They Were Just People: Stories of Rescue in Poland During the Holocaust

Four Rescuers

175 Four Rescuers 175 When we were in Poland conducting interviews for this book, we met several of the rescuers who helped to save people we previously had interviewed in the United States. But in four instances, we interviewed individuals who either had outlived the Jews they helped or no longer were in touch with family members of those survivors. We spoke with Maria Nowak, Jozef Biesaga, Jozef Mironiuk, and Pawel Roszkowski at the Galicia Jewish Museum in Kraków, in each case using a translator. Here are their stories. Maria Bozek Nowak It was the winter of 1942–1943, and Maria Bozek’s good friend and classmate Helena Goldstein was in serious trouble. Maria knew just what she had to do for her Jewish friend. Helena, who had been confined to the Kraków Ghetto since it was created in March 1941, already had lost her father, her mother, and a brother, all of whom the Germans had deported and murdered. Now twenty-one-yearold Helena was in the ghetto alone, depressed, not eating, and frightened. “After the second deportation,” Maria told us,“I had a friend who had a Jewish girlfriend in the ghetto. Somehow he managed to get into the ghetto. So I asked him to check to see whether Helena was all right. He came to me later and said Helena was in very bad shape, physically and mentally, because her mother and older brother had been taken on the second transport. She still had one older brother living inside the ghetto with his fiancée, but they were not living with Helena. So Helena was pretty much alone. And she didn’t want to eat. I decided that because Helena was alone, I needed to take her out of the ghetto. “So I contacted my friend with the Jewish girlfriend in the ghetto. We knew Helena was working outside the ghetto and thus could leave it. This was quite good. Second, we knew she needed a Kennkarte (or identification paper). That meant we had to buy a false one for her. But we could afford to buy only an empty one on the black market. She needed more than one document, such as a birth certificate and a baptism certificate. It was not enough to have only one Kennkarte. You needed as many documents as you could get to prove that you are who you are and you are not a Jew. So we bought an empty one and told Helena she needed to take pictures of herself and send them to us by this Polish boy when he came to the ghetto.” 176 The Stories Maria Bozek Nowak Maria was taking charge. In a pattern that was to mark her relationship with Helena until the war ended and both women had survived, Maria chose not to wait until she was asked to help. Instead, she assessed the situation and moved quickly to do what she thought was necessary, even at the risk of her own life. “So we got this false Kennkarte through our friend, who had contacts and knew where to buy it. But Helena needed a new identity,” Maria said. Again, Maria did not wait but moved to find an answer. “I decided to give Helena my own name. And I gave her some of my own documents. And if she were asked for other documents she was to say that all other documents burned or were stolen.” 177 So Helena went through the secretive process of becoming Maria Bozek. “Helena had pictures taken and the Kennkarte was ready. One day before she was to escape, she smuggled out her luggage. But there was a problem of where to keep her after she escaped because she couldn’t stay with my family. We were living around many railroad workers who were friends and many of them knew Helena from before the war. There was a risk that someone would tell, and it would be dangerous.” Besides, having Helena around would mean there were two Maria Bozeks in the same dwelling. This was not a problem that Maria asked Helena to solve. Again, she found a solution for her. Maria elected“to take her to the place of a Polish friend, Roman Bartel, who was living alone. When Helena came out of the ghetto the next day to go to work, I was waiting for her, and I grabbed her by...