzieci żydowskich w Polsce a latach 1939–1945 (Lublin: Clio, 2001), p.116.

Tarnobrzeg, village of

“The case of Doctor Olga Lilien, a Holocaust survivor from Lwów with a very marked Jewish appearance, who lived with a Polish family near Tarnobrzeg, is another example of solidarity among the Polish villagers. A German came looking for a fugitive and summoned the villagers to a meeting to question them about his whereabouts.

“Suddenly he looked at me and said, ‘Oh, but this is a Jewess.’ The head of the village said, ‘Oh, no, she cooks at the school. She is a very good cook.’ Nobody said, ‘Oh, well, she is Jewish. Take her.’ He let me go. The population of the village was about two thousand. They all knew there was something ‘wrong’ with me. Any one of them could have sold me to the Germans for two hundred deutsche marks, but out of two thousand people nobody did it. Everybody in the village protected me. I had very good relations with them.”

Henryk Schönker, Dotknięcie anioła (Warsaw: Ośrodek Karta, 2005), pp.135–36.

Tarzymiechy near Zamość, village of

“A Jew by the name of Duczy was sheltered in his native village of Tarzymiechy near Zamość, with the knowledge of all of the villagers. Leon Gongoła, “O prawach i ludziach,” Polska (Warsaw), no. 7 (1971): pp.170–72.

Tłuste

Samuel Eisen, a teenager who survived in the forest near Tłuste, recalled:

“We had no money, but in the village nearby lived a lot of Poles who knew us and were good to us. They were afraid to hide us but they gave us food.”

www.interlog.com/~mighty/personal/bronia.htm, originally published in the Journal of the Center for Holocaust Studies, vol. 6, no. 4 (spring 1990).

Tyśmienica village, Parczew-Ostrów Lubelski area

“Jewish partisan Gustaw Alef-Bolkowiak identifies the Tyśmienica village in the Parczew-Ostrów Lubelski area as one where,

“almost the entire population was actively engaged in helping fugitives from the ghettos”:

See “Marian Małowist on History and Historians,” in Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry, vol. 13 (2000): p.338.

Ubiad, village of

Aided Jews.

Stanisław Wroński and Maria Zwolakowa, Polacy Żydzi 1939–1945 (Warsaw: Książka i Wiedza, 1971), p. 353.

Ułaszkowce near Czortków.

“A number of Jews were sheltered by Polish villagers in Ułaszkowce near Czortków. See Ronald J. Berger, Constructing a Collective Memory of the Holocaust: A Life History of Two Brothers’ Survival (Niwot: University Press of Colorado, 1995), p.55.

Warsaw, countryside

“Rina Eitani (11 years old at the time) and her mother and sister (10 years old) supported themselves by smuggling farm goods from the countryside to Warsaw. They worked separately to lessen the risk of discovery. While the Germans were ruthless toward smugglers, the natives treated them kindly:

“One day I was buying something in a store. A little girl came in, warning me, ‘The Gestapo are in the house where you live.’ Right away, the owner of the store, a woman, put me in the cellar. She wouldn’t let me go until the Gestapo left. … We stayed a lot in the villages where we bought the produce. The peasants were nice to us. They would feed us and sometimes, in exchange, we worked for them.”

See Nechama Tec, Resilience and Courage: Women, Men, and the Holocaust (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2003).

“A number of Jews were sheltered in another unnamed village outside Warsaw, with the knowledge of the entire village, and no one was betrayed. See Natan Gross, Who Are You, Mr Grymek? (London and Portland, Oregon: Vallentine Mitchell, 2001), pp.248–49.

Wielki Las

“Zygmunt Srul Warszawer hid for 26 months moving from place to place among numerous villages, such as Wielki Las, in the triangle formed by Łaskarzew, Sobolew, and Wilga,

“visiting every farm because he figured that if everyone helped him no one would turn him in—to do would mean self-destruction.” No one turned him away empty handed during those 26 months: “‘No one ever refused to help you?’ ‘No, not food! In twenty-six months, not once. Sometimes they were afraid to let me into the house, or into the barn. It varied, but their food they shared.”

Witoldów near Wojsławice, hamlet of

“Luba Hochlerer, ten years of age, lived openly with Józef and Bronisława Zając in the hamlet of Witoldów near Wojsławice, where she attended village school, yet no one betrayed her. See Anna Dąbrowska, ed., Światła w ciemności: Sprawiedliwi Wśród Narodów Świata. Relacje (Lublin: Ośrodek “Brama Grodzka–Teatr NN,” 2008), pp.56–61.

