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J. Kowalski
- The University Press of Kentucky
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101 J. Kowalski After being deported with her family to the Soviet Union in 1940, Kolator was later evacuated with the Polish Army under General Wladyslaw Anders. She made it to England by way of Iran and Lebanon. She is married and has one daughter. J. KOWALSKI During the early period of the German occupation of Poland, my mother and I were more directly involved in helping and hiding Jews we knew than in the later stages of the war, when a very perilous environment had developed. However, even at that juncture I was able to make contact with the legalization bureau of the Home Army, which assisted me in providing identification documents for Jews. Thanks to these documents, Jews were able to live outside the ghetto. It was extremely difficult, if not impossible, for Jews to find lodgings in the Aryan part of Warsaw. Jews became guests in our home for several days or longer, until another location could be found for them. It was a trying time for the Jews and their Polish helpers. Food supplies were limited. Our Jewish guests were forced to live in circumstances of extreme confinement in a restricted area; it could not be otherwise, since their Semitic appearance would sooner or later result in a tragic end to their existence. Nazi agents, the Volksdeutsche and their collaborators, hunted Jews to where they lived to rob or arrest them or worse. One day the German police and their agents surrounded our home in the belief that they would capture Jews. But fortunately, I had been warned by a neighbor, a member of the Home Army, of an impending roundup. All of our Jewish proteges had been relocated elsewhere, and my mother and I cleared the house of any traces that would have suggested that we harbored Jews. We ourselves left the city until it was safe to return. After 1941, perhaps even earlier, the Germans began to check the authenticity of the identification papers and employment cards of people they had rounded up in their periodic sweeps throughout the city. Fortunately, there were helpful Poles everywhere, including the Warsaw Population Control Office. Most of the time, those brave 102 Out of the Inferno Poles were able to sneak in duplicate documents for the false identification cards that had been issued illegally by legalization bureaus to the "burned" individuals, both Poles and Jews, who were wanted by the Gestapo. This arrangement saved many Jewish lives, including those of two Jews whom I had helped previously. A young Jewish man whom I had furnished with false identification documents had been, placed in the apartment of a Polish woman. The young man, who did not look Jewish, felt safe and secure. But soon after taking up residence there, he began an intimate relationship with a promiscuous girl who immediately became aware of his Jewishness. Perhaps more out of stupidity and carelessness than ill will, the Polish girl told others of her discovery. Soon the information got to the landlady, who immediately alerted me to the obvious danger for the Jewish man and herself. There was not much time to find another hiding place for him. We made desperate efforts, but the people we approached were too frightened to help or did not have a suitable place to lodge him. By this time, German arrests and executions of those who dared to help Jews were commonplace in Warsaw. Finally, almost miraculously, we found a place for the Jewish man and moved him clandestinely to his new home. He had learned his lesson and was very careful to stay out of further trouble for the duration of the German occupation. He survived the Holocaust and settled abroad after the war. In their search for Jews and for Poles who helped them, the Gestapo came to our home and arrested my mother. Fortunately, I managed to hide in a secret spot where they did not find me. Before the Gestapo left our home, however, they threw an explosive that caused me permanent injury. With the help of two friends, I was later evacuated to safety. But our family'S property was confiscated. I never saw my mother again. She was murdered by the Germans. Early in 1944, a man believed to be a Jew, the brother of a member of the Home Army, was caught in a roundup in the street and imprisoned by the German police in the ghetto camp. His brother and some of his Polish friends were...