PACALOWSKI, Wiktor
PACALOWSKI, Maria, wife
PACALOWSKI, Alfred, son

PACEK, Stanislawa
PACEK, Jerzy, son
PACEK, Leszek, son

Sara Kraus, a young girl from Mila Street in the Warsaw Ghetto, lost there her parents, siblings and all her extended family. With the only remaining brother, Mietek, she left Warsaw on foot and roamed the fields in search of food and shelter. Many good peasants gave them food. In the spring of 1942 Sara found shelter near Lublin in Prawiedniki, with Stanislawa Pacek, a teacher. She knew that Sara was Jewish but taught her Catholic prayers. This knowledge saved the life of all of them when some Germans, looking for a hiding Jewess, irrupted into the house . They ordered the two sons, Jerzy and Leszek, to dig a grave for all of them if they don't show them the Jewish girl. They, like their mother, being good Catholics, knew the 5th commandment:"Do not kill" and kept silent, When Sara found under the piano recited her Catholic prayers, some shooting in the nearby forest distracted the Germans, who left in a hurry. But Sara felt the necessity of leaving her good protectors. She returned to them later, coming from another harboring place with the Pasiebiaks (q.v.). Stanislawa brought her to Lublin, to the bishop's house where she helped in the kitchen. As the girl decided to return to Warsaw, Stanislawa gave her an address of a railway man in Lublin who put her on the train. See her memoirs: Sara Kraus-Kolkowicz: "Dziewczynka z ulicy Milej, albo swiadectwo czasu Holokaustu" (A girl from Mila Street. A document from the time of the Holocaust). Lublin, Agencja Wydawniczo-Handlowa AD. 1995.

PACHOL, Stanislaw
PACHOL, Maria, wife
PACHOLSKI, Mrs.
PACULA, Szymon
PACULA, Antoni, son
PACULA, Bronislaw, son
PACULA, Jozef, son
PACULA, Katarzyna, daughter
PACZEK-TRZEBUCHOWSKI, Waclawa see TRZEBUCHOWSKI, Ladyslawa, mother?
PAGOS, Stanislaw
PAGOS, Zofia, wife

PAJA, Julia (1905-)

Julia resided at Trembowla, Tarnopol district. In 1942 she took into her house a six months old girl, Irenka, whose father, Etinger and mother Handzia had perished in the ghetto. When this became dangerous, she left the city and hid in the country. After the war Julia went to Koziel and to Szczawno, near Walbrzych. In 1955 there came from the Soviet Union the brother of the girl's mother, and requested the return of the child. As Julia considered Irenka as her own daughter, she refused and the uncle took the child from the school, without Julia's knowledge.
Julia and her sister Stefania Szmigielski (q.v.) helped also a cousin of Salomon Brinstein from Trembowla. The latter stated in 1985, that Julia, at the risk of her life and with complete disinterestedness saved Irenka and Salomon's cousin. Irenka is now in the USA. See: Grynbert, op. cit.

PAJAK, Eugenia

PAJAK, Kazimierz (not related)
PAJAK, Stefania, wife
PAJEWSKI, Stanislaw
PAJEWSKI, Maria, wife
PAJEWSKI, Tadeusz, son
PAJEWSKI, Wiktoria, daughter
PAJEWSKI, Teodor (not related)

An officer of the underground, Teodor, a railway man, was called "crazy" for his incredible daring in helping Jews. Among other exploits he entered the Trawniki SS camp with money and instructions and led out of the camp the Jewish community leader, Emanuel Ringelblum, the chronicler of the Warsaw ghetto. It was Mieczyslaw Wolski (q.v.) and Mieczyslaw Marczak's (q.v.) family, who hid Ringelblum in a bunker, called "Krysia" with over 30 people. They all were discovered and killed, with their protectors. But that was not all. Teodor had in the basement a hideout, where he sheltered a family of Jewish intellectuals. His janitor continuously harassed Teodor, suspecting him of helping Jews; he even searched his apartment with some tenants, but fortunately found nothing. Teodor took care of all the affairs of his protégés, supplying them with food, money, keeping them in contact with their families, etc. At the same time he looked for new places of refuge for other Jews, who either in town or in the country, needed suddenly to change their shelters, as this was a most common occurrence. See: Bartoszewski & Lewin, op. cit., Prekerowa, op. cit. and Wronski & Zwolakowa, op. cit.

PALESTER-SZULISLAWSKI, Maria (1897-1991)

Maria studied Romance languages in Lvov and her husband was a physician graduated from the University of Vienna. Before the war the couple moved to Warsaw. They had a sixteen years old son, Krzysztof and a ten years old daughter, Malgorzata. Maria, working in the city administration in the Welfare department, was very active in placing Jewish children with Polish families. She also took care of Jews residing on the "Aryan" side, organizing for them false documentation and medical care, keeping twelve (12) persons in her apartment. These refugees were: Salomea and Maurycy A., an advocate, the physician M.B., Adam C., Magdalena G., Maria K. and her husband, a physician, Maria P. with her daughter, the couple P. (he was a chemist) and a girl from Kielce, Pesel R. In 1943, confronted by blackmailers, she had to pay them. The couples K. and P. went to the Hotel Polski and perished (a German trap for Jews). The others survived the war. Maria P., while living in Israel, informed Yad Vashem about Maria Palester's merits who was recognized as "Righteous" in 1981.  See: Grynberg, op. cit., Prekerowa, op. cit.

PALUCH, Helena
PALUCH, Mieczyslaw, son

PALUCH, Wawrzyniec (not related)
PALUCH, Jozefa, wife
PALUCH, Janina, daughter
PALUCH, Waclaw, son
PALUCH, Wladyslawa, daughter

Wladyslawa brought in winter of 1942 the two Steger brothers, hiding with Grzegorz Milonas (q.v.) in the Lvov area to the apartment of her parents Wawrzyniec and Jozefa, in Warsaw, where they hid in the attic. Later the two Stegers found refuge with Waclaw, Wladyslawa and Jozefa Rybak family (q.v.). The above mentioned were all honored as "Righteous" on Dec. 15, 1999 in Warsaw

PALYS, Katarzyna
PALYS, Janina, daughter
PALKA, Wladyslawa
PANCERZ, Helena

PANCERZ, Kazimierz
PANCZYSZYN, Wladyslaw
PANIC, Alfred

PANKIEWICZ, Tadeusz, pharmacist

On March 3, 1941 the German governor general, Otto Wachter, ordered the formation of a ghetto, in Podgorze, a poor and old quarter of Cracow. Like elsewhere, Poles had to leave their houses in that quarter. Normally there lived 3.000 people. Now 16.000 Jews replaced them. The "Eagle" pharmacy owned by Tadeusz Pankiewicz was allowed to remain in hands of a Pole, the only such case in Poland, and that in the very heart of the ghetto. The pharmacist, beside his professional duties, organized false documents and escapes from the ghetto; hid some Jews in his pharmacy, and allowed it to become a meeting place, for reading newspapers, for discussing the news, and for extracting vital information from the Germans, drunk with vodka. Tadeusz Pankiewicz, Dr. Ludwik Zurowski (q.v.) and other physicians who met there, saved many Jews from certain death and extended their help even to the Plaszow camp, providing food and medicines there. Two women pharmacists: Irena Gozdzik and Helena Krywaniuk valiantly seconded Tadeusz in these perilous activities. Neither was recognized as "Righteous". See: Grynberg, op. cit., Bartoszewski & Lewin, op. cit. and also the book by Pankiewicz: "Apteka w Getcie Krakowskim" (Pharmacy in the Cracow ghetto), Cracow, 1947 and his memoirs published in the "Przeglad Lekarski" (Medical journal)

PANUSZKO, Jozefa
PAPIERKOWSKI, Emil
PAPIERKOWSKI, Leokadia, wife
PAPIERKOWSKI, Janina, daughter
PAPIERKOWSKI, Jerzy, son
PAPIERKOWSKI, Zbigniew, son
PAPROTA-KOWALIK, Wladyslawa see KOWALIK, Anna, mother?

PAPUZINSKI, Stanislaw
PAPUZINSKI-WEDRYCHOWSKI, Zofia, wife

From the ca. 2,500 Jewish children aided by Zegota (Council of Aid to Jews) in Warsaw or by the members of the City Welfare Department, ca. 1300 found shelter with foster families. To find them and to place the children with them, Stanislaw and Zofia risked their own children. Others who distinguished themselves in this task were: Maria Palester (q.v.) and her daughter Malgorzata, Izabela Kuczkowski and her mother Kazimiera Trzaskalski, Maria Kukulski (q.v.), Maria Drozdowski-Rogowicz, Wincenty Ferster, Janina Grabowski, Joanna Wald, Jadwiga Bilwin, Jadwiga Koszutski, Irena Schultz (q.v.) Lucyna Franciszkiewicz, and Helena Maluczynski. These children could be seen as making part of four groups: the first was given false documents, steady monthly stipends, garments and food parcels. The second needed only occasional help, like documents, medical care or money to pay the blackmailers. The third group needed documents exclusively. The fourth was led out from the ghetto by private initiative but needed sometimes only medicines or admittance to the hospitals. In that helped the following doctors: Juliusz Majkowski, Mieczyslaw Ropek, Zofia Franio (q.v.), Prof. Andrzej Trojanowski (q.v.), dr. Hanna Kolodziejski and the nurse Helena Szeszko. From the 22 persons mentioned here only six have been recognized. See: Bartoszewski & Lewin, op. cit., Prekerowa, op. cit.

PARAPURA, Adam
PARAPURA, Janina, wife
PARCINSKI, Adolf
PARCINSKI, Eleonora, wife
PARCINSKI, Antoni, son
PARCINSKI, Jadwiga, daughter
PARCZEWSKI, Dominik
PARCZEWSKI, Anna, wife

PARCZYNSKI-TOMCZALA, Stefania (1907-)

Stefania lived at Slawin, near Lublin. Through her cousin, Ryszard Pastowicz, who worked in Lublin, Stefania met Mojzesz Gliksztejn, who later died in the Majdanek camp. From the 43,000 Jews residing in Lublin, 30,000 were deported to the Belzec extermination camp. To Stefania came at that time Ida, Mojzesz's wife with her four years old girl. Stefania and her cousin procured them false documents thanks to which both mother and daughter survived the war in Stefania's house. Ida never lost contact with her. In 1963 Ida attested from Israel that Stefania, at the risk of her life, hid her and her daughter from November 1942 till July 1944, sharing with them whatever she had. See: Grynberg, op cit.

PARIBEK, Tadeusz
PARIBEK, Waleria, wife
PARKASIEWICZ, Jozef
PARKASIEWICZ, Ewa, wife
PARKASIEWICZ-LABA, Jozefa, daughter?

PARTYKA, Wladyslaw (1904-1969)
PARTYKA, Marianna (1904-), wife
PARTYKA, Jozefa, (1930-) daughter

The Partykas farmed in Drugnia, Kielce prov. In October 1942, Roza Longwald from Chmielnik escaped from a transport to Treblinka and came to them asking for help. Roza stayed in the barn, or in the attic, or even in their apartment. Once the Germans, having been informed about a Jewess in the third house of the village, searched the third house from the beginning of the village, but luckily missed the third house from the end. Roza died in Poland in 1983. Her daughter, Jadwiga Gutman, also survived the war. She wrote in 1987 from the USA that the Partykas shared with her mother everything, when they did not have enough for themselves and their children and that after the war Marianna sold even a piece of land to give money to her mother. See: Grynberg, op. cit.