Wojciechówka near Skałat

Aided Jews.

Wojciechówka near Buczacz

Aided Jews.

David Ravid (Shmukler), ed., The Cieszanow Memorial book (Mahwah, New Jersey: Jacob Solomon Berger, 2006), pp.190–91 300

Wola Przybysławska, (near Lublin)

“The villagers of Wola Przybysławska near Lublin took turns sheltering and caring for a young Jewish girl who survived a German raid on a forest bunker. She was passed from one home to another, thus ensuring there wouldn’t be any informing. Klara Mirska, W cieniu wiecznego strachu: Wspomnienia (Paris, n.p.: 1980), p.455.

Wólka Kotowska near Łuck

Aided Jews

Wroński and Zwolakowa, Polacy Żydzi 1939–1945, p. 386

Woronówka near Ludwipol, Volhynia, Eastern Galicia

“the collusion of the peasants was cemented by blood ties: every villager was either a Kuriata or a Torgoń. The peasants in Kościejów, in the vicinity of which ran the railway line leading to the extermination camp at Bełżec, tended to Jews who jumped out of the ‘death trains.’ They not only brought them food and clothing but also sent word to Jews in the nearby village of Kulików to come and fetch the heavily injured immediately; the rest were taken by the peasants themselves to Kulików under cover of darkness. In Bar (near Gródek Jagielloński) villagers supplied a group of 18 Jews hiding in the neighbouring woods with food; they came into the village at night for their provisions and thanks to this help were able to hold out until the area was liberated by the Soviet Army.”

See Zdzisław Przygoda, Niezwykłe przygody w zwyczajnym życiu (Warszawa: Ypsylon, 1994), p.49. Wroński and Zwolakowa, Polacy Żydzi 1939–1945, p.327

Wsielub near Nowogródek

“Murray Berger of Wsielub near Nowogródek attests to receiving extensive help from numerous villagers from December 1941, when he left the ghetto, until he joined up with the Bielski unit the following year. (His account is in the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum Archives.) See the testimony of Beniamin Rogowski, March 14, 1965, Yad Vashem Archives, 03/2820.

“Sarah Fishkin of Rubieżewicze left a diary attesting to repeated acts of kindness by villagers in that area. U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum Archives.

Żabno near Żółkiewka, village of

“A Jewish woman named Berkowa (née Zelman) was rescued by Jan Łoś in the village of Żabno near Żółkiewka; although this was widely known, no one betrayed her. Shiye Goldberg (Shie Chehever), The Undefeated (Tel Aviv: H. Leivick Publishing House, 1985), pp.166–67.

Zahorie (Zahorze), near Łachwa in Polesie (Polesia),

“In Polesie (Polesia), a largely Belorussian area, Kopel Kolpanitzky describes the helpfulness of the 301 residents of Zahorie [Zahorze], a small village of Polish Catholics three kilometers from Łachwa, which the Germans later burned to the ground. See Kopel Kolpanitzky, Sentenced To Life: The Story of a Survivor of the Lahwah Ghetto (London and Portland, Oregon: Vallentine Mitchell, 2007), pp.89–96. Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw (document no. 1200).

Shulamit Zabinska, a teenager who was aided by Poles in the Wilno countryside, testified that many Poles brought food to the Łachwa ghetto,

“otherwise, everyone would have starved to death. It was dangerous, and people were shot for this.”

“After escaping from the ghetto, she was taken in by Weronika (“Wercia”) Stankiewicz and her mother, passing as Wercia’s niece. Although the villagers knew she was Jewish no one betrayed her.

See Kopel Kolpanitzky, Sentenced To Life: The Story of a Survivor of the Lahwah Ghetto (London and Portland, Oregon: Vallentine Mitchell, 2007), pp.89–96.

“Zameczek, Hamlet of

Pola Wawer, a doctor from Wilno, recalled the help she and her parents received from all of the inhabitants in the hamlet of Zameczek who consisted of the families of five cousins. See Chodorska, Godni synowie naszej Ojczyzny, Part One, pp.104–109.

Zamość, villages near

Aided Jews

Gutman and Bender, The Encyclopedia of the Righteous Among the Nations, vols. 4 and 5: Poland, Part 1, p. 692.

Zaturne (near Łuck),

Survivor Dawid Sasower recalls:

“near Zaturne (near Łuck), there was a Polish village in which about twenty Jews lived. In the daytime they worked in the fields and at night the Poles gave them rifles so that they could protect themselves from the banderovtsy [Ukrainian nationalist partisans].”

