POLISH CATHOLIC MAIDS AND NANNIES: FEMALE AID AND THE DOMESTIC
REALM IN NAZI-OCCUPIED POLAND
By
Jennifer Lynn Marlow

A DISSERTATION
Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of
History – Doctor of Philosophy
2014

ABSTRACT
POLISH CATHOLIC MAIDS AND NANNIES:
FEMALE AID AND THE DOMESTIC REALM IN NAZI-OCCUPIED POLAND
By
Jennifer Lynn Marlow
The dissertation examines the role of Polish Catholic domestic workers employed in
middle-class Jewish households during the interwar period and the ways that the relationships
that developed in the domestic realm influenced decisions to seek or provide aid during the
Holocaust. It argues that the relationships that sometimes formed in the domestic realm caused
Polish Catholic domestic workers to see their Jewish employers as belonging to their own
community of obligation and to sometimes then aid them during the Nazi persecution. In
addition, this work examines how middle-class Polish culture was transmitted to Jewish children
by their acculturated parents, sometimes via the family’s Polish Catholic maid and the ways this
maid also familiarized her charges with Polish Catholic peasant culture. This dissertation asserts
that this familiarity with Polish culture and the hybrid identities the children of these households
sometimes formed was useful in later allowing them to pass as Catholic Poles on the so-called
Aryan side if the opportunity was present during the Nazi Occupation period.
The dissertation is comprised of two parts. The first examines the prewar period to
explore how Polish Catholic women from the countryside made their niches within urban Jewish
households, how Polish middle class culture was transmitted to children in acculturated Jewish
homes, and to examine how these children then further developed their hybridic Polish Jewish
identities while in the public realm, away from the control of their parents and caregivers. The
second part of the dissertation examines the initial responses of the domestic workers and their
Jewish employers to the Nazi invasion of Poland and the ghettoization of the Jewish population,

how it was decided to place Jewish children and families into hiding outside the ghetto, and case
studies of children hidden with their former Polish caregivers.

Copyright by
JENNIFER LYNN MARLOW
2014

To Mackenzie, James & Chris,
for taking this journey along with me.

v

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I am deeply indebted to the individuals and institutions that offered the support I have
received over the course of my graduate career that has made this dissertation possible. As a
graduate student early in the process of developing this project I was awarded a Foreign
Language Area Studies Grant that made my language acquisition possible and allowed me to
focus on my course work. In addition, I was awarded a Frank and Adelaide Kussy Fellowship for
the Study of the Holocaust that supported my pre-dissertation research. Later, my research was
supported by an American Council of Learned Societies East European Studies Dissertation
Research grant as well as a Robert Savitt Visiting Scholars Fund Fellowship from the Center for
Advanced Holocaust Studies at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (CAHS
USHMM). My writing was also supported for two years by a Saul Kagan Claims Conference
Academic Fellowship. This financial support was crucial in the completion of this dissertation.
As a Claims Conference Fellow I not only received material support, but I also had the
opportunity to attend yearly workshops where I received insightful feedback from my colleagues
and Holocaust scholars. No monetary value can be placed on this. In addition, as a fellow at the
USHMM CAHS I was welcomed into a community of scholars and given all the support a
researcher could dream of. The ability to access the incredible collection of sources housed at the
facility was matched only by the expert staff and researchers who made a significant impact on
the shape of my project. In particular, Vincent Slatt and Ron Coleman were incredibly helpful
and a pleasure to work with. In addition, being part of a community of fellows during my stay
allowed me to received feedback and mentoring that I will forever remain grateful for. I am
especially indebted to Margaret Paxson and Emily Greble for their feedback, suggestions and
wonderful advice.
vi

I am also indebted to my graduate committee at MSU; Dr. Keely Stauter-Halsted, Dr.
Kenneth Waltzer, Dr. Karrin Hanshew, Dr. Aminda Smith and Dr. Marcie Ray. Under their
guidance I grew as a scholar and learned how to be a mentor to my own students. My
dissertation would not have been possible without their guidance and support. A very special
thank you must be reserved for Dr. Stauter-Halsted and Dr. Waltzer. As a graduate student, one
could not wish for better mentors. I do not have the words to express my gratitude to the two of
them for everything that they have done. Dr. Stauter-Halsted has been supportive and at the same
time continuously pushed me to think in new ways. She has given me sound advice at every turn
and tirelessly advocated for me. Dr. Waltzer has acted as a mentor in the truest sense of the
word, challenging me in ways that have made me a better scholar (and person as well). I
appreciate everything they have done for me and feel incredibly lucky that I had the opportunity
to be trained by them.
I would like to acknowledge the appreciation that I have for the Holocaust survivors who
provided the testimonies and memoirs that I have used in this project. They shared intensely
personal recollections of their experiences and without access to their testimonies this project
would not be possible. I accessed a great number of these testimonies through the USC Shoah
Foundation Visual History Archives. Without this collection, my project would look very
different. I owe a special thank you to Crispin Brooks, curator of this collection, whose expertise
allowed me to find testimonies I could not find on my own. I also had the privilege of conducting
research at the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw, Poland and at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem,
Israel. At both I enjoyed and benefitted from the knowledge, assistance, and suggestions from
the staff. I would also like to thank Paul Zakrzewski for providing me with the testimony of
Genia Olczak, his father’s protector, along with the words of encouragement.