PARZYCH, Franciszek
PARZYCH, Maria, wife

PASIERBIAK, Stanislaw
PASIERBIAK, Natalia wife

Stanislaw and Natalia, who had a 2 years old son, took in the young Sara Kraus, who came to them from her previous shelter at Stanislawa Pacek(q.v.) at Prawieniki. They lived in Bystrzyca Stara, 10 km from there. She had to pasture their five cows, but they treated her very well, realizing that she is a Jewish girl. They wanted to keep her, in spite of announcements that any help to Jews would be punished by death. But the girl wished to return to Stanislawa Pacek. Her brother, Mietek joined her, but some German patrol shot him. Sara from Prawiedniki returned to Warsaw and met an old acquaintance, Olesia Lupanowa, who took her home. She arranged for her false documents under the name of Stefania Krausowska and organized for her being taken as a Polish girl to Germany for work. After two years of hard labor and many bad experiences there she was liberated by the Russians and Poles in 1945 and returned to Poland. Later she settled in Israel, but maintains cordial relations with all the people who helped her. See: Sara Kraus-Kolkiewicz" "Dziewczynka z ulicy Milej, albo swiadectwo czasu Holokaustu". Lublin, Agencja Wydawniczo-Handlowa AD, 1995.

PASIERBIAK, Wladyslaw
PASIERBIAK, Janina, wife (they are somehow related to Stanislaw and Natalia
PASLAWSKI, Franciszek
PASTERKIEWICZ, Maria
PASTERKIEWICZ, Jozef, son
PASTERNAK, Irena

PASTERNAK, Piotr (not related)
PASTERNAK, Stefania, wife

PASTERNAK, Zofia, born Zadrozny (not related)

PASTUSZKA, Tadeusz
PASTUSZKA, Marianna, wife

The couple resided in Chmielow, near Ostrowiec Swietokrzyski. Tadeusz worked in the Ostrowiec smelting works, where worked also some Jews. At the request of Mosze Brukier, Tadeusz led out of the ghetto several members of Mosze's family, Aron Rappaport and Meir Wizenfeld. Other Jews from the smelting works, who escaped from the transport to the camp, arrived also to the Pastuszkas: the two Koplowicz brothers, Jankiel, Leo Fuks and Icchak Crandel. With the Brukier family there were fifteen (15) people hidden in a bunker for more than a year. After the end of the occupation it was discovered that even Marek Fuks of whom the Pastuszkas knew nothing, was also among the hidden. See: Grynberg, op. cit.

PASTUSZYNSKI, Zygmunt

PASZEK, Ludwik
PASZEK, Maria, wife
PASZEK, Henryk, son

Ludwik was an organizer of a popular underground Polish movement in the Pszczyna district. During the evacuation of Auschwitz, he facilitated the saving of two Romanian women, who escaped from a transport and returned to their country.
In 1948 Ludwik got a letter from New York, written by Olga Lengyel, in which she thanked him heartily and informed him that she wrote a book about her experiences. The book was translated into English. In her second book she planned to relate how she lived at Brzezce and how good the dear Paszek family had been to her. See: Wronski & Zwolakowa, op.cit.

PASZKIEWICZ, Anna

Eugenia Warszowska lost her husband in a transport. She found herself in the Pruzany ghetto with her two daughters, Regina and Ada. She renewed contact with her schoolmate from before the war, Anna Paszkiewicz. After escaping the ghetto Eugenia and her daughters moved to an apartment with Anna and her daughter Janina, which they had to change later, but Anna continued to take care of the three women till the end of the war. Anna was honored as "Righteous" on Dec. 15, 1999 in Warsaw, as announced the Israeli Embassy in Poland

PASZKIEWICZ, Rozalia
PASZKIEWICZ, Wladyslaw, son

Rozalia, a fifty-year old laundress, kept seven (7) Jewish refugees, hidden behind a closet in her uncle's apartment. She did not have money to feed them all and some became ill. When one woman gave birth to a child, its father strangled it to avoid its crying, which would endanger everybody. See: Paldiel op. cit.

PASZKO, Eugenia
PASZKO, Zbigniew, son
PASZKOWSKI, Eleonora
PASZKOWSKI-JANKOWSKI, Genowefa, daughter

PASZKOWSKI, Franciszek (not related)
PASZKOWSKI, Jadwiga, sister

PASZKOWSKI, Jan (not related)

PASZKOWSKI, Jozef (not related)
PASZKOWSKI, Felicja, wife
PASZKOWSKI, Leonard, son

PASZKOWSKI, Tadeusz (not related)
PASZKOWSKI, Halina, wife

PASZTA-STASINSKI, Zofia (1910-)

Zofia resided in Warsaw. Bluma Gurfinkiel, who lived in the same building, asked Zofia for help. Zofia took her in. Bluma's brother, Lejba and her sister Ita also used to visit Zofia. When people started to talk that Zofia hides a Jewess, Zofia placed Bluma with a friend elsewhere. Bluma wrote in 1988, from the USA, that from Jan 1, 1942 till Sept. 30, 1944, Zofia maintained her without any compensation and that she is eternally grateful to her.  See: Grynberg, op. cit.

PASNIK, Anna see MIRONIUK, Julianna, mother
PATER, Zygmunt
PATKOWSKI-PRUSAK, Aniela
PATRONSKI, Jadwiga

PATRZYK, Barbara
PATRZYK, Jan, son, priest

The parish priest at Medenice , near Drohobycz, with the help of his brother and of the priest Franciszek Zmarzly, from Raclawice, near Stalowa Wola, saved the life of Judyta Eisenberg, on the plea of her father Dr. Mayer Eisenberg. He was recognized in 1979 and his mother in 1991, but neither his brother nor the other priest. See: Kaluski, op. cit.

PATRZYLAS, Franciszka (1880-1964)
PATRZYLAS, Jozef (1907-) son
PATRZYLAS, Czeslaw (1915-) son
PATRZYLAS, Julianna (1912-) Czeslaw's wife

The Patrzylas family owned an 8 hectares farm at Stasin, Lublin prov. Mosze Szol Pres escaped in January 1944 over to the Patrzylas, from the forced labor camp at Budzyn, a branch of the Majdanek camp, as he knew them before the war. He found that they harbored already his father Szlama and his younger brother Chaim. Already in 1950 Mosze stated in Lublin that the Patrzylas concealed on their farm several Jews from 1941, till July 27, 1944, among them his father and brother. He enclosed his and their photographs. See: Grynberg, op. cit.

PATYRA, Kajetan
PATYRA, Bronislawa, wife

PATYRA, Maria
PATYRA, Bronislaw (1918-) son
PATYRA-SZEMRO, Zofia (1920-) daughter
PATYRA, Eleonora (1927-) daughter
PATYRA, Tadeusz, (1929-) son

Maria and her children had a 16 hectares farm at Kamionka, near Chelm Lubelski. In the same village, the Gritzman family (seven persons) was friendly with the Patyras. When in 1941 the Germans moved the village Jews to ghettos in nearby towns, the Gritzmans found refuge with the Patyras. Some of the Gritzmans imprudently appeared in the village. The Germans suspected that the Patyras helped them, but Menasze Gritzman, the father, categorically denied any help from the Patyras. For the moment the latter were safe, but Menasze and three of his children were killed. The Gritzmans helped the Patyras with some work. Once a Volksdeutsh (Polish citizen who signed as being a German national) Jan K. visited the Patyras and brought the German police, who exacted the surrender of the Jews. The Germans put the Patyras against the wall under their rifles, including the 16 years old Eleonora and her 2 years younger brother Tadeusz and interrogated each one separately. But not one of them revealed their secret. Following this incident Tadeusz became gravely ill and died prematurely. The three remaining Gritzmans joined a partisan group and returned with the Soviet and Polish troops. (Some of the ca. 1,700,000 Poles deported to Soviet Russia in 1940-41, who were not able to leave Russia with General Anders, were integrated into the Soviet forces). The Gritzmans later lived in Chelm and Walbrzych, and in the 50-ties went to Israel, but maintained contact with the Patyras. See: Grynberg, op. cit.

PAUTER, Jan
PAUTER, Olga, wife
PAWELEC, Wojciech
PAWELEC, Maria, wife
PAWELEC, Anna, daughter

PAWELSKI, Antoni
PAWELSKI, Stanislawa, wife
PAWELEK, Jan
PAWLAK, Antonina
PAWLAK, Stefan, son?
PAWLAK, Bronislawa, wife
PAWLAK, Jadwiga, their daughter
PAWLICKI, Jan

PAWLICKI, Janina (1910- (not related)

Janina lived in Lodz and was a housemaid to the Aronson family, well-to-do owners of a textile plant. During the war the Aronsons and Janina fled to Warsaw and she joined them in the ghetto. The Aronsons went to the Hotel Polski on the "Aryan" side. This was a famous German ruse: all Jews, instead of receiving the promised visas to South American countries, were transported to the Vittel camp in France and from there to concentration camps. Janina accepted the money of several Jewish families to rent an apartment on the "Aryan" side, to which they could go, if they managed to escape the ghetto. She rented a three-room apartment to which eleven (11) people moved eventually, among them the Bund leader, Bernard Goldstein. They stayed in one room, camouflaged from the rest of the apartment. Janina traveled to different parts of the city to buy food. In September of 1943 two Gestapo agents raided the apartment twice, looting everything of value, but did not discover the hideout. Janina had to move her charges to other places, an abandoned toy store, a darkroom of a photographer, etc. All had to sleep on the floor, including Janina. The only bed was given to an elderly woman. All survived. When Janina's parents died she moved with a Jewish family to Israel in 1956. In 1964 she was one of the first to be recognized as Righteous. See: Grynberg, op. cit., Paldiel, op. cit.

PAWLIKOWSKI, Helena

Helena concealed in her house at Srodborow a Jewish couple, Wanda and Rafal Lindner. They escaped from the Warsaw ghetto. Wanda kept them in her attic for over one year, till the arrival of the Red Army. Yad Vashem honored Helena as "Righteous" on Jan. 14, 1999 in Warsaw, according to an announcement of the Israeli Embassy in Poland.

PAWLOWSKI, Czeslaw, Kazimierz's brother?
PAWLOWSKI, Kazimierz
PAWLOWSKI, Zofia, wife
PAWLOWSKI, Zdzislaw, son

PAWLOWSKI, Irena (not related)

PAWLOWSKI, Kleopatra (not related

PAWLOWSKI-TYRYLLO, Stanislawa (not related) see TYRYLLO, Grzegorz & Stefania, parents?

PAWLOWSKI-AJDELS, Wanda (1920-) (not related)

Wanda lived in Radom, in which town 32% of the population was Jewish. In October 1942 the Germans deported Jews to Treblinka and other camps. On the Pawlowskis' farm there was a fish farm, which had dried out. In it, Wanda left food for the Jews. Once she found an unconscious man near the pond. With the help of her father she brought him home. He was Bernard Ajdels and he stayed with the Pawlowskis. In the ghetto there remained his parents, to whom Wanda used to bring food. She got false documents for Bernard. But in 1943 the Gestapo arrested both of them. During the interrogation she suffered so badly, that she was placed in a prison hospital and from it she was transferred to a regular one. After 4 months, with the help of a Catholic nun, she managed to flee and lived hence in hiding. Bernard was taken to Auschwitz, and later to Sachsenhausen. When he returned to Radom he married Wanda. See: Grynberg, op. cit.