See Ruth Sztejnman Halperin, “The Last Days of Shumsk,” in H. Rabin, ed., Szumsk: Memorial Book of the Martyrs of Szumsk, Internet: translation of Shumsk: Sefer zikaron le-kedoshei Shumsk (Tel Aviv: Former Residents of Szumsk in Israel, 1968), pp.29ff.

Zawołocze near Ludwipol, in Volhynia

“Almost every Polish family in the hamlet of Zawołocze near Ludwipol, in Volhynia, sheltered or helped Jews. None of the Jews were betrayed. See Gerszon Taffet, Zagłada Żydów żółkiewskich (Łódź: Centralna Żydowska Komisja Historyczna, 1946), p.62; Bartoszewski and Lewin, Righteous Among Nations, p.444.

Zborów

Maria Fischer Zahn, who hid near Zborów, stated: 298

See Maria Hochberg-Mariańska and Noe Grüss, eds., The Children Accuse (London: Vallentine Mitchell, 1996), p.206.

Zdziebórz near Wyszków, village of

Two young Jewish men were passed from farmer to farmer in the village of Zdziebórz near Wyszków and were eventually accepted into the Home Army. See “Odznaczenia dla Sprawiedliwych,” Internet:

Zeniow [Żeniów].

“The few Jews of Gliniany who saved their lives were hiding in the woods near Zeniow [Żeniów]. The Polish peasants of that village supplied their food.”

“Letter of Chayeh Kanner,” Khurbn Glinyane (New York: New York: Emergency Relief Committee for Gliniany and Vicinity, 1946), translated as The Tragic End of Our Gliniany.

Żeniówka, in Volhynia

Aided Jews.

Isaiah Trunk, Jewish Responses to Nazi Persecution: Collective and Individual Behavior in Extremis (New York: Stein and Day, 1979), pp.250–52

Zdołbunów

Aided Jews.

Edward Prus, Holocaust po banderowsku: Czy Żydzi byli w UPA? (Wrocław: Nortom, 1995), p.82

Żółkiewka, nearby villages

“Mirla Frydrich (Szternzys), from Żółkiewka, was shot in the thigh when she jumped from a train headed for the Bełżec death camp. A Pole who happened to be driving by took her in his carriage and nursed her back to health with the help of another Pole. When Mirla returned to Żółkiewka she received assistance from a number of Poles in several nearby villages.

Złoczów, towns near

“Dzwonica, Huta Pieniacka, Huta Werchobuska near Złoczów Aided Jews.

Reuben Ainsztein, Jewish Resistance in Nazi-Occupied Poland (with a historical survey of the Jew as fighter and soldier in the Diaspora) (London: Paul Elek, 1974), pp.450–53.

Żyrardów near Warsaw town of

“A Polish Red Cross worker gave over to a Polish couple by the name of Kaczmarek, themselves refugees from Western Poland living in the town of Żyrardów near Warsaw, a young Jewish girl found abandoned in an empty death train: Many of the neighbours knew that she was Jewish, yet no one informed.” Tatiana Berenstein and Adam Rutkowski, Assistance to the Jews in Poland, 1939–1945 (Warsaw: Polonia Publishing House, 1963), p.27.

“Chava Grinberg-Brown roamed the countryside near Żyrardów (she hailed from the village of Wiskitki) for the last years of the German occupation:

“…at the end of each day, I would beg people to let me come in and sleep. I remember that once someone gave me a place to stay and offered me chicken soup … In another home, one of the women gave me medication for my skin condition. They knew that I was Jewish … it was obvious. As I wandered from one little place to another, people fed me and let me sleep in their homes or close to them; in barns, pigstys, etc.” When a Pole who recognized her wanted to turn her in, “Some peasants who realized what he was after threatened to give him a beating he would never forget. That stopped him from bothering me.” Her story continues: “I went to the place I had worked before [the war]. I stayed there for a few days. After that, I kept moving from one place to another. Some refused me work. Then a peasant offered me a more stable job. … I remained with this peasant for most of the summer. Then I left and went to another village. I went from one village to another. Even during the summer I would change places. When the Poles sent me away, I was not angry. I understood that they were afraid or had not enough food and could not share the little they had. I did not particularly feel their anti-Semitism. … Most people knew right away when I came in that I was Jewish, but they did not harm me. Only a few times did I have to run away. … When I entered a village I would go first to the head of the village, and he would send me to a peasant. Usually they were not afraid if they had a note from the head of the village. … I have no bad feelings toward the Christians. I survived the war thanks to them.”