vii

I also had the good fortune of becoming a member of an intellectual community of
graduate students made up of my peers at MSU along with those I have become acquainted with
at various workshops and conferences who have offered me both useful feedback and
camaraderie. I am grateful for their suggestions and friendship. I would like to thank Devlin and
Stephanie Scofield, Natalie Rose, Kitty Lam, and Brandon Miller. In addition, a very special
note of appreciation should be made to Jordana de Bloeme who has provided me with thoughtful
input on my project and most importantly, become my most wonderful friend. Finally, I would
like to thank my doctor-sister, Melissa Hibbard. Melissa became family over the course of my
graduate career in every sense of the word. I now have the sister I always wanted.
Finally, I would like to thank the rest of my family for all of the support they have
provided over the course of this journey. First and foremost I would like to thank my children,
Mackenzie and James. I packed them up and relocated them to pursue my Ph.D. and at times that
was challenging for us all. They have grown up on campus, attended lectures, made countless
trips to the library with me, and have even spent time in the archive as my research assistants.
They spent weeks with their grandparents so I could travel and stayed in new places with me
while I conducted research. It has certainly been an adventure and I am looking forward to our
next journey together now as we move forward. I would also like to thank my partner, Chris
Hopper for being steadfastly supportive and my best friend. Finally I would like to thank my
parents, Nancy and James Proffer, who made my research and travel possible. I am deeply
saddened that my father did not survive to see the completion of my dissertation and that
everything worked out just fine. Knowing Mackenzie and James were in good hands with
Grandma and Grandpa allowed me to focus on my research and make the most of my time away.

viii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION……………………………………………………………………………..….1
Contributions to the Literature……………………………………...…………….………6
Methodology…………………………………………………………………….……….18
Chapters………………………………………………………………………………….22
CHAPTER ONE
A GIRL FOR EVERYTHING: POLISH CATHOLIC DOMESTICS IN MIDDLE-CLASS
JEWISH HOUSEHOLDS IN INTERWAR POLAND………………………………………….26
Introduction……………………………………………………………………………....26
Daily Life in Interwar Poland……………………………………….………………………....27
Finding a Niche in the Jewish Household………………………………...……………..34
The Family’s Reliance on Household Help……………………………………………...37
Working Conditions and Vulnerabilities………………………………………………...39
Freedom and Agency…………………………………………………………………….45
Conclusions………………………………………………………………………………50
CHAPTER TWO
THE BLURRED BOUNDARY OF THE DOMESTIC SPHERE: JEWISH, POLISH AND
BOURGOISE…………………………………………………………………………………….52
Introductions……………………………………………………………………………..52
Inculcating Middle-Class Values in Jewish Homes……………………………………...57
The Middle-Class, Urban, Jewish Household………………………………………...…60
The Female Dominated Realm of the Household………………………………………..62
Participating in Hybrid Middle-Class Identities……………...…………………………66
Acculturation as a Two-Way Street……………………………………………………...69
Family Roles and Relationships………………………………………………………….72
The housekeeper as conduit for middle-class identity…………………………...72
Transmission of bourgeois values from parents to children……………………..76
Extended family relationships and generational divisions……………………….78
Symbiosis and Tensions………………………………………………………………….81
Conclusions………………………………………………………………………………83
CHAPTER THREE
THE CHILDREN’S SPHERE…………………………………………………………………...85
Introduction………………………………………………………………………………85
The Intimate Realm………………………………………………………………………86
The Public Realm………………………………………………………………………...92
Polish public schools and Jewish private schools………………………………..92
School as a site of integration and acculturation……...………………...93
The classroom……………………………………………………………94
The schoolyard………………………………………………….………..97
Leisure time and the courtyard…………………………………………………..97
Encounters with antisemitism…………………………………………………..101
ix