PAWLOWSKI WYROBEK, Wanda (not related) see WYROBEK-PAWLOWSKI
PAYGERT, Jozef
PAYGERT, Jozefa, wife
PAZIK, Mr.
PAZIK, Julia, wife

PAGOWSKI-WAWRZYNSKI, Jadwiga

Doctor Pagowski was one of 54 physicians in Warsaw who cooperated with the Coordinating Committee of Democratic and Socialist Doctors, active in the years 1940-1944. Its members organized resistance to the orders of the Germans, counteracting their propaganda, collected materials on their criminal medical practices, prepared the nationalization of medicine in the future liberated Poland, cared for the wounded of the underground and provided medical care to Jews, in and outside of the ghetto. Several of them specialized in diminishing their Semitic characteristics and obliterating signs of circumcision. The Committee published a medical journal called ABC, which every few weeks reached ca. 100 various medical centers. To that Committee belonged six medical students and seven nurses, among them one Maria Pagowski, possibly daughter of Dr. Jadwiga. For more information about the Committee look under the names of Drs: Kanabus, Feliks and Irena, Rostkowski, Ludwik, Trojanowski, Andrzej Rutkiewicz, Jan and Natalia, and Widy-Wirski, Feliks. See: Bartoszewski & Lewin, op. cit. and Prekerowa, op. cit.

PEJZAK, Helena
PEJZAK, Eugenia, daughter
PELC-REKAS, Janina
PELC, Kamilla

PELIKAN, Lucyna ((1902-1965)
PELIKAN, Zbigniew, (1923-) son

The Pelikans resided in Warsaw. Jan,Lucyna's husband, was taken prisoner of war and he spent all the occupation in Germany. Her son, Zbigniew, was a member of the resistance. In May 1943 his colleague presented him Nina Rajnic, asking for his help. Nina came from Lodz but during the occupation she was in the Warsaw ghetto from which she escaped during its Uprising (1943). Zbigniew, with the consent of his mother, took Nina into their home. Nina's brother, Rudolf, – (after the war a professor of the Lodz University) – also came often to their house. In the Warsaw Uprising (1944) the Pelicans' villa burnt down and Lucyna with Nina and Rudolf left the burning capital for the country where they saw the end of the German occupation. In 1946 Nina settled in Stockholm, finished there her medical studies and invited Zbigniew in 1985 for a visit. At the Israeli Embassy of Sweden he received the medal "Righteous Among Nations" for himself and also, posthumously, for his mother. See: Grynberg, op. cit.

PELKO-WYSOCKI, Wanda see WYSOCKI-PELKO, Wanda
PENCONEK, Stanislawa
PENCONEK, Jadwiga, daughter
PENCONEK, Zofia, daughter
PEPLOWSKI, Stanislaw
PEPLOWSKI, Marta, wife
PERA, Jozef
PERA, Stanislawa, wife
PERL, Kazimierz
PERSIAK, Zofia
PERYCZ, Roman
PERYCZ, Maria, wife
PESETSKA, Ludwika
PESKA, Wladyslawa
PESSEL-STATNIK, Leokadia see STATNIK alias PESSEL, L.
PETELA, Jan

PETRI, Stefan (1899-1986), engineer
PETRI, Janina, wife
PETRI, Marian (1928-) son

The Petri family lived in Wawer, near Warsaw. From the fall of 1942 till Sept. 11, 1944 they harbored in their household the Szapiro family known to them from before the war: Kaufman, Ela and their sons Jerzy and Marek. Stefan built for himself and his family a small hiding place in the cellar, which one could enter from a cabinet in the laundry room. In the spring of 1942 Stefan conducted to this hiding place the Shapiros when they escaped the ghetto with the help of a friend, Irena Wroblewski. Two police searches with dogs of their house proved futile, as Stefan spilled throughout the cellar a nicotine powder, so that the dogs were unable to sniff out the fugitives. With this experience Stefan built another shelter, under the cellar, with access through a bench work. The fugitives stayed in it at night and during the day they could stay in the apartment, except for the period July till Sept. 11, the day of liberation of Praga (a suburb of Warsaw). In 1980 Jerzy Szapiro a professor of medicine in Warsaw stated that Stefan demonstrated not only total disinterestedness, but also a particular kind of courage and moral strength, which did not yield to threats and pressures. His brother Marek resides in the USA. See. Bartoszewski & Lewin, op. cit., Grynberg, op. cit. and Lukas, Out of the Inferno, op. cit.

PEDOWSKI, Helena
PEDOWSKI, Mieczyslaw, son
PEDOWSKI, Hanna, daughter

Helena Pedowski, a 78 years old grandmother took part in the extracting from the ghetto of the Szper couple and the woman pharmacist Romana Zamenhof, relative of the famous creator of the Esperanto language. She did it with the help of her grandson, Karol Pedowski, who was a lawyer and Tadeusz Rek (q.v.). Helena played the main part in making contact with the refugees in the building of the Schultz workshop in the ghetto and the exit on the "Aryan" side on the Ogrodowa Street. Suddenly some blackmailers cornered the fugitives. Szper opened his wallet to pay them off; one of them grabbed it so greedily, that several 500 zlotys banknotes (a hefty sum) were taken far away by the gutsy wind and the extortionists rushed after them. The fugitives took a horse-drawn cab deciding to return to the ghetto. The cabman was decent enough to go as slowly as possible. Another blackmailer jumped into the cub, but when it became dark he, fortunately, disappeared in the darkness. Changing cabs twice, the fugitives reached the address given to them beforehand by the young Karol, in the Zoliborz suburb, where they stayed for a year and a half. Helena brought them regularly food and her grandson registered them with Zegota for steady help. When even that shelter became "hot" (dangerous) Rek transferred them to another apartment in the Wola suburb. Thanks to those four (of whom Karol had not been recognized) and to the lucidity of the cabman, all survived. See: Prekerowa, op. cit.

PEKALSKI, Franciszek

PEKALA-KOZIOL, Genowefa (1908-)

Genowefa resided at Dabrowka Tucholska, Tarnow prov. During the occupation she took care of Salomon Blasenstein from Tuchowa, who knew Genowefa's brother, Zygmunt Pekala, from school. Salomon fled to Lvov, then to Cracow and asked for Genowefa's help. The latter got from the parish priest, Litwinski, a birth certificate, which enabled him to take the position of manager of an estate at Slupce. When he was threatened there Genowefa placed him with her brother, Zygmunt. Under his fictional name, Salomon got even the position of a commune secretary. After the war he settled in the USA. Zygmunt is not recognized as "Righteous" up to now. See: Grynberg, op. cit.

PEPIAK, Julia

Julia lived in Belzec. The Germans entered Lvov in 1941 and started to kill and deport Jews. From the Helman family the only one who remained was the 29 years old Salomea with her daughter Bronia (3). A local gravedigger took them to Belzec , where she was born. He left her before the house of Julia, telling her that Julia is a good person and she might help her. Julia was terrified: in her house stayed two slaughterers from the nearby Jewish extermination camp, at Belzec, and searches often took place. Suddenly it came to her mind that the Jewish mother with her child, pleading with her eyes for rescue, is the Holy Mother Mary who with her son Jesus is trying to escape from the henchmen of Herod. She took both home and they survived. Salomea once fell in the hands of the Ukrainians, but then she was saved from them by another Pole, Zygmunt Nowosielski, the commune secretary. See: Kaluski, Marian, op cit. and Prus, Edward: "Holocaust po banderowsku"

PIASECKI, Leopold

PIASECKI, Ludwika (not related)
PIATEK, Stefan
PIATEK, Anna, wife

PIATKOWSKI, Hipolit Ludwik (1899-1989)

A farmer's son, Hipolit, officer of the First World War, invalid, was the manager of a textile workshop in Warsaw. He employed there several Jews, sheltered others coming from different parts of Poland, like Lodz, Lvov, and Vilna. Others he extracted from the ghetto, protecting them by military means, especially the insurgents from the burning ghetto. He saved thus his Jewish wife and some members of her family. Thanks to his family and business connections from before the war he received, already towards the end of 1939, many offers from Jews to take possession of their shops and that of different branches of industry, especially from Lodz, where he helped those driven out by the occupants. This taking over had two forms: of co-operatives or of renting machines and installations. In cases of rent the owner received the payment in dollars, or zlotys, according to the value of the dollar on the free market, at the prices current before the war. In cases of co-operatives, a percent for each party was established by mutual accord. The Jewish partner remained with his workers in the workshop, as a worker himself, and could keep an eye on his property. Thus Piatkowski took over and organized 20 workshops, mostly in the ghetto, giving work and means of survival to over 1,000 Jews. In 1968 one of the Jews saved, H. R. wrote: "Many Jews also benefited from his disinterested help . up to Hipolit's arrest on April, 1942 and after his release from the prison in February 1944. Among his protégés were my brother, Edmund Raduszewski, (who died after the war) my sister Heda Kon, our brother-in-law Mieczyslaw Kon with his wife and daughter and many others. At the end of 1941 he organized the transfer of Borys Dniestrowski with his wife, from Lvov to Warsaw. I also know that these acts of help were completely disinterested and all material things put in his care by my relatives and acquaintances were solicitously maintained and always at the disposal of their lawful owners". See: Bednarczyk: Zycie codzienne...op. cit. and Grynberg, op. cit.

PIECHNIK, (PIECHNICZEK?) Andrzej
PIECHOWICZ, Marian
PIECHOWICZ, Lucyna, wife
PIECHOWSKI-PUSZET, Janina
PIECUCH, Armela-Maria

PIECUCH, Balbina (not related)
PIECUCH, Balbina's son see PYREK, Stanislaw

PIECUCH, Maria (not related)
PIECUCH, Piotr, son
PIECUCH, Maria, daughter-in-law

Maria, her son Piotr and his wife, also Maria, farmed at Srogow Dolny, near Sanok, Krosno prov. They knew many Jews, among them Ryfka and Jakub Babad, who had a textile store. In 1942 the Babad family escaped from the Sanok ghetto. Two daughters and a son crossed the San River to go to the East; the parents came to the Piecuchs. The decision to take them in was difficult as they had a 2 years old son. Neither could they trust with their secret their farmhand. Nevertheless they accepted them. Piotr arranged a hideout on top of the stable. The two Marias provided them with food and took out the waste, at night or when the men were in the fields. Germans came often searching for grain, pigs, etc. and the Piecuchs lived in continuous fear of discovery. The Babads consoled them that in their Bible it is written that they will be saved and free. After the war they left for the USA and maintain contact with the Piecuchs. See: Grynberg, op. cit.

PIEKARSKI, Jan
PIEKARSKI, Janina, daughter
PIEKARSKI, Krystyna, daughter
PIEKARSKI, Zygmunt, son
PIEKART-WOJCIK, Wladyslawa see WOJCIK-PIEKART, W.
PIEKOSZ Julia
PIEKOSZ-HYNEK, Emilia, daughter
PIENIAZEK, Wladyslaw
PIENIAZEK, Zofia, wife
PIENIAZEK, Maria, daughter

* PIENKIEWICZ, Artur
PIENKIEWICZ, Zuzanna, wife

Artur gave refuge to two women: Ela Zlotnik and Rifka Szaniecka. On April 18, 1944 the Gestapo arrested him for that and dispatched him to the Stuthoff concentration camp. He was killed there in 1945. Yad Vashem awarded him posthumously with the medal "Righteous Among the Nations". He was mentioned here in the list of "Those who paid with their life".

PIEPRZOWSKI, Karol
PIEPRZOWSKI, Eugenia, wife
PIEROG, Eugeniusz
PIERZ, Kazimiera

PIERZCHLEWSKI, Jerzy
PIERZCHLEWSKI, Zofia, wife

Jerzy managed the office of the Shoemakers Guild in Warsaw. Together with Jakub Marek, the president of the Warsaw Artisans' Chamber, he helped in the exchange of raw materials and finished products between the "Aryan" side of Warsaw and the ghetto. He encouraged the shoemakers to cooperate with the ghetto artisans. See: Bednarczyk, Zycie Codzienne., op. cit.