See Nechama Tec, Resilience and Courage: Women, Men, and the Holocaust (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2003).

“A 31-year-old barber named Zimler, who wandered with his wife in the Wiskitki area near Żyrardów in 1941, cutting hair for farmers, wrote that “the attitude of the farmers to us was extremely good.” The farmers in various villages such as Oryszew, Wyczółki and Janówka, allowed them to stay in their homes, gave them food, washed their laundry, and even invited them to a wedding. See Nechama Tec, Resilience and Courage: Women, Men, and the Holocaust (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2003 pp. 225-227).

Polish Villages That Aided Jews

From Wikipedia

Markowa

Markowa [marˈkɔva] is a village in Łańcut County, Subcarpathian Voivodeship, in south-eastern Poland. It is the seat of the gmina (administrative district) called Gmina Markowa. It lies approximately 8 kilometres (5 miles) south-east of Łańcut and 22 kilometres (14 miles) east of the regional capital Rzeszów. The village has a population of 4,100.

“The village was founded in the 14th century by the Polish noble family of Pilecki, and was settled by the descendants of Germans colonists, who called it Markhof. The Pileckis also founded a Catholic parish in the village.

“During World War II it was under German occupation.

“On 24 March 1944 a patrol of German police came to the house of Józef and Wiktoria Ulma, where they found eight Jewish members of the Szall and Goldman families. At first the Germans executed all the Jews. Then they shot the pregnant Wiktoria and her husband. When the six children began to scream at the sight of their parents' bodies, Joseph Kokott, a German police officer (Volksdeutsche from Sudetenland), shot them after consulting with his superior. The other killers were Eilert Dieken, Michael Dziewulski and Erich Wilde. Afterwards the Germans robbed the house and workshop of the Ulma family and organized an alcoholic libation. On the 60th anniversary of this tragedy, a memorial [3] was erected in memory of the family. Other Polish families also hid Jews in Markowa, and at least 17 Jews survived the German occupation and the Holocaust in five Polish homes.

“The Markowa Ulma-Family Museum of Poles Who Saved Jews in World War II is located in the village.

Głuchów, Podkarpackie Voivodeship

“Głuchów [ˈɡwuxuf] is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Łańcut, within Łańcut County, Subcarpathian Voivodeship, in south-eastern Poland. It lies approximately 4 kilometres (2 mi) north-east of Łańcut and 20 km (12 mi) east of the regional capital Rzeszów.

“The village has a population of 1,500.

Łańcut

“Łańcut (Polish: [ˈwaj̃t͡sut], approximately "wine-suit"; Yiddish: לאַנצוט‎, romanized: Lantzut; Ukrainian: Ла́ньцут, romanized: Lánʹtsut; German: Landshut) is a town in south-eastern Poland, with 18,004 inhabitants, as of 2 June 2009. Situated in the Subcarpathian Voivodeship (since 1999), it is the capital of Łańcut County.

“Jews began to settle in Łańcut in the 16th century: the earliest mention of a settler is 1554. The landowner Stanisław Lubomirski employed a Jewish factor for his Łańcut estate in 1629. in 1707 the Council of Four Lands (the Polish Jewish parliament). met in Łańcut. A wooden synagogue burnt down in 1716 and new brick synagogue was commenced in 1726. The project was supported by the Lubomirski family and the synagogue, which still stands, was completed in 1761 (see below).[9] Local Jewish cemeteries are the resting place of the famous Rabbi Zvi Naftali Horowitz, the Grand Rabbi of Ropczyce and Rabbi Ahron Moshe Leifer, the Grand Rabbi of Żołynia. Every year, followers of the Hasidic Judaism come to pray at their graves.

“Within interwar Poland, Łańcut was a county seat administratively located in the Lwów Voivodeship. Prior to World War II, Łańcut had a thriving Jewish community constituting about one-third of the city population. In 1939 there were 2,750 Jews in Łańcut. The 10th Mounted Rifle Regiment of the Polish Army was stationed in Łańcut in the interbellum.