Ramifications…………………………………………………………………………...107
CHAPTER FOUR
RESPONSES TO WAR, NAZI OCCUPATION, AND GHETTOIZATION………………....110
Chaos and Movement: The Nazi Invasion……………………………………………...110
The Brutality of Occupation………………………………………………………….…123
Restructuring Polish Life: The Ghettos and the So-Called Aryan Side………………...136
The Struggle to Adapt to Life in the Ghettos…………………………………………....140
New Relations: Domestic Servants’ Responses to the New Social Order……………...146
Conclusions……………………………………………………………………………..151
CHAPTER FIVE
DECISIONS…………………………………………………………………………………….153
Introduction……………………………………………………………………………..153
Escalating Danger……………………………………………………………………...156
Jewish Survival Efforts Inside the Ghettos……………………………………………..164
Fighting for Survival……………………………………………………………………167
After the Deportations…………………………………………………………………..174
Life Outside the Ghetto?……………………………………………………………......176
On the Fly………………………………………………………………………………177
The Most Difficult Decisions…………………………………………………………...180
An Offer of Aid……………………………………………………………………….…188
Refusals, Misgivings, and Deceit……………………………………………………….192
Leaving the Ghetto……………………………………………………………………...195
CHAPTER SIX
LIFE IN HIDING ON THE ARYAN SIDE……………………………………………………197
An Ever Shrinking Universe……………………………………………………………202
Increased Intimacy……………………………………………………………………...205
Altered Caregiver- Charge Relationships………………………………………………212
New Patterns of Authority……………………………………………………………...216
Polish-Jewish Cooperation…..……………………………………………………….…224
Polish-Jewish Relations………………………………………………………………...229
In Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………...231
CONCLUSION…………………………………………………………………………………234
BIBLIOGRAPHY………………………………………………………………………………250

x

INTRODUCTION
1

Rachela Melezin gave birth to her daughter Sarah on November 20, 1938. The family
lived in Vilna when the Russians first occupied this region of Poland and was still living there
when the Germans occupied the city on June 24, 1941. In August, Melezin, her daughter Sarah,
2

and their nanny, Wictoria Rodziewicz, were evicted from the family’s apartment. Melezin was
forced to take her young daughter to her mother’s already overcrowded apartment. Shortly after
the move, Sarah became gravely ill with dysentery. The child recovered but when the order was
given to enter the ghetto in September 1941 the nanny asked Melezin not to take Sarah with her.
Melezin recalls that the nanny told her, “Sarah is sick, you’d better not take her into the ghetto,”
3

and that she should leave the child with her. Melezin said “of course” she agreed.

4

When Melezin entered the ghetto, Rodziewicz, moved to the edge of the city and rented a
room, living there for some time with the baby. German military were housed in the dormitory at
the university and Melezin was employed as a cleaning woman there so she would leave the
ghetto daily for work. The nanny would bring the baby into the city and would walk by with her
in the carriage so her mother could look outside the window while she was working and see her
5

daughter. During one of these walks, a janitor from the house Melezin’s mother lived in
recognized the nanny and her charge and he took them to the Lithuanian authorities and reported

1

Videotaped testimony of Rachela Melezin, File No. 03369-3, Tape 1, June 21, 1995, USC
Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive.
2
Melezin’s husband Joseph Kryncki was taken in July, 1941 and murdered in Ponary forest.
3
4

Ibid., 14:55.
Ibid., 15:00.

5

Videotaped testimony of Rachela Melezin, File No. 03369-3, Tape 2, June 21, 1995, USC
Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive., 15:53. While this was a comfort to Melezin to see
her daughter, it was incredibly dangerous.
1

that the baby was a Jew. These authorities were not sure what to do, according to Melezin, so
they sent her home, ordering her to report the following day so they could consult with the
Gestapo.

6

A friend of Melezin’s got news from the caregiver about the incident to Melezin. Melezin
asked this person to convince Rodziewicz that if she reported she would be killed. This
intermediary convinced Rodziewicz to not only flee the city, but also to return the baby to her
mother in the ghetto. Rodziewicz finally agreed to leave the area alone after it was promised that
7

Melezin would return Sarah to her when she came back. After three or four weeks, the caregiver
learned from some Lithuanians that the children were going to be removed from the ghetto so
she immediately got in touch with Melezin and started making arrangements to take Sarah. A
guard was bribed and Rodziewicz came to the ghetto and waited at the Church of All Saints just
8

a half a block from the gate. Later that evening, Melezin put the baby in a carriage and went to
the gate with her brother-in-law and “without a word” she pushed the baby through the gate to
9

Rodziewicz, “and that was that.” Rachela Melezin’s former employee, Wictoria Rodziewicz
took Sarah home to her family and passed her off as her illegitimate daughter.

10

This caregiver took serious risks to protect this child, and even endangered her own
family. While this story seems incredible, given what we know about the limited number of

6
7
8
9

Ibid., 11:21.
Ibid., 12:33. She left and stayed at her brother’s farm in a village not far from the city.
Ibid., 14:00.
Ibid., 14:53. She would see her daughter only one other time before she was liberated in 1945.

10

At first, Rodziewicz did not tell her family that the child was Jewish but she soon confided in
them and they all accepted the dangers of the conspiracy. This family protected Sarah for the
duration of the war and she was returned to her mother. Further discussion of this case in chapter
six.
2

Polish Jews that survived the Holocaust, many such cases of aid provided by a former maids and
nannies can be found. These cases of aid provided by former domestic servants beg a number of
questions. How could these women of such limited means thwart the authorities to protect these
children? Why would they take such risks? Was it an example of stereotypical female
attachments to children or was it something more? Since many of these servants came from the
working and peasant classes, how do their rescue activities square with the image of the peasants
as especially anti-Semitic?

11

And finally, what did these cases of rescue mean for our current

understandings of Polish-Jewish relations during the interwar and wartime periods?