PIERZYCKI, Franciszek
PIERZYCKI, Stanislawa, wife
PIESTRAK-FIUTOWSKI, Helena

PIETKUN, Jan

From his statement made before justice Zurawinski on May 29, 1970, in Miedzyrzec Poznan prov., we learn that he lived in Vilna. At the end of October 1943 there came to his apartment the Jews Buwilskis and Stanhauer and informed him that they were told to vacate their previous place of hiding and asked him to take them in. After a long discussion and consideration he decided to help them. They arranged a hideout under the floor. Jan lived in a cellar on the Ostrobramska Street 25. In this building all the other floors were occupied by the German headquarter of the Luftwaffe (Air force). Anna Buwilski prepared meals from food procured by Jan's wife. The fact of harboring Jews was kept in secret, even from his wife's parents. The Buwilskis slept in their hideout and he with his wife above them. After a few weeks, late at night, the janitor brought two German officers, who were very astonished that although all the civilians were thrown out of that building, the Pietkuns, Poles, were still living there. They told Jan that in 3 days he must move. Jan invited them to table and during the meal he asked them to prolong the term to two weeks and to give him a cart with soldiers to help in the transfer. The officers agreed. He found a new apartment on Zawalna Street 54 and he prepared a new hideout for the Jews under the stairs. And so with the German military cart, with German soldiers and with the Jews who supposedly he hired to help, they moved to the new location. Here the Buwilskis had a radio - (Germans confiscated all the radios and listening to it was under the threat of death penalty) -and listened to all the foreign broadcasts, as the engineer Buwilski knew Russian, German and French. Jan forwarded the precious news to the secret press agency in Vilna, to Prof. Ignacy Swirski. Thus Jan harbored the Buwilskis until the Soviets occupied Vilna. His protégés returned to Poland, and then through Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Italy reached Tell-Aviv. In 1962 Jan went to Israel at their invitation. Jan's wife was not recognized. See: Wronski & Zwolakowa, op. cit.

PIETOS, Boleslaw
PIETOS, Genowefa, wife
PIETRENKOWA-PUDLO, Janina see PUDLO-PIETRENKOWA, J.

PIETROW, Aleksander (1909-)
PIETROW, Stefania (1907-) sister

Brother and sister occupied a small house belonging to their family in Warsaw. They helped to survive four (4) Jews: especially Edwarda Szulman with her 9 years old son. Stefania gave them the birth certificate of her sister and her sister's son, the Horodeckis, who at that time were in Vilna. Edwarda died in Warsaw in 1971 and her son settled in France. Further Ignacy Rozenkranc, friend of their parents before the war and young Henryk Karolicki spent the occupation years under the roof of the Pietrows. Stefania had to pay blackmailers who, fortunately, had been satisfied with the money. Ignacy died in Lublin in 1953 and Henryk went to South America. See: Grynberg, op. cit.

PIETRUSZKA, Andrzej
PIETRUSZKA, Helena, wife
PIETRUSZKA, Czeslaw, son
PIETRZAK, Mikolaj

PIETAK, Zygmunt (1922-)

Zygmunt started to help Jews since the establishment of the Warsaw ghetto. In 1942 he helped the Keningsweins, Szmul and Regina, to flee the ghetto with their three sons: 5 years old Miecio, 3 years old Stefcio and a few month old Stas. At nighttime the parents, after bribing the Blue Police, climbed over the wall, near Okopowa Street. The sleeping children were transported in sacks. The fugitives were placed with Kazimierz Racik, except for the baby who was placed at the Baudouin orphanage in Warsaw. Zygmunt visited them regularly. Because of the threat of denunciation, Zygmunt put his charges under the care of Dr. Jan Zabinski (q.v.), director of the Zoological Garden in Warsaw and of Feliks Cywinski (q.v.). The Kenigsweins survived the occupation and retrieved their youngest son from the orphanage. In 1948 Szmul died in Lodz and his wife with the children settled in Israel. See: Grynberg, op. cit.

PIJEWSKI, Jozef
PIJEWSKI, Bronislawa, sister
PIJEWSKI, Donata, sister?
PIKULA-KOLACZ, Stanislawa see KOLACZ-PIKULA, S.
PIKULSKI, Jan Waclaw
PILECKI, Michalina
PILAT, Franciszek
PILAT, Katarzyna, wife
PILAT, Marian, son

PILAT, Piotr (not related)
PILAT, Jan, son
PILAT, Leon, son
PILAT, Matylda, Jan's wife
PILAT, Wincenty, son
PINDELAK, Roman
PINDELAK, Paulina, wife
PINDELAK-WYDRYCH, Helena, daughter?
PINDOR, Stanislaw
PINDOR Stanislaw's mother
PIOTROWSKI, Aleksander (Olek)

PIOTROWSKI, Aleksandra (1891-1971) (not related)
PIOTROWSKI, Kazimierz (1920-) son
PIOTROWSKI, Jerzy (1923-) son

Aleksandra, with her sons and two daughters, Aleksandra Halina and Alicja (10 and 8) lived in Warsaw. From November 1942 till the end of the German occupation she harbored in her apartment Jaffa Ilutowicz, and also for many months Jaffa's brother, Hersz and his wife Sima. Jaffa settled in Israel, and Hersz with his wife went to the USA. See: Grynberg, op. cit.

PIOTROWSKI, Alicja, Dr. (not related)

PIOTROWSKI, Eugeniusz (not related)
PIOTROWSKI, Jadwiga, wife
PIOTROWSKI, Jadwiga (1903-) another one (not related)

Jadwiga Piotrowski lived in Warsaw in her parents' house, with a small garden and two exits, which was a great asset in her work. She worked in the Social Welfare Department of the City of Warsaw, in close cooperation with Irena Sendler (q.v.) from Zegota. She was the right hand of Jan Dobraczynski (q.v.) and co-operated with Izabela Kuczkowski and her mother Kazimiera Trzaskalski, Jadwiga Grabowski, Irena Schultz (q.v.), Wanda Drozdowski-Rogowicz, Lucyna Franciszkiewicz, Wincenty Ferster, Helena Maluszynski, Halina Nowak and her mother Franciszka Nowak, Stanislawa Bussold (q.v.) and others. She particularly helped Jewish children, either extracted from the ghetto, or those who fled it by themselves, keeping them temporarily in her house, or placing them with Polish families, orphanages and Catholic convents. In her house ca. 50 such children found refuge. Some needed false documents, others food, garments, medical care, or money for the substitute families or to pay the blackmailers who threatened them. Zegota provided regular stipends of 850-900 zlotys for such Jewish children. The number of children helped by all these people amounted to ca 2,500, of whom only two boys were murdered. Jadwiga's work did not lack its dramatic moments. Once she had in her house several Jewish children when two parties of Germans started to search all the houses on her street, one from one end, and the other from the other end. Jadwiga held above the stove the list of names of the children, ready to throw it in the fire, as soon as the Germans would enter her house; she just kept praying together with the children. Incredibly the Germans missed that one house, believing that it was already searched. As her supervisor recounted after the war, when it was a question of Jewish children, for Jadwiga there were no difficult or impossible tasks. She was always the first, valiant and fearless. Only 4 from the 13 mentioned here (q.v.) had been recognized. See: Bartoszewski & Lewin, op. cit.,Grynberg, op. cit., Kurek, op. cit. and Prekerowa, op. cit.

PIOTROWSKI, Jozef (not related)
PIOTROWSKI, Zofia, wife

PIOTROWSKI, Kazimierz (1904-) (not related)
PIOTROWSKI, Waleria, wife
PIOTROWSKI-CZARNECKI, Wilhelmina (1927-) daughter

Kazimierz, Waleria and Wilhelmina lived in Przemysl. From 1942 till the end of the German occupation in 1944 they harbored in their house Sala Doppelt and her three sons: Maksymilian, Oskar and Zygmunt, as well as Zygmunt Gerber, whose wife and two children were murdered in the ghetto. Sala died after the war in Przemysl and her sons went to France. Zygmunt Gerber joined the Polish Army and fell in the battle for Kolobrzeg. See: Grynberg, op. cit.

PIOTROWSKI-KORWIN, Stanislaw & Sabina see KORWIN PIOTROWSKI, S.

PIOTROWSKI, Wladyslawa (not related)
PIROG, Wojciech
PISAREK-JOB, Stefania see JOB, Jozef & Wiktoria, parents?
PISKOREK, Helena
PISKORZYNSKI, Marian
PISKORZYNSKI, Aniela, wife
PISULA, Natalia

PISULA-KAPLAN, Wanda (not related)
PIWINSKI, Jerzy
PIWINSKI, Eugenia, wife

PIWOWARCZYK, Wladyslaw (1900-1955)

Wladyslaw, a farmer, resided at Leka, Nowy Korczyn district, Kielce prov., with his wife Wladyslawa-Marianna, sons Jozef and Waclaw and daughter Janina. From May 1942 till Jan. 14, 1945 they sheltered Izrael Weinbaum from Nowy Korczyn.
In November his 5 years old son Albert joined his father. He had been hidden before elsewhere. Izrael's wife, Lola, also hidden before in another place, went on to join them. Izrael Weinbaum wrote from Australia in 1988 that they owe their life to the Piwowarczyks and to their children, who shared with them the last piece of bread. It seems that the other members of the Piwowarczyk family have not been recognized up to now. See: Grynberg, op. cit.

PIWOWARSKI, Jozef
PIWOWARSKI, Stefania, wife
PIWOWARSKI, Marian, son
PIWOWARSKI, Mieczyslaw, son

PIZIO, Stanislaw (1885-1971)
PIZIO, Franciszka (1892-1971)

The Pizios lived with their daughter, Maria Dzugala (q.v.) and son-in-law Wladyslaw Dzugala (q.v.) at Podkamieniec, Zloczow district. The schoolmate of Maria, Regina Hoder, escaped from the Rohatyn ghetto in 1942, during the massacre of the Jewish population. She remained under the care of the Pizios till the end of the war. She settled in the USA and maintained contact with her benefactors. See: Grynberg, op. cit.

PIZUNSKI, Olga
PLACHKY-GBUREK, Anna see GBUREK, Franciszek & Franciszka, parents?
PLAUSZEWSKI, Feliks
PLAUSZEWSKI, Stefania, wife
PLENKIEWICZ-GLOWACKI, Urszula see GLOWACKI-PLENKIEWICZ, U.
PLEWA, Alojzy
PLICH, Jan
PLICH, Bronislawa, wife

PLUSA, Tadeusz ((1904-)
PLUSA, Helena (1906-1976) wife

Tadeusz was a research worker and lived with his family at Starachowice. German army units occupied the big garden adjacent to his house. Mindla Binsztok, who knew Helena, came to her after escaping the ghetto before its liquidation in 1944. Helena swiftly pushed her into a closet under the stairs. At night the couple led Mindla to another place, which also was not safe. In two days the Plusas found another arrangement. Having two goats, they separated them and dug a hole between the two shacks and covered it with straw, grass and hay for the animals. Mindla remained there till the fall. Helena placed Mindla in her own, Mindla's home, which before had housed a beer-bottling shop, in a specially prepared space, in which she stayed till the end of the German occupation. Mindla left for Canada, and in 1965 she sent a document, as a sign of her gratitude, transferring the ownership of half of her house to the Plusas, the other half to Agata Lukasiewicz, who also helped her, but was not recognized. See: Grynberg, op. cit.