“During the German invasion of Poland, which started World War II, on September 9, 1939, Łańcut was a place of fierce defense by Poles under the command of Colonel Stanisław Maczek, who would become one of the Polish heroes of World War II. During the subsequent German occupation, the Einsatzgruppe I entered the town between September 17 and October 5, 1939, to commit various atrocities against Poles. In November 1939, the Germans deceitfully requested the presence of Polish intelligentsia from the town and county at a supposed conference on the county's economic matters, at which they then arrested over 200 people, including local officials, teachers, and priests (see Intelligenzaktion). Some of them were imprisoned in Rzeszów along with Poles from other towns of the region. A temporary prisoner-of-war camp for Polish soldiers was operated in Łańcut in 1939, and around 25,000 people were held there in mid-November 1939. Nevertheless, the Polish resistance movement was organized in the town, and since May 1940, underground Polish newspaper Odwet was distributed in Łańcut. From 1942 onwards the German occupiers began transportation and murder of the Jewish community; very few of the community survived. The Germans executed several Poles in the town for rescuing Jews, while at least one Polish man managed to escape and survive. There is also a well-known case where a Jewish family from Łańcut was hidden from the Germans by the Polish Ulma family in the nearby village of Markowa. In 1944 the Germans discovered the hideout and murdered the Polish family and two hidden Jewish families, 16 people in total, including children. The town's architecture avoided significant damage during the war.

Główne

“Główne [ˈɡwuvnɛ] is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Radzyń Podlaski, within Radzyń Podlaski County, Lublin Voivodeship, in eastern Poland.

Ozorków

“Ozorków [ɔˈzɔrkuf] (Yiddish: אוזורקוב‎, romanized: Ozorkov) is a town on the Bzura River in central Poland, with 19,809 inhabitants (2016). It has been situated in the Łódź Voivodeship (Lodz Province) since 1919.

The time of the German occupation of Poland (World War II), beginning in September 1939, was a tragic period in the history of the town. Already on September 12, 1939, the Germans murdered some inhabitants of Ozorków in a massacre of 13 Poles in nearby Łagiewniki (present-day district of Łódź). The town was incorporated directly into the Third Reich and between 1943 and 1945 it was called Brunnstadt. The extermination policy of the occupier (the murder of 6,000 Jews and the persecution of the Polish population) resulted in a drastic population decrease. In 1940, the Germans expelled hundreds of Poles from the town, and also established a transit camp at the local movie theater for Poles expelled from the area. Young people were then deported from the camp to forced labour in Germany, and children and older people were deported to the General Government (German-occupied central Poland), while their homes, shops and workshops were handed over to German colonists as part of the Lebensraum policy. Jews were forced into a ghetto, and some were afterwards murdered in the town. Hundreds were sent to the Chełmno extermination camp where they were gassed immediately. Others were forcibly taken to work camps or the Lodz ghetto where they were later killed. Only a few survived. The historical synagogue located on Wyszyński Street was completely destroyed by German troops. There is some evidence that a few Poles brought food to Jewish neighbours in the ghetto.

Borkowo, Masovian Voivodeship

“Borkowo [bɔrˈkɔvɔ] is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Nasielsk, within Nowy Dwór Mazowiecki County, Masovian Voivodeship, in east-central Poland. It lies approximately 10 kilometres (6 mi) west of Nasielsk, 15 km (9 mi) north of Nowy Dwór Mazowiecki, and 45 km (28 mi) north-west of Warsaw.

Sierpc

“Sierpc [ɕerpt͡s] is a town in north-central Poland, in the north-west part of the Masovian Voivodeship, about 125 km northwest of Warsaw. It is the capital of Sierpc County.

During World War II from 1939 to 1945 Sierpc was under German occupation. It was then renamed to Sichelberg to remove traces of Polish origin. The Germans established a prison for Poles in the town. Dozens of local disabled people were murdered by the Germans in March 1940 in the nearby Troska forest. On April 5, 1940, the Germans carried out mass arrests of about 600 Poles in the town and the county, who were then imprisoned in two local prisons. Local priest Bronisław Kolator was among Polish priests murdered in the Soldau concentration camp. About 2,000 Poles were expelled from Sierpc in February 1940, and another 400 were expelled in December 1940. People were first deported to the Soldau concentration camp and afterwards to the General Government, while their houses and workshops were handed over to German colonists in accordance with the Lebensraum policy. The Germans also destroyed the town's Jewish community. A German forced labour camp was operated in the town.

Dąbrowica, Nisko County

“Dąbrowica [dɔmbrɔˈvʲit͡sa] (Ukrainian: Дубровиця, Dubrovytsia) is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Ulanów, within Nisko County, Subcarpathian Voivodeship, in south-eastern Poland. It lies approximately 8 kilometres (5 mi) east of Ulanów, 18 km (11 mi) east of Nisko, and 57 km (35 mi) north-east of the regional capital Rzeszów.[1] The village is located in the historical region Galicia.[2]

Updated October 24, 2021