12

This dissertation focuses on rescuers, their charges, and the decisions they made day in
and day out to defy Nazi-Occupation policy. Specifically, the dissertation examines Polish
Catholic maids and nannies who took risks during the Holocaust to protect the lives of the Polish
Jewish children and families they cared for as employees before the Second World War. Nazi-

11

We see this image of the particularly anti-Semitic peasant in the Claude Lanzmann film,
Shoah as well as discussion of this image in monographs by Michael Steinlauf and Eva Hoffman.
See, Shoah, Directed by Claude Lanzmann (1985; New Yorker Films); Michael Steinlauf,
Bondage to the Dead (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1997); Eva Hoffman’s
Shtetl:The Life and Death of a Small Town and the World of Polish Jews (New York: Public
Affairs, 1997).
12
Surely cases such as these serve as examples of one type of relationship that allowed for
Polish Jews to become members of the community of moral obligation for their former
employers enhancing our understanding of Polish-Jewish relations. Much discussion has taken
place over Polish reactions to the Nazi directed persecution of Jews during the Holocaust in
Poland. Jan Błoński, in his January 11, 1987 article, “The Poor Poles Look at the Ghetto,”
published in Tygodnik Powszechny critiques what he (and others) see as the Polish gentile lack of
aid to or concern for their Polish Jewish co-citizens. Essentially this lack of concern can be
explained by the lack of inclusion of Polish Jews in what Helen Fein calls the, “universe of
obligation” which she defines as, “that circle of persons towards whom obligations are owed, to
whom rules apply and whose injuries call for expiation by the community.” Her argument was
originally published in Helen Fein, Accounting for Genocide. National Responses and Jewish
Victimization During the Holocaust (New York: Free Press, 1979), 33 and discussed in the
introduction of Antony Polonsky, ed., My Brother’s Keeper? Recent Polish Debates on the
Holocaust (London: Routledge, 1990), 15.
3

occupied Poland was especially treacherous for Jews attempting to flee their Nazi-orchestrated
destruction by living on the so-called Aryan side. It was also extremely dangerous for anyone
who aided Jews in any way because the occupying regime’s policy dictated that the penalty for
assisting a Jew was death for the helper and anyone associated with the aid.

13

This meant that

anyone offering aid would need to first thwart the Nazi authorities to do so, and that was
certainly no small task. Possibly even more daunting was the need to hide these activities from
other Poles. This included neighbors, friends, landlords, even family members, because they
were most likely to notice clandestine activities and could inform on a rescuer or just
accidentally let something slip that would lead to their discovery. This meant rescue and aid
efforts had to be absolutely secretive, often cutting aid providers off from their friends, families,
and acquaintances.
Previous scholarship has explored the motivations of Holocaust rescuers who risked so
much, often violated social norms, and alienated themselves from friends, family and society.
Scholars have looked for personality traits, political influences, religious reasons, and moral

13

On October 15, 1941 Hans Frank issued the decree stating that Jews leaving their designated
districts without authorization would be subject to the death penalty, as would any non-Jew who
gave such Jews a place to hide, that any instigators or accomplices would be punished in the
same way as the perpetrator, and that any attempted act would be punished as if it was
accomplished. This was followed by an order from Dr. Ludwig Fischer, Governor of the Warsaw
District, on November 10, 1941, stating that this applied to “anyone who consciously gives help
to such a Jew (who had left his designated district without authorization) and included activities
such as, “making available a night’s lodging, food, offering transportation of any kind.” Gunnar
Paulsson argues that this decree extension of the death penalty to a number of seemingly minor
aid activities and had a two-fold effect on flight from the ghetto. In addition to making escape
even more dangerous, it also meant seeking aid from someone was putting the aid provider
directly in harm’s way, which many Jews were not comfortable doing as long as they believed
life in the ghetto was still possible. Excerpts of the decree from Hans Frank, along with that of
Ludwig Fischer and analysis of the effect of this policy, can be found in Gunnar Paulsson, Secret
City: The Hidden Jews of Warsaw, 1940-1945 (New Haven and London: Yale University Press,
2002), 67-68.
4

motivations that would drive a rescuer to take such risk.

14

This dissertation examines

approximately one hundred twenty cases in which Polish Catholic maids and nannies made the
decision to become dedicated caregivers and protect their former charges despite the risks.

15

The

dissertation explores what led Polish Jews to trust their prewar maids and nannies to protect their
children or to become involved in their clandestine survival activities. I argue that the pre-war
relationships and experiences that formed in the domestic realm influenced decisions to seek or
provide aid during the Holocaust. These were not decisions of a single moment. Rather they
were reassessed and required reaffirmation continuously once the aid efforts were undertaken.
The dissertation demonstrates that prewar experiences and bonds not only motivated but also
enabled these rescue and survival activities.