PLACHCINSKI, Felicja
PLACHCINSKI, Ludwik, son
PLACHTA, Jozef
PLACHTA, Wanda, wife
PLACZEK, Jozef
PLACZEK, Maria, wife
PLACZEK, Jadwiga, daughter
PLAKSEJ, Zachariasz
PLAKSEJ, Bronislawa, wife
PLAKSEJ-KISIELEWSKI, Paulina, daughter?
PLASKACZ, Bronislawa
PLATEK, Maria
PLAZINSKI, Jozef
PLAZINSKI, Maria, wife
PLAZINSKI, Zuzanna, daughter
PLOSKI-DENTKIEWICZ, Stanislawa see DENTKIEWICZ, Jan, father
PLOTKOWSKI, Franciszek
PLOTKOWSKI, Maria, wife
PLOTKOWSKI, Jan, son
POCHMARSKI, Henryk
POCIECHA-WOJCIK, Stanislawa see WOJCIK, Maria, mother
PODDEMBNIAK, Jan, priest

PODESZWOWA, Malgorzata

Malgorzata lived at Szadek. The ghetto in Szadek was established in June 1940 and liquidated in August 1942, by deporting its 500 Jews to the Chelmno on Ner (River) extermination camp. From January 1942 till the end of the German occupation she concealed in her apartment Ewa Krotowski from Szadek, who after the war emigrated to the USA. See: Grynberg, op. cit.

PODGAJNY, Mieczyslaw ((1918-)
PODGAJNY-PRACKI, Otylia ((1907-) sister

Brother and sister resided in Ostrowiec Swietokrzyski where they knew many Jews. During the occupation they moved to Warsaw, to a modest apartment consisting of one room and a cellar. Not having the possibility of concealing Jews in their home, they helped many from Ostrowiec Swietokrzyski to find other shelters, to get false identification, or even employment. They helped Jakir and Jente Czernikowski and their daughters, Barbara and Frumka, Stanislaw Holanski, Marian Kargul, Mrs. Werwejel with her daughter, Wanda Zylberdrut with her daughter. So Wanda got work as a manicurist and Henryk Leszczynski as a driver in a German business. Stanislaw and Marian were able, thanks to Mieczyslaw's connections, to cross the frontier into Czechoslovakia and Hungary, safer at that time. At the turn of 1943 and 1944 Mieczyslaw was arrested under the suspicion of hiding Jews, but luckily he escaped from the prison. See: Grynberg, op. cit.

PODGORSKI-BURZMINSKI, Stefania
PODGORSKI, Helena, younger sister

The Podgorski sisters lived in Przemysl. At that time Stefania was 16 and Helena 6 years old. They lived alone, because their father had died and their mother and brother were taken to Germany for forced labor. Stefania worked as a machine-tool operator. Joseph Burzminski, the son of a previous employer of Stefania, escaped with his brother and cousin from the train to Belzec. He came to Stefania and asked permission to spend one night, telling: "I swear I will go tomorrow." Stefania was terrified, but she acquiesced. Her mother, Katarzyna, had instilled in her a strong sense of duty to others. "We are all children of the same God", she told her. But Joseph remained. He sneaked into he ghetto and found his younger brother Henek and Henek's wife Danuta, Dr. William Shylenger and his daughter Judy, and a friend of his, a dentist with his son. Joseph organized for himself a false document to be able to move and sneak food to the others. But he lost his card and asked Stefania to accept the others. Stefania rented a semi-detached cottage with two rooms, a kitchen and an attic on Tatarska Street. Stefania, Helena and Joseph moved first, then Dr. Shylenger with his daughter and the dentist with his son. The dentist's friend, a widow from the ghetto wanted to come also with her son and daughter. In case she was refused, she wrote in her note, she might denounce them. Stefania, angrily, accepted them also. The dentist begged her to admit his nephew with his wife. Henek, Joseph's younger brother with his wife arrived later, finally there came a Jewish mailman: 13 Jews to hide, feed and save. Stefania bought some boards and Joseph made a wall in the attic. The 13 could sleep in this very small space lying like sardines. Then an SS man moved next door. Joseph kept vigil with others to exclude any noises, including snoring. One young man, attracted to the blond and beautiful Stefania, started visiting her daily. To discourage him she put on the wall a photograph of a German officer, telling him that he is her new boyfriend. The dentist's widowed friend came down with typhus; in fever she rushed unconsciously screaming into the street. Stefania with great difficulty led her inside. After a few weeks they were completely without money. Stefania started to knit sweaters and taking orders for them from her friends and acquaintances, buying food, if necessary, on the black market. Toward the end of 1943 Stefania saw the bodies of some Jews and the Polish family who concealed them, all shot. A few months later a German officer entered the apartment and announced that Stefania and her sister must vacate the place in two hours. Joseph was ready to die fighting, but Stefania opted for prayer. "Let's all pray". Joseph agreed. The fugitives begged the two sisters to flee, as they felt that they all are doomed. But Stefania thought otherwise. "I am not leaving you", she said. "Everything will be all right". The officer reappeared telling that after all he is taking one room only, for two nurses of the military hospital, opposite the house. A week later the nurses came and at night brought with them German soldiers for company. One afternoon the two nurses came home with two armed soldiers. One of the nurses started to mount on the ladder to the attic, but, somehow, she desisted from her plan to search the attic and the soldiers departed. The fugitives were hungry. The manager of the factory in which Stefania worked, announced that the factory was moving to Germany as well as the hospital opposite their house. The nurses enticed Stefania to go with them. She could not refuse them and promised to do so, but when they were already on the bus, she called: "I have changed my mind. I am not going. Auf Wiedersehen!" (Good-by!) Soon after the Soviet Army occupied Przemysl. The 13 Jews, although emaciated and weak, were free. In 1945 Joseph proposed to Stefania. "You asked me to stay one night" she teased him "now you want to make it a lifetime?" In 1961 the couple immigrated to the USA, where Joseph is a dentist. They have a son and a daughter. Helena also married, studied medicine and is a physician in Wroclaw, Poland. See: Lukas, Did the children Cry, op. cit. and the article by Thomas Fleming in Reader's Digest of February 1996.

PODKOWINSKI, Zofia

Zofia Podkowinski, archeologist, then a research worker in the National Museum, later a Professor Emeritus was, called also "The Second Zofia". "The First Zofia" was probably the librarian Zofia Rodziewicz, whom mentioned Adolf Berman, activist of Left Poale-Zion, representing the Jewish National Committee (ZKN) in ZEGOTA. Adolf Berman mentions also among those helping Jews at the risk of their life: Antonina Roguska, who specialized in finding jobs for Jewish women, Mrs. Wyrub, Mrs. Petkowska, Roza Zawadzka, Stanislaw Papuzinski (q.v.) Irena Sendler (q.v.), Maria Laska, who working in the Record Office, manipulated documents, Julia Miller, Irena Morsztynkiewicz. None of them, except Papuzinski and Sendler, are recognized. These names are only of people working in some social institutions. Adolf Berman mentions many others who distinguished themselves in help to Jews. Zofia Podkowinski with Irena Sawicki (q.v.) and Nina Assorodobraj formed the trio called the "The Three Graces". They created a home for all those who needed help, protection and reassurance and through it went an unending stream of such people. Especially on Sundays the three women offered their guests unsweetened coffee with rye pies baked by Zofia without fat and pumpkin preserves with syrup. But the table was laid with embroidered cloth and fine porcelain, so that all these refugees could relax in a home atmosphere, talk, borrow books. The three women kept also all the archives of the Jewish organizations. In this flat up and even during the Ghetto Uprising there met with the Poles Icchak Cukierman ("Antek") and Adolf Berman, representatives of the fighters. All this described Colonel Narbutt in "Peoples and Events". See: the account of Basia Temkin-Berman ("Basia"), Adolf Berman's wife, probably the most active from the Jewish side, entitle: "The First Irena" about Irena Sawicki (q.v.) in Bartoszewski & Lewin, op. cit.

PODLASEK, Wiktoria
PODOLCZAK, Michal
PODOLCZAK, Maria, wife

PODSIADLO, (PODSIADLA?) Stanislaw
PODSIADLO, Anna
PODSIADLO-KOBYLECKI, Teodora (1923-) daughter

The Podsiadlos farmed at Siedliszczki, commune of Piaski. The Germans established the Piaski ghetto in 1941, which they liquidated in 1942 and in 1943. They transported the Jews to the Sobibor extermination camp. Kurt Ticho, a Jew from Czechoslovakia, fled from the ghetto; he was among the 300 inmates who had rebelled against their oppressors. He came to the Podsiadlos, whom he knew before, as he was sent from the Piaski ghetto to work on their farm. When he came to them on October 18, 1943, telling Stanislaw that he came to save his life, the latter took him to the stable, brought him food and a blanket. The next day he placed him in the loft of the stable, where Kurt spent the following nine months, till the Red Army arrival in July 1944. Kurt attested in 1985, that he was treated like a member of the family, without any compensation. He wrote that the Podsiadlos brought him food three times a day and took out the bucket with waste, as he did not leave his hideout. He was deeply grateful to them for saving his life. See: Grynberg, op. cit

PODWORSKI, Liliana

PODWORSKI, Wladyslaw (not related)
POETSCHKE, Jerzy
POGONOWSKI, Andrzej
POGORZALSKI Julian
POGORZALSKI, Stanislaw, son
POGORZELEC, Bronislawa
POGORZELSKI-SZMURLO, Maria see SZMURLO-POGORZELSKI, M.
POGORZELSKI-RZONCOW, Sabina (not related)

POGORZELSKI, Wojciech (1912-) physician (not related
POGORZELSKI, Emilia (1912-) physician

The physician couple lived during the occupation with their baby girl at Szyrwinty, a Lithuanian village near Vilna. Emilia was a courier for the resistance, AK, and visited often in Vilna her elder sister, Maria Fedecki (q.v.) who helped Jews. In Vilna there resided the engineer Don Komaj, with his wife, Maria, and his daughter Pola, both physicians. They hid for a certain time with a forester but when that became dangerous, Wincenty Aloszko (q.v.) brought Dr. Maria Komaj to Maria Fedecka, who placed her with her sister Emilia, as a nurse to their baby girl. In the meantime the engineer Don Komaj was killed. Although the maid of the Pogorzelskis suspected that Dr. Komaj was a Jewess, the latter lived with the Pogorzelskis till the entrance of the Soviets in Vilna. Her daughter, Dr. Pola Wagner stated in 1986 that finding a hideout for her mother was like a gift from heaven. See: Grynberg, op. cit.

POKORSKI, Katarzyna (1897-1976)
POKORSKI, Stanislaw (1921-) son

Katarzyna was a poor farmer with seven children at Podwierzbie, Garwolin district. After roaming in the fields and the forest, Abram Prajs, who escaped the transport to Treblinka came to her. He got a hiding place, in which he hid in moments of danger. Some people asked Katarzyna to get rid of the Jew. She, of course, denied keeping any. Abram remained with them till the end of the war. During two years he was maintained completely by the Pokorskis. See: Grynberg, op. cit.

POKROPEK, Jan (1911-)
POKROPEK, Jozefa (1908-1977)

The couple lived at Biskupice, not far from Pruszkow. The sister of Jozefa, Maria Borkowski (1895-) and her husband Eustachy (1892-1944) (q. v.) harbored a Jew, Mieczyslaw Pieprz and his daughter Janina, both under the fictional name of Wolynski. In August of 1944 Maria Borkowski brought Mieczyslaw and Janina, asking her sister to take over the care of them. Father and daughter stayed with them till their liberation. After the war they went to Lodz and from there to France. But they did not forget their saviors. Janina stated in 1986 that the shelter and upkeep received from the Pokropeks was gratuitous and entirely disinterested. See: Grynberg, op. cit.

POKRYWKA, Wiktoria
POKRYWKA, Stanislaw, son, (brother?)

Wiktoria, a laundress, lived in Lvov. She hid seven (7) Jews in her apartment. Soon there was no money to feed them and starvation set in. First died the grandfather of Clara Eintov. Stanislaw buried him in the cellar. Two months later died her grandmother, who seeing the problems involved, asked before death, that her body be burned in the stove, what was done. "We kept her ashes in a bowl", Clara stated. From the seven refugees only three returned to health and strength.   See: Paldiel, op. cit.