14

For examples, see Samuel P. Oliner and Pearl M. Oliner, The Altruistic Personality: Rescuers
of Jews in Nazi Europe (New York: Macmillan, 1988); Eva Fogelman, Conscience and
Courage: Rescuers of Jews During the Holocaust (New York: Doubleday, 1994); Patrick Henry,
We Only Know Men: The Rescue of Jews in France During the Holocaust (Washington, D.C.:
The Catholic University of America Press, 2007); Nechama Tec, When Light Pierced the
Darkness: Christian Rescue of Jews in Nazi-Occupied Poland (New York and Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1986); Malka Drucker, Rescuers Portraits of Moral Courage in the Holocaust
(New York: Holmes and Meier, 1992). This will be discussed further in the review of literature.
15
Joanna Beata Michlic, Jewish Children in Nazi-Occupied Poland: Survival and Polish-Jewish
Relations During the Holocaust as Reflected in Early Post-War Recollections (Jerusalem: Yad
Vashem, 2008), 71. Michlic places members of Polish society into three subgroups based on how
they are described in the postwar testimonies of child survivors and rescuers. First are the long
and short-term dedicated rescuers who actively supported the children and cared about their
well-being. The second were “sudden helpers” and assistants to both their dedicated rescuers and
the children who became actively involved in preserving the children’s lives on a momentary
basis. The final subgroup is the members of Polish society that “exhibited a mosaic of reactions
ranging from total indifference to friendly/positive indifference, and from various shades from
negative attitudes to outright hostility.”
5

Contributions to the Literature
Until recently, scholars have approached the history of Polish-speaking Catholics and the history
of Polish Jews as two distinct areas of inquiry.

16

Rescue, resistance, antisemitism, interwar

culture, and the Holocaust are treated very differently in these separate narratives. Polish World
War II histories tend to focus on Polish Catholic resistance, heroism, and suffering.

17

In this

historiographical tradition, the Holocaust is examined through the window of aid efforts to
18

support Polish Jews or reasons why aid was not possible.
19

ties between the two communities.

Reasons include fear and the lack of

The Jewish-centered Holocaust narratives focus on Jewish

suffering, resistance, and survival efforts, with little attention to the support activities of some in
20

the Polish population.

The have tended to stress the failure of Polish assistance, Polish

antisemitism, or Catholic involvement in activities harmful to Jews, such as blackmailing.

16

21

Michael Steinlauf, Bondage to the Dead treats the intersection of these narratives as they
pertain to how the Holocaust and World War II are remembered and understood in Poland.
17
See Wladyslaw Bartoszewski, The Blood Shed Unites Us (Warsaw, Poland: Interpress
Publishers, 1970); and Wladyslaw Bartoszewski and Zofia Lewin, Eds. Righteous Among
Nations: How Poles Helped the Jews 1939-1945 (London: Earlscourt Publications Limited,
1969).
18
See Anna Mieszkowska, Mother of the Children; the Story of Irena Sendler (Denver and
Santa Barbara: Praeger, 2011); Ewa Kurek, Your Life is Worth Mine: How Polish Nuns Saved
Hundreds of Jewish Children in German-Occupied Poland, 1939-1945 (Krakow: Znak
Publishers, 1997).
19
For a discussion of how the Polish type narrative treats Poland’s treatment of its minorities see
Norman Davies, “Ethnic Diversity in Twentieth-Century Poland,” in From Shtetl to Socialism:
Studies from Polin, ed. Antony Polonsky (London and Washington: The Littman Library of
Jewish Civilization, 1993).
20
This trend is found in post war authored Yizkor/ Memory books, as well as several
monographs and collections such as Yisreal Gutman and Shmuel Krakowski, Unequal Victims:
Poles and Jews During WWII (New York: Holocaust Library, 1986).
21
Jan Grabowski, Hunt for Jews (Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2013) offers a case
study of the activities of the Judenjagd (or the hunt for Jews who had escaped the ghettos by the
6

While distinctive narratives are necessary to accommodate the different experiences, this
bifurcated approach has led to omissions and historical imbalances. The two research trajectories
do occasionally intersect, producing valuable contributions to our understanding of PolishJewish relations.

22

At moments when these two historical narratives come together, it has led to a
proliferation of important literature on Polish-Jewish relations focusing on Polish responses and
activities during the Holocaust. One such moment was the 1943 poem written by Czesław
Miłosz, “A Poor Christian Looks at the Ghetto,” which was taken up later by Jan Błoński in his
article, “The Poor Poles Look at the Ghetto,” published in the January 11, 1987 issue of
Tygodnik Powszechny.

23

Miłosz’s poem did not lead to an outpouring of literature or a large

scale debate, but it would remain under the surface. The publication of Błoński’s article, built
upon on Milosz’s poem would bring the discussion of Polish-Jewish relations to the fore for the
Polish readership of Tygodnik Powszechny.

24

Later in 2000, Jan T. Gross released his book,

Neighbors: The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne, Poland first in Polish and

German police or gendarmes) in the rural county of Dąbrowa Tarnowska in southeastern Poland
and the role of the Poles (and Ukrainians, Belorussian, and Balts) who lived there in either
informing on or denouncing the Jewish refugees or in some cases aiding them in their flight.
22
See Marci Shore, Caviar and Ashes: A Warsaw Generation’s Life and Death in Marxism,
1918-1968 (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2006); Sean Martin’s Jewish Life in
Cracow, 1918-1939 (Portland: Frank Cass Publishers, 2004); Eva Hoffman’s Shtetl, and Michael
Steinlauf’s Bondage to the Dead.
23
Błonński’s article was republished in Antony Polonsky, ed., My Brother’s Keeper? Recent
Polish Debates on the Holocaust, 34-52.
24
In 1990 Antony Polonsky would bring this debate to a larger, English speaking audience with
his edited collection, My Brother’s Keeper? Recent Debates On the Holocaust. This volume
includes fifteen essays in addition to Polonsky’s introduction that guides readers through the
debate along with a reprinting of Błoński’s article. The essays of this collection represent some
of the most pressing concerns of Polish collective memory of the Holocaust and Polish
antisemitism.
7

later in 2001 in English.

25

Gross’s work, which is not without its problems, led to an explosion

of both popular and academic literature addressing Polish Jewish relations during World War II
and the Holocaust.

26

While these moments of intersection in the historiographies are important, focusing on
these relations during this time of intense conflict and devastation should not be used to
characterize all of Polish-Jewish relations, which began long before the Holocaust and would
continue during the occupation and its aftermath. The Holocaust, important as it is, is best
viewed within the longer continuum of Polish-Jewish relations. Much of the historiography
specifically treating Polish-Jewish relations is either viewed through the lens of the Holocaust or

25

Jan T. Gross, Sąsiedzi: Historia zagłady żydowskiego miasteczka (Sejny, 2000) and then as
Jan T. Gross, Neighbors: The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne, Poland
(Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2001). Because this book was initially published in
Polish and later for English reading audiences it is clear that Gross was intending to start a
conversation about Polish behavior during the Holocaust and to take to task the Polish myth of
their behavior towards the Jews during the Occupation period and general wartime behavior.
Public reactions to this work ranged from using the discussion as an opportunity for collective
soul searching, to calling for more dialogue, all the way understanding the book as an attack on
“Poland’s good name.” This view that Gross’s work was intended to smear “Poland’s good
name” and pander to “the Holocaust industry,” is exemplified in Richard Lukas’s rather vitriolic
response to this book in the May 2001 edition of the Polish American Journal. See Richard
Lukas, “Jedwabne and the Selling of the Holocaust,” in Polish American Journal May 2001
reprinted in The Neighbors Respond: The Controversy Over the Jedwabne Massacre in Poland,
Antony Polonsky and Joanna Michlic, eds. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004), 432.
26
Antony Polonsky and Joanna Michlic published an edited collection of the swath of these
responses in 2004, see Antony Polonsky and Joanna B. Michlic, eds., The Neighbors Respond:
The Controversy Over the Jedwabne Massacre in Poland (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
2004). Gross followed up with two additional books published first in Polish for a Polish speaking audience and then in English for a larger audience with Fear in 2006 and Golden
Harvest in 2012, Jan T. Gross, Fear: Anti-Semtism in Poland After Auschwitz: An Essay in
Historical Interpretation (New York: Random House, 2006); Jan T. Gross with Irena Grudzinska
Gross, Golden Harvest: Events at the Periphery of the Holocaust (Oxford and New York:
Oxford University Press, 2012).
8

27

tends to focus on the lack of cooperation and the pervasive presence of antisemitism. Celia
Heller’s work for example, depicts Poles and Jews as sharing little meaningful social contact
with one another outside of simple economic ties and public relations.

28

This absence of social

relations was used in the formulations of the reasons why Poles did not include Jews in their
“universe of obligation.”

29

Other works focus directly on Polish antisemitism and the “Jewish
30

Question” and its role in Polish-Jewish relations.

This dissertation is meant as a corrective for

this trend and sets out to link the prewar, wartime and postwar periods, rather than looking at the
Second World War and Holocaust as a sharp break in the narrative.
My work draws from other recent scholarship that highlights more varied relationships
between Poles and Jews.

31

Works such as Marci Shore’s Caviar and Ashes, Sean Martin’s

Jewish Life in Cracow, and Eva Hoffman’s Shtetl: The Life and Death of a Small Town and the
27

Celia Heller, The Edge of Destruction (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1994); Celia
Heller, “Poles of a Jewish Background-- The Case of Assimilation without Integration in
Interwar Poland,” in Joshua A. Fishman, ed. Studies on Polish Jewry 1919-1939 (New York:
YIVO, 1974).
28
Ibid.
29