POLANSKI-OKON, Jozefa
POLANSKI, Stanislawa (sister)

Stanislawa lived on the estate Krajenka, commune of Zlotow, with her father and brother, also Stanislaw. In 1942 the Fischbein family of fifteen (15) members were concealed at the sawmill of the Grodzickis at Bzianka. In June of 1942 German gendarmes appeared with a list of names of people to be deported. The name of the Fischbeins was on that list. The Fischbeins managed to escape before the country wagon sent for them by the Germans arrived. Stanislaw promised to meet them at the Wislok River in the evening. He brought them food, with the help of his sister, Stanislawa and tried to encourage them. He implored his father to find for them a safe place, with the foresters, with whom he worked. However, this lasted several days. In the meantime Stanislaw, who knew all the possible hiding-places around on the meadows and old riverbeds, placed them as he could. But the food brought them several times a day did not suffice, the children were crying, especially because heavy rains drenched them completely. Three people headed by the forester Siwak came to the estate to take the Fischbeins toward Zmienica. Stanislaw, with his brother-in-law, Jan Szafran, had to lead them, as only he knew where they were hidden. As it was pouring, the water flooded all the ditches and it was necessary to wade chest deep to reach them. They found the Fischbeins exhausted and resigned. But they arrived to Siwak's home safely. Stanislaw maintained contact with them, went to the ghetto, brought from it things they needed and some children for which he found places with different families. Through the intermediary of the engineer Stacherak from Krosno, the Fischbeins were hidden in that town until their liberation. All survived. This is the abbreviated story by Stanislaw Polanski. He and the others are not recognized. See: Bartoszewski & Lewin, op. cit.

POLECHAJLLO, Aniela, a nun "Sister Stanislawa"

Sister Stanislawa was the superior of the convent at Turkowice, of the Congregation of Sisters Servants of Mary Immaculate. Several dozens of Jewish children were harbored in that convent, 32 from Warsaw alone, according to the priest Michal Kot. The superior had an understanding with the Council for Aid to Jews and its Children Department, headed by Irena Sendler (q.v.) and with Jadwiga Piotrowski (q.v) who tried to find those who needed this refuge the most. Once Jadwiga Deneko (q.v.) asked the Sisters to transfer one of the children, Katarzyna Meloch, to another convent, feeling endangered herself. Sister Polechajllo replied her: "No, we will erase her name from the list of children in the convent, but she will remain with us". So from that moment, wrote later Katarzyna Meloch, the Sisters were doubly endangered: first because they kept a Jewess and second because this Jewess did not appear on the list. See Grynberg, op. cit., Kurek, op. cit., Lukas, op. cit. "Did the Children Cry" and Prekerowa, op cit.

POLEWSKI, Franciszek
POLEWSKI, Barbara, wife
POLINSKI, Jozef
POLINSKI, Jozefa, wife,
POLINSKI, Wladyslawa, daughter
POLIT, Andrzej
POLIT, Maria, wife
POLIT, Waclaw, son
POLKOWSKI, Maria
POLLACK-GRADOWSKI, Aleksandra see GRADOWSKI-POLLACK, A.
POLUJKO, Dymitr
POLUJKO, Irena, wife
POLUJKO, Mikolaj, son
POMORSKI, Jozef
POMORSKI, Aleksander, son
POMORSKI, Piotr, son
POMORSKI, Tadeusz, son
POMORSKI, Waclaw, son
PONIATOWSKI, Stanislaw
PONIATOWSKI, Janina, wife
PONIZ, Wienczyslaw (Wenceslav?)
PONIZ, Janina, wife
PONTKOWSKI, Romualda
POPLAWSKI OYRZANOWSKI, Janina see OYRZANOWSKI-POPLAWSKI, J.

POPLAWSKI, Stanislaw (not related)
POPLAWSKI, Stanislawa, wife
POPLAWSKI, Janina, daughter
POPLAWSKI, Stanislaw, son

POPOWSKI, Stanislaw (1894-1953) physician
POPOWSKI, Maria (1897-1969) wife
POPOWSKI-TABORSKI, Hanna, daughter

Dr. Popowski was one of the 54 members participating in the Committee of Democratic and Socialist Doctors. This secret Coordinating Committee was established in Warsaw in 1940 and acted till 1944. It was an independent association, to which belonged prominent representatives of the medical profession.  There also belonged to it six medical students and seven nurses. All their names appear in the Bartoszewski's & Lewin's book, so often quoted here. Its aim was resistance to the occupant, counteracting Nazi propaganda, collecting materials about the German criminal practices in the medical service, and planning the future nationalized medicine in Poland. Its doctors gave medical care to the wounded in fighting, hid and helped Jews outside the ghetto, provided aid to the ghetto and issued forged documents to Jews. From the end of 1941 till the spring of 1944 every few weeks the Committee issued a bulletin "Abecadlo Lekarskie" (Medical ABC) which was distributed to hospitals, nursing homes, etc. This secret publication appealed to Polish doctors not to take over the work of their Jewish colleagues without first coming to an agreement with them. Here is one quote from it: "Enlightened Poles and Jews ought to see in each other allies in the fight against their common enemy. All racism and its inhuman methods must be alien to the doctor, whose fundamental duty is to come to the aid of his fellow-men, regardless of race or nationality." - The Popowskis hid in their home several Jewish doctors. Among them was professor Henryk Brokman and Janina Sterling, daughter of a Lodz physician, Seweryn Sterling. They harbored also Bianka Perelmuter (14), a schoolmate of their daughter Hanna. See: Grynberg, op. cit.

PORANEK, Andrzej
PORANEK, Jozefa, wife
PORANSKI-TESZNER, Danuta
PORANSKI-ZALINSKI, Zofia, sister?
POREBSKI, Andrzej

POREBSKI, Rozalia, (1906-1989)
POREBSKI, Edward, son
POREBSKI, Wladyslaw, son

Rozalia and her sister Jozefa Hankus (Hankes ?) (q.v.) were sisters of Krystyna Wawak (q.v.) married to Ignacy Wawak (q.v.) in the village of Bujakow, near Bielsko-Biala. This family saved seven Jews, in particular Adela Zawadzka and her child, Elek Jakubowicz and her brother Marian. For details of this story look under Wawak Ignacy and Krystyna in Grynberg, op. cit.

POSLAWSKI, Boleslaw
POSLAWSKI, Rozalia, wife
POSTOWICZ, Ryszard
POSTOWICZ, Kazimiera, wife
POSULA, Julia

POTOCKI, Jerzy, count
POTOCKI, Maria, born RETTINGER-STRASZEWSKI (1918-)

Count Jerzy Potocki and his wife Maria resided at their estate Borek Szlachecki, near Cracow. Many Jews benefited from their help. Bronislaw Szatyn, the administrator of the estate, whose Jewish identity was first unknown to them, remained even after they learned about his secret. He had to leave the estate but continued to get help from them. The Potockis harbored also Maria Friede from Skawina, who came to them thanks to Szatyn. She was hidden in the granary and the countess watched all the time over it to prevent somebody discovering its inhabitant. Also Boleslaw Szkraba stayed there over a year as an agrarian trainee and Waleria Lisek with her son, employed as a housemaid. Bronislaw Szatyn, now in the USA wrote a book "Na Aryjskich Papierach" (On Aryan papers) published by the Wydawnictwo Literackie in Cracow in 1983. He, as well as Maria Friede, stated in 1984 that especially the countess demonstrated the highest human attitude and an uncommon heroism in helping the persecuted. See: Grynberg, op. cit.

POTRZEBOWSKI, Jan (1897-1972)
POTRZEBOWSKI, Natalia, wife (1891-1976)
POTRZEBOWSKI-DONALIS, Helena (1918-) daughter
POTRZEBOWSKI-KOZLOWSKI, Krystyna (1928-) daughter

The family lived in Warsaw. Jan Potrzebowski was a janitor. He helped thirteen (13) Jewish persons, placing some with his neighbors and acquaintances, others in his building. Here he arranged two hideouts: one over and the other under the elevator. The Jews saved were: Bronislawa Ajzenband, Misza Goldblum, the physician Eugenia Geszychter, Maria Geszychter and her daughter, Hanna, Maria Goldblum, the Goldzand sisters, Roma and Dora, Krystyna Lastreger, Natalia Mochorowski, Bronislawa Norowicz, Jakub Reichman, and Henryk Zajdman. Natalia Mochorowski was a courier for the Jewish National Committee; she met in the Potrzebowskis' apartment with Dawid Guzik, the representative of the JOINT (Jewish organization abroad).  She stated from New York in 1964 that there was not one case in which Jan would refuse help to a Jewish person. He took care of all of them like a father. See: Grynberg, op. cit.

POWEZKI, Marianna
POWIERZA, Boleslaw
POWIERZA, Kazimiera, wife
POZIMSKI, Jerzy
POZNIAK Zofia
PRACKI, Otylia see PODGAJNY, Mieczyslaw, brother
PRAGER, Zofia
PRASK, Karol
PRASZEK, Bronislawa

PREKER(OWA) Teresa (1921-1997) born DOBRSKI

Teresa lived in Warsaw. She knew The Jewish woman Alina Wolman. Teresa used to bring food and encouragement to the Wolman family in the ghetto. She got out of it Alina, returning there several times for her belongings, and found her work as a teacher with landed gentry in the Lublin Province. When the 3rd Reich invaded the Soviet Russia, Alina returned to Warsaw and continued to benefit from Teresa's help in finding an apartment and work. In the fall of 1941 Teresa helped to save a 4 years old girl, whom she found crying and miserable on the street. She took her home and later placed her with the Felician Sisters. The child survived. In July 1942 Teresa helped Alina's parents and brother to get over the ghetto wall and settled them on the Aryan side. From January till September 1943 Teresa harbored in Skolimowo, in her husband's apartment, a Jew under the fictional name of Jan Zielinski. Alina confirmed the above in her statement already in 1967. Teresa Prekerowa wrote the book mentioned in the bibliography: "Konspiracyjna Rada Pomocy Zydom w Warszawie, 1942-1945." Warsaw, PIW, 1982. This book about RPZ, called Zegota, appeared in French and soon will appear in English. See: Bartoszewski & Lewin, op. cit. and Grynberg, op cit.

PROCAJLO, Franciszek
PROCAJLO, Zofia, wife
PROCHERA, Stefan
PROCHERA, Natalia, wife
PROKESH-EBRO, Zofia
PROW-SULIKOWSKI, Maria see SULIKOWSKI-PROW, M.

PRUS, Wladyslaw (1893-1971)
PRUS, Marianna (1896-1977) wife
PRUS, Stanislaw (1922-1989) son
PRUS, Jan (1924-1991) son
PRUS, Janina (1925-) daughter-in-law
PRUS, Jozef, son
PRUS, Stefan, son

The Prus family farmed in the village of Peslawice, community Lipnia, Kielce prov. Leon and Marian Czernikowski, two brothers who escaped from the forced labor camp in Sandomierz, asked their acquaintances, Wladyslaw and his family, for shelter, which they obtained. In 1983 Marian wrote from Canada to Poland that they were hidden and fed by the Prus family from August 1943 till August 1944 and that without any payment. See: Grynberg, op. cit.