Helen Fein, Accounting for Genocide. National Responses and Jewish Victimization During
the Holocaust, 33.
30
Theodore Weeks, From Assimilation to Antisemitism: The Jewish Question in Poland, 18501914 (Dekalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2006); Joanna Beata Michlic, Poland’s
Threatening Other: The Image of the Jew from 1880 to Present (Lincoln and Nebraska:
University of Nebraska Press, 2006); Brian Porter, When Nationalism Began to Hate: Imagining
Modern Politics in Nineteenth-Century Poland (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000). Also
see, Magdalena Opalski and Israel Bartal, Poles and Jews: A Failed Brotherhood (Hanover:
1992).
31
In particular, see Marci Shore Caviar and Ashes: A Warsaw Generation’s Life and Death in
Marxism, 1918-1968; Sean Martin’s Jewish Life in Cracow, 1918-1939; Eva Hoffman’s
Shtetl:The Life and Death of a Small Town and the World of Polish Jews; Robert Blobaum, ed.,
Antisemitism and Its Opponents In Modern Poland (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2005), and
Judith Kalik “Christian Servants Employed by Jews in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in
the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries,” in Polin, Volume 14, Focusing on Jews in the Polish
Borderlands (London, 2001): 259-270.
9

World of Polish Jews illustrate the interconnectedness between Poles and Jews and emphasize
the points of contention between the two groups. Other work addresses the complex economic
and domestic relations among Jews and Christians in the private realm. Judith Kalik examines
Christian domestic workers in Jewish households in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
Emphasizing the complexity of relations between Christians and Jews, Kalik points to the
economic necessity of their relationships and explores the employment of Christians in Jewish
homes as one of the few ways in which Christians “obtained close and intimate contact with
Jews, their way of life, language, religion, and culture.”

32

Employment in the domestic realm

facilitated, “interpersonal exchange, and even personal sympathy, well beyond business
relations.”

33

Though Kalik notes this arrangement created apprehension in both the Christian

and Jewish communities, her work represents an important backdrop to my own.

34

Similarly, the chapters in Robert Blobaum’s collection Antisemitism and Its Opponents in
Modern Poland, portrays relations between Poles and Jews along a spectrum of very antagonistic
to relatively symbiotic. Keely Stauter-Halsted’s chapter, “Jews as Middleman Minorities in
Rural Poland,” illustrates the way in which, prior to peasant emancipation and immediately
32

Judith Kalik “Christian Servants Employed by Jews in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries,” 259.
33
Ibid.
34

Ibid. Kalik is not specifically discussing Polish Catholic women working in Jewish homes as
servants. She includes Poles, Ruthenians, and Germans who could be Catholic, Orthodox,
Uniate, or Lutheran. She also found instances of Muslim Tartars working as servants. She notes
that numerous references regarding the employment of Christian domestic servants in Jewish
households can be found in secular Jewish and Polish sources as well as ecclesiastical sources,
burghers’ literature, Sejm resolutions and royal decrees. The Polish Church began publishing
prohibitions on Christian women working in Jewish homes as early as 1267 as the church sought
to segregate its congregation from the Jewish population, according to Kalik (261). The first
legal restrictions on Jewish employment of Christian domestic servants would be passed by the
Sejm in 1565 and were applied only to Jews and then extended to Tartars in 1678. (262-263)
Kalik notes that these restrictions on employment in Tartar homes ended in 1775.
10

following, Jewish innkeepers acted as channels of information from outside the village for the
peasants, “a go-between in peasant relations with the landlord, and a source of advice and
assistance on issues ranging from medicine and familial relations to financial and legal
affairs.”

35

While this relationship obviously placed Jews in a difficult position, being the subject

of economic envy from the peasant population and under the oversight of the Polish landlords, it
does illustrate the opportunities for interaction that were not based purely on economic
transactions.

36

The dissertation also draws on a school of research on wartime examinations of PolishJewish relations that began with the works of Emmanuel Ringelblum.

37

Ringelblum’s treatment

of Polish-Jewish relations during the Occupation, Polish-Jewish Relations during the Second
World War, looks at the impact of the Nazi policies on relations between the Poles and Jews,
offering a tempered analysis.

38

He highlights Polish persecution of Jews but also points to the

35

Keely Stauter-Halsted, “Jews as Middleman Minorities in Rural Poland: Understanding the
Galician Pogroms on 1898,” in Antisemitism and Its Opponents in Modern Poland, Robert
Blobaum, ed. (Ithaca: Cornell University Press), 48.
36
Anna Maria Orła-Bukowska, “Shtetl Communities: Another Image,” in Polin: Studies in
Polish Jewry, Vol. 8, Jews in Independent Poland, 1919-1939 (London, 1994), 89-113 also
illustrates the reciprocal relationships of Poles and Jews in the countryside.
37
Jan Grabowski’s Hunt for Jews has already been mentioned above. His piece focuses on the
role of Poles, and other gentiles, in the Judenjagd, or the hunt for Jews who had escaped the
ghettos by the German police or gendarmes, in the rural county of Dąbrowa Tarnowska in
southeastern Poland. This is obviously a contentious subject as it involves a close examination of
Polish behavior under Nazi-Occupation and it does not in any way whitewash Polish persecution
of their Jewish co-citizens.
38
Emmanuel Ringelblum, Polish-Jewish Relations during the Second World War, (Evanston:
Northwestern University Press, 1974). Also worth mentioning specifically is Emmanuel
Ringelblum, Notes from the Warsaw Ghetto: The Journal of Emmanuel Ringelblum, Jacob
Sloan, ed., (New York: Schoken, 1974) was not written as specific commentary on Polish-Jewish
relations and is special because it is primary document written during the war, but it is
nevertheless invaluable to understanding relations between Jews and Poles during the NaziOccupation.
11

role of Nazi propaganda and occupation conditions in heightening the levels of antisemitism and
prewar anti-Jewish attitudes that were prevalent prior to the war. Ringelblum emphasizes that at
the outbreak of the Second World War there was a moment of cooperation between Poles and
Jews but notes that after the invasion there was “a revival of antisemitism in the full sense of the
term.”

39

This is of particular importance for my own examination of rescue activities because it

illustrates not only the climate aid occurred within, but also the way that the behavior of the
maids and nannies who did decide to protect their charges went against the larger trend in Polish
society. Instead of being swept up in this increased antisemitism, they acted in opposition to it.
Holocaust memory provides a prism for addressing Polish-Jewish relations and historians
have studied wartime relations from the perspective of postwar tensions over property rights,
violence, and guilt.

40

Many Poles obtained formerly Jewish owned businesses or homes thus this

was a point of contention when survivors returned home and led to unrest, fear, violence, and
guilt for Poles. In addition to focusing on this aspect of the postwar, the literature also addresses
memory of the Holocaust as well as memorialization.

39

41

This project takes very tentative steps

Emmanuel Ringelblum, Polish-Jewish Relations during the Second World War, 37.

40

For examples see Joanna Michlic, “The Holocaust and Its Aftermath a Perceived in Poland:
Voices of Polish Intellectuals, 1945-1947,” in The Jews Are Coming Back: The Return of the
Jews to Their Countries of Origin after WWII, David Bankier, ed. (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem,
2005), 206-230; Jan T. Gross, Fear; Adam Pankall “Poles and Jews in the Keilce Region and
Radom, April 1945- February 1946,” in Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry, Vol. 13, Focusing on the
Holocaust and its Aftermath, (Oxford: The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2000) 236252; Joanna Michlic, “Anti-Jewish Violence in Poland, 1918-1939 and 1945-1947,” in Polin:
Studies in Polish Jewry, Vol. 13, Focusing on the Holocaust and its Aftermath (Oxford: The
Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2000), 34-61. Much of the postwar literature focuses on
the responses by Polish gentiles to the return of Jews.
41
For discussion of memorialization see Genevieve Zubrzycki, The Crosses of Auschwitz:
Nationalism and Religion in Post-Communist Poland (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
2006), and Jonathan Huener, Auschwitz, Poland, and the Commemoration, 1945-1979 (Athens:
Ohio University Press, 2003). For discussion of Holocaust memory, see Michael Steinlauf,
12

into the immediate postwar period and Holocaust memory in the conclusion, arguing that maids
and nannies who rescued their Jewish charges faced conflicts over who would care for the child
at the war’s end. Memory of wartime activities contributes to existing scholarly conversations on
such issues.
This dissertation is also meant as contribution to our understanding of Holocaust rescue
in Poland, a subfield that remains small to date.

42

I draw especially on studies such Lenore

Weitzman’s chapter, “Living on the Aryan Side in Poland,” in which she explores Jewish
survival efforts augmented by gentile helpers rather than characterizing Jewish subjects as mere
passive recipients of aid.

43

In conversation with scholarship that highlights Jews self-agency, my

own work stresses Jewish agency and self-help in rescue relationships.

44

Finally, Jan Grabowski

Bondage to the Dead: Poland and the Memory of the Holocaust (Syracuse: Syracuse University
Press, 1997);
42
Gunnar Paulsson’s 2002 was really the first to offer an in-depth analysis of rescue activities
and networks in Warsaw and has pointed to avenues for new research, see Gunnar Paulsson,
Secret City: The Hidden Jews of Warsaw, 1940-1945 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002).
In 2010 Irene Tomaszewski and Tecia Werbowski published their co-authored, Irene
Tomaszewski and Tecia Werbowski, Code Name Zegota, Rescuing Jews in Occupied Poland,
1942-1945: The Most Dangerous Conspiracy in Wartime Europe (Santa Barbara: Paeger, 2010).
This focuses on organizational aid and rescue efforts of Nazi-Occupied Poland in a rather evenhanded manner and the most comprehensive piece on this particular organization in English.
Ewa Kurek also looks at aid by focusing on rescue as it was carried out in convents and
orphanages by Polish nuns. See, Ewa Kurek, Your Life is Worth Mine: How Polish Nuns Saved
Hundreds of Jewish Children in German-Occupied Poland, 1939-1945 (New York: Hippocrene,
1997). The aid carried out by the nuns of Kurek’s study was not the result of a directive from
higher in the church bureaucracy but rather was based on the decisions of the individual Mother
Superiors and nuns of