PRUSAK-PATKOWSKI, Aniela see PATKOWSKI-PRUSAK, A.
PRUSKI, Marian
PRUSKI, Elzbieta, wife

PRUSKI, Michal (not related)
PRUSKI, Anna, wife
PRUSKI, Bronislawa, daughter
PRUSKI, Izabela, daughter

PRZEBINDOWSKI, Helena
PRZEBINDOWSKI, Miroslawa, daughter
PRZEBINDOWSKI, Urszula, daughter

Helena Przebindowski was the sister of Stanislaw Kowalczyk and took into her home one of the twin girls Allerhand. She is described under the name of the family Kwiatek, Franciszek, his wife Maria and their son Ryszard. (q.v.) See: Isakiewicz, op. cit.

PRZEDMOLSKI-ARMATYS, Maria see ARMATYS-PRZEDMOLSKI, M.

PRZEDPELSKI-RADWAN, Janina see Radwan-Przedpelska

PRZENIOSLO, Jan (1894-)
PRZENIOSLO, Marianna (1901-) wife
PRZENIOSLO-MALEC, Anna (1919-) daughter
PRZENIOSLO-KULAR, Stanislawa (1921-) daughter
PRZENIOSLO-MAJ, Honorata (1924-) daughter
PRZENIOSLO-KASPERAK, Jozefa (1926-) daughter
PRZENIOSLO, Wladyslaw (1929-) son

The Przenioslo family farmed on 8 hectares in the village of Cieszkowy, Kielce prov. In May 1941 the occupier established the Wislica ghetto, supplied by the polluted water of the Nida River. The ghetto was liquidated in October 1942, by transporting the Jews to Jedrzejow and then to Treblinka. It was probably at that time that there escaped five (5) persons of the Dzialoszycki family, owners of a textile shop: Abram and Salomea with their 8 years old daughter, Regina and their 5 years old son, Izrael. The other members of the family joined them some time later as well as Mosze Kliger, also from Wislica - altogether twelve (12) persons. At the beginning they were hidden in the barn, but this being not too safe, the Przenioslos built a bunker for 12 people under the pantry. They worked at nighttime exclusively and spread the soil on the fields. The persons harbored did not have any money. They asked the Przenioslos to go to the village of Jurkow, to a man named Sokolowski, who kept their textiles for safe keeping. The Przenioslos could take them from him and sell them for food. When Wladyslaw and his mother were returning with this cloth, an unknown man robbed them, but the Przenioslos continued to keep the 12 people, as before. In July 1944 when one of the persons harbored wanted to meet the approaching Soviets, he got out of the shelter and was killed by a German bullet. The other Dzialoszyckis went to the USA and Israel. In 1986 some of them and especially Regina replied to an announcement in the "Folks-Sztyme" (a Yiddish weekly) in Warsaw in 1986, providing information on their saviors. See: Grynberg, op. cit.

PRZETACZEK, Rudolf
PRZETACZEK, Zofia, wife
PRZEWALSKI, Jan
PRZEWALSKI, Jozefa, wife

PRZEWALSKI, Maria (not related)
PRZEWALSKI, Stefan, son

PRZYBOJEWSKI, Apolonia (1906-1990)

Apolonia lived in Warsaw on Pawia Street and had to move elsewhere when it was incorporated into the Warsaw ghetto. When still living on Pawia, she befriended Gerszon Szarfsztejn and the Guz family, who returned to the town of Minsk Mazowiecki, from which they came. Apolonia visited them there frequently, helping them in many ways. She led out of the ghetto the Guz's father and brother and brought them to Minsk Mazowiecki. She also tried to extricate from the Radzyn Podlaski ghetto Szarfsztejns's mother, but unfortunately a day before she was transported to another ghetto. In November 1942 she took an 8 days baby from Mrs. Guz and placed it in the Baudouin orphanage. Both mother and girl survived. In August 1942 Germans took the Jews from the Minsk Mazowiecki to Treblinka and among them was Gerszon's father with his 7 years old son and Guz with his 16 years old son. Toward the end of 1942 Apolonia rented an apartment in Warsaw for her charges: Sura Matla Guz, her son Gerszon Szarfsztejn, as well as Hersz, Mosze and Taube Zyserman. For all of them Apolonia organized false Kennkarten, even more than once when it was necessary. Although her family had signed the Volksliste, she refused to do it, until she was put before the choice: either forced labor in Germany or signing the Volksliste and continuing the care of her charges. In consultation with them she signed the list. In 1981 Sura Matla Guz and another of her charges who survived sent an attestation that Apolonia took care of them, visited them every day and organized false identifications, in a most disinterested manner. See: Grynberg, op. cit.

PRZYBYLSKI, Zdzislaw (1903-1984) teacher
PRZYBYLSKI, Jadwiga, (1905-1984) wife, teacher
PRZYBYLSKI-WOLF, Jadwiga (1927-) daughter, biologist

The Przybylskis lived in Piotrkow Kujawski, from which they were driven out. Zdzislaw was incarcerated. After many painful experiences they reached Warsaw and found an ex-Jewish apartment. They took in Julia Szliferstein with her daughter Maria, who had already false identifications. Blackmailers found them even there. During the Warsaw Uprising Jadwiga and Maria Szliferstein served as nurses in the insurgents' hospital. Both Szlifersteins survived, but Wanda Przybylski, the younger daughter, perished. See: Grynberg, op. cit.

PRZYBYLKO, Bronislaw
PRZYBYLKO-KOWALIK, Waleria, wife, daughter of KOWALIK, Anna

Bronislaw lived with his wife Waleria, born Kowalik (q.v.) in the village of Borowna. Bronislaw brought home Sabina Hollander and several other Jews from the Plaszow or Bochnia camp: Anna Hesla, her son Ignacy, her brother Julian, brothers Jonek and Szlamek Nut, Uniek Weinfeld and Janina Wulf with her 6 years old son David. Bronislaw transformed the cellar and camouflaged it; but when people suspected him of hiding Jews, he let Wladyslawa Kowalik, (q.v.) his wife's sister, living with them, to take the Jews to the Kowalik's home at Rajbrot.  See: Grynberg, op. cit.

PRZYBYLOWSKI-JANKOWERNY, Kazimiera (1905-)

Kazimiera worked on the farm belonging to Jozef and Anna Kalisiak (q.v.) in the village of Bartniki, Skierniewice district. Roman Jankowerny, from the village of Doleck, was employed on the same farm. During the occupation Roman had to hide in the forest, where Kazimiera brought him food. Together with the Kalisiaks she prepared for him a hideout in the barn and a second one in a concealed bunker. Germans searched the farm several times and arrested Anna Kalisiak, trying to make her confess that she harbored a Jew, but she did not admit it. During the first searches the Germans took from the house all things of value, sheepskins, garments, jewelry. When they even shot a rooster, the villagers thought that they had shot someone of them. After the war Roman Jankowerny married Kazimiera. See: Grynberg, op. cit.

PRZYBYLOWSKI, Zygmunt (not related)

PRZYBYSZ, Bronislaw

PRZYBYSZEWSKI-MAJCHEROWICZ-KUSEK, Albina
PRZYBYSZEWSKI, Dionizy, son? recognized in 1999, when Albina in 1988

PRZYGODZKI, Jozef
PRZYGODZKI, Julia, wife
PRZYLUCKI-ORLOWSKI, Anna see ORLOWSKI-PRZYLUCKI, A.

PRZYSIECKI, Maria, born PRZYSIECKI
PRZYSIECKI, Jozef, son

Mrs. Zofia Z. from Zawichost wrote an 18 pages story about how she was saved. Her husband, Mair Z., had fought in the Dabrowski Brigade in Spain before the war. Many people helped her, beside Jozef Przysiecki, and his mother. The first to help her were the Brzezinskis, taking her into their home. That family
consisted of Zygmunt (1900-1960) from Skarzysko, his wife Zofia, (1905-1961) born Pstruszynski and their son Janusz Brzezinski, born in 1932. Zofia Z. stayed also with the Ziemniaks, Maria and her brother, Jozef, in Ozarow. They became goods friends, but Jozef was killed for his help to Jews. The next family were the Jasinskis: Jan and his wife Paula, (called Ola) who was previously married to Jozef Ziemniak. Of the Jasinski's children, the elder sons, Kazimierz and Waldemar, are no more living, but their daughter, Elzbieta, the youngest, now Czajka, remembers most vividly Zofia, whom she called "aunt" and her small daughter, Margot. Zofia's Z. account is full of dramatic experiences. One relates how she walked to Ozarow, in company of another Jewish girl, Itka B., also harbored by the Przysieckis. Zofia, with swollen legs and completely exhausted, could not walk anymore. Lucjan Tobolski (1924-) unknown to her, Jan Jasinski's friend, carried her on his back for ca. a mile and brought her to the Ziemniaks and helped her during her stay with them. Another story is Zofia's stay, on several occasions with the parish priest of Trojca, suburb of Zawichost, who encouraged his parishioners not to collaborate with the occupying authorities. The priest's name was Ignacy Zycinski (q.v.).  He was raided 19 times by allegedly Polish partisans, who searched for Jews. At that time all kinds of "partisans", be it Communists, Belorussian, Ukrainian, Russian or simply bandits, who all spoke Polish, could easily be mistaken for being Polish partisans. [Remark of this researcher] Zofia relates also about her escape from arrest, when in company of Mrs. Kowalski, in whose home she waited till the liberation by the Red Army. She spent also some time with the Kwiecinskis. The memoirs of Zofia Z. and correspondence with the families named above are in possession of this researcher. Yad Vashem recognized as "Righteous" only Maria, her son Jozef and Father Zycinski on Nov. 21, 1993, No. 5901 & 5901a. Their cause was started in 1990.

PRZYSIECKI, Witold
PRZYSIECKI, Maria, wife
PRZYSIECKI Maria's mother KULAKOWSKI, Klaudia
PRZYTULA, Jozef

* PSIODA, Jan
* PSIODA, Wiktoria, wife

Jan and Wiktoria, both aged 70, farmers from Jaworze Dolne, near Pilzno, Tarnow prov., were shot on Feb. 4, 1943 in a group of four (4) farmers and six (6) Jewish fugitives whom they harbored. They were mentioned here previously in the list "Those Who Paid With Their Lives". See also: Bartoszewski & Lewin, op. cit.

PSTROKONSKI, Janusz (-1979) engineer
PSTROKONSKI, Zofia (1904-) wife

When the couple's house in Warsaw was destroyed by bombardment (1939) they moved to their estate Olesin near Nadarzyn, Sochaczew district. In 1942 three young Jews, brothers Zychlinskis, Leon and Szloma and Mosze Zylberberg, escaped a transport to Treblinka and hid in the shrubbery near Olesin. Janusz helped them to make a bunker there in which he placed also some Soviet captives, providing food for all. To the Pstrokonskis there came often the fiancée of Szloma, Bluma-Irena and in 1944 there came Bernard Fogelewicz, whom the Pstrokonskis introduced to friends as their cousin. Once Janusz opened the door to find himself in front of the German commander of Nadarzyn, brother of the Warsaw district governor, Ludwig Fischer, who came with his aide-de camp. Zofia with composure invited them for a meal. A Mrs. Mosiek also benefited from the Pstrokonski's help. She was shot when the Germans found her praying at the Jewish cemetery. All the others survived. See: Grynberg, op. cit.

PTOSZEK, Anna
PUC, Stanislaw

PUCH, Antoni (1890-1951)
PUCH, Marta (1891-1952) wife
PUCH-IWANIUK, Danuta, daughter

The Puch family farmed at Wolka Konska (Chelm prov.). There lived a Jewish family, the Wagners: Lejba and Sara and their three children. The parents and the two younger children perished during the occupation. Their daughter, 15 years old Gitla, was taken in by the Puchs. Danuta, then under age, took particular care of her. She got for her from a parish priest a birth certificate as Stanislawa Puch, supposedly her sister. In 1942 Danuta brought her to Janina Wroblewski in Warsaw, who even found work for her at a dentist's. When Janina was taken to the Rawensbruck concentration camp, where women were subjected to "medical" experiments, Gitla remained in her apartment. Both survived. See: Grynberg, op. cit.

PUCHALSKI, Anna born OLKO (1894-1994)
PUCHALSKI, Stanislaw, (1920-2000) son
PUCHALSKI, Jan (1879-1946) brother of Stanislaw's grandfather
PUCHALSKI, Wiktoria, Jan's wife

The story of the three Puchalski families had previously been described here, in details, following the list of "Those Who Paid with Their Lives" and before that of the "Righteous among the Nations".
Since this story first appeared on this site, in the first few pages of the list of the "Righteous", the first and third family, counting chronologically, involved in saving the child Joseph F., have been recognized as "Righteous". The second in the order of events, the 17 years old Stefania Z., and her 14 years old brother, also Stanislaw, children of Kazimierz and Emilia, (born Molch) Puchalskis have not been recognized, although they seem to be the most deserving of the three.
The story of the saving was first published in the Yiddish paper "Folks-Sztyme" in Poland on Nov. 7, 1987. This researcher came to know about it in 1993, and followed it up. The recognition of the first and third family is dated March 13, 2000 and the letter announcing it is dated April 12, 2000. Case Nos. 6944 and 6944a

PUCHALSKI, Jan (not related)
PUCHALSKI, Anna, wife
PUCHALSKI-BAGINSKI, Irena, daughter?
PUCHALSKI-KAZIMIERCZYK, Sabina, daughter
PUCHALSKI-MACIEJEWSKI, Krystyna, daughter?

Alex Zandman, a 15 years old boy fled the Grodno ghetto (the town was incorporated after the war into Belorussia) just before its liquidation. His family possessed before the war some summer cottages for hire to tourists in the Lososna forest. The only one not destroyed was that occupied by Jan Puchalski, who earned a small salary as a worker in a tobacco company. Alex, who before used to play with Jan's children, asked him for shelter. He was received warmly, although he did not have anything to offer them. Anna told him that his grandmother, Tema, took her to the hospital when she was about to give birth (the only time she had such a luxury) and offered gifts for the newborn. She always prayed to be able one day to repay her. So, God, hearing her prayers, sent Alex to them, she said. The next day five other Jews found their way to the Puchalskis. The latter put them in a potato cellar 50 yards from the house, but for greater security, dug out a hole under one bedroom, 5 feet by 5 feet, 3 and 1/2 feet high, which was extremely small for six persons. They stayed in that hole for seventeen months, often very hungry, as the Puchalskis were very poor themselves, but they shared everything with their charges, never hinting that they should leave. Even their children tried to encourage them and prayed for them. According to Alex's words, the Puchalskis treated them all "with the highest respect and love for everyone". See: Paldiel, op. cit.
Felix (Alex?) Zandman of Philadelphia recalls in an article of Dec. 1989 how he and other Jews of Grodno (now in Bielorussia) were forced on Nov. 1, 1941 into the ghetto to work for the Germans. On Feb. 13, 1943 he fled the ghetto to Lososna, to Jan and Anna Puchalskis who were the innkeepers there. He was well received although, as he recounts "they were very, very poor.they had no food.they took me in like a family member. I was hidden immediately; for this there was a death penalty. They had five children: 15, 16, and 17 years old and two little ones, age 1 and 2. She was risking their lives". Then joined them his uncle and four other Jews, six (6) people for 17 months. Germans came several times to look for the Jews, but "the Puchalskis never lost courage, never. We lost courage.they built our morale up". Sabina used to bring them food and take the wastes out. The Germans threw the Puchalskis from their house. Some of the Jews died, but other, like Motl Bass, also present at the ceremony, escaped; their descendants count now 35 persons. The Anti-Defamation League's Courage to Care Award was given to the Puchalskis couple in form of bronze plaques by artist Arbit Blatas and handed by ADL National Director, Abraham H. Foxman. Mr. Foxman expressed at this occasion his gratitude to a Polish Christian nursemaid, who claimed him as her own child and raised him for several years. On the photo appear: Mr. Abraham H. Foxman, Felix Zandman and Sabina Kazimierczyk of Gdansk, mentioned above. Felix concluded: "In our Torah it says that man is made in the image of God. For me the Puchalskis are such people."

PUCHALSKI, Maria Michalina (-1947) (not related)
PUCHALSKI, Wladyslaw, (1914-) son

Mother and son lived at Sardyki, Braslaw district, Vilna prov. They harbored one of Wladyslaw's schoolmates, Abram Bryo and his younger sister Stefania. In May 1943 the Bryos joined Soviet partisans, but continued benefiting from the Puchalskis' help, especially from their food. The Puchalskis also helped other Jews, like the Jankiel brothers. Abram Bryo wrote in 1983 from Israel, that from July 1941 till May 1943 they were concealed, fed and taken care by Wladyslaw, who first proposed to hide him and his sister, Stefania, without any payment, for which "I am immensely grateful to him". See: Grynberg, op. cit.

PUCHALSKI-BAJKOWSKI, Zofia (not related)
PUCHALA, Emilia see KOSZYK-ZWIERZCHOWSKI, Eugeniusz

PUCHALA, Jozef (not related)
PUCHALA, Maria, wife

During the war Zygmunt Weinreb, a boy of seven, lived with his mother at Makow, with false identification as Poles. His mother disappeared when traveling to Cracow. Zygmunt came to Jozef and told him the truth. Jozef took him into his home where he harbored already Zygmunt's cousin. When Jozef Puchala went to Makow to fetch Zygmunt's belongings he was arrested and sent to the Gross Rosen concentration camp. Zygmunt survived and has today a different name. The couple was honored in Cracow on Oct. 16, 1999 as "Righteous among the Nations", according to an announcement by the Israeli Embassy in Poland.

PUDLO, Stanislaw

PUDLO, Stanislaw (1895-1962) (another one, not related)
PUDLO, Aleksandra (1893-1969)
PUDLO, Wladyslaw (1916-) son
PUDLO-PIETRENKOWA, Janina, daughter?

The Pudlo family lived in Boryslaw in a house in the forest, far from the town. Ten families lived in that house. During the occupation the Pudlos harbored in it seven (7) people: Hanka Klinberg with her five years old daughter, Mr. Operman, the Szeps couple, Rozia and Michal Szuster. From among them only Michal did not survive: he disappeared when he went for a visit to the ghetto. All emigrated to Israel or to the USA. It was not simple to hide so many, as the neighbors were curious why Wladyslaw used to bring so much food from the town. After the war the neighbors begrudged the Pudlos for exposing them to such a terrible risk. See: Grynberg, op. cit.

PUDLO, Stanislaw (still another one, not related)
PUDLO, Edward, son
PULIT, Wojciech
PULIT, Marianna, wife

PUSTELNIK, Gertruda (1908-)

Gertruda resided in Pszczyna-Porebie, Katowice prov. Germans, seeing already in mid 1944 the coming end and wishing to conceal from the world the magnitude of their crimes, drove through this locality a number of the Auschwitz inmates toward Germany. The people who died in that evacuation are calculated as to be ca. 15,000. Some were shot others died from exhaustion, hunger and cold. On Jan. 20, 1945 the column of the driven inmates reached Pszczyna-Porebie. Germans shoved some of them in Gertruda's barn. In that group there were two young women: Anna Pinkus-Mysliborski from Sosnowiec and Maria Teichman from Warsaw. Taking advantage of a moment of inattention of the SS, they asked Gertuda to give them some potatoes. She gave them the meal telling them that the Soviets are near. This emboldened them to the point that they asked her to hide them and she agreed. When the SS officers found that two women were missing, they were furious; but all their searching was in vain. As the front approached they were in a hurry, so they drove the column of other inmates West, without them. After they left, Gertruda found the two women on the fifth day, completely exhausted. After a good crying session by all three, Gertruda brought them a warm meal, a quilt, pillows and garments, as theirs were in pieces. They remained in hiding as a German detachment still stationed in the village, and one of its officers lived in Gertruda's house. After the war the two women left Poland. See: Grynberg, op. cit.

PUSZET-PIECHOWSKI, Janina see PIECHOWSKI-PUSZET, J.

PYCEK, Leokadia

Leokadia was a janitor on Radziwilowska Street in Warsaw. She took some "cigarette boys" into her flat for several days and fed them. They were Jewish children who tried to make a living by illegal trading, centered on the Plac Trzech Krzyzy (Three Crosses Square) in cigarettes bought from the German soldiers. Other people who helped them similarly were Tadeusz Idzikowski and especially the most devoted to them, Mrs. Kalota, from Widok Street, who sheltered three such children for a longer period. From among the "cigarette children" only three did not survive: two perished by their own imprudence and the only Pole among them, Romuald Plonkowski, drowned in the Vistula River, trying to rescue a drowning colleague. Jozef Zysman-Ziemian, an engineer and liaison officer of the ZKN (Jewish National Committee) wrote an amazing book about their exploits. It was published in 1963 in Israel in Hebrew, Yiddish, Romanian and Polish. Neither Mrs. Kalota, nor Tadeusz, nor a woman doctor, who helped them, were recognized as "Righteous". See: Bartoszewski & Lewin, op. cit.

PYRCAK, Stanislaw (1909-)
PYRCAK, Stefania (1917-) wife
* PYRCAK, Michal, Stanislaw's brother

The Pyrcaks farmed on 10 hectares in the village of Prusiek, Sanok prov. On their farm they harbored seventeen (17) Jews. Michal, the younger of the two brothers, lived at that time in Sanok. His acquaintance, Mrs. Kusmierczyk, (q.v.) harbored a group of Jews. She gave Michal money to buy food for them. Michal was arrested when in the town and sent to the Mauthausen concentration camp, from which he did not return. Kusmierczyk's brother and a friend of his were guilty of this tragedy. They did not however betray the Jews, probably for fear for Mrs. Kusmierczyk's fate. After the arrest of Michal, Stanislaw Pyrcak came to Mrs. Kusmierczyk, with the representative of the hidden Jews, Mojzesz Liberman. They asked him to urgently take away her Jews, as they all felt endangered. The next night Mojzesz brought 16 persons over to the Pyrcaks: Wolf Kramer with his wife and sons: Iccahk, Hersz, his fiancée Sarenka Parnas, Mojzesz's family: wife and son Mysiek, nephew Anek, Jechiel Proper with daughters Muszka, Helena and Hinda. At the beginning Stefania Pyrcak was terrorized by the risks to her family and she cried for several days. Then in her sleep, she recounted, she saw a sudden bright light and in the midst of it the Holy Virgin Mary, who told her: "Do not fear my daughter and do not despair. You will all survive." They all believed in it. And so they did survive. But after the war the same man who had betrayed Michal, killed Jechiel Proper and his daughter Muszka, and wounded his other daughter in Sanok. The military authorities of the town put him to death by firing squad for that crime.  Michal was awarded posthumously the medal "Righteous Among the Nations". He was named here in the list of Those, Who Paid with Their Lives". See: Grynberg, op. cit

PYREK, Stanislaw, son of PIECUCH, Balbina (q.v.)
PYSKO, Jan
PYSKO, Maria, wife
PYSKO, Roman, son?
PYTEL-STARAK, Jozefa see STARAK, Jozef & Julia, parents?

PYTLARZ, Faustyn
PYTLARZ, Marianna, wife

Henryk Szaniawski escaped in December 1942 from a camp to his acquaintances, the Pytlarz for a certain time. He appeared at their home again in 1944 with a group of Jewish partisans and stayed there till the end of the war. The couple was honored as "Righteous" on Dec. 15, 1999 in Warsaw, as announced the Israeli Embassy in Poland.

PYZIAK, Marian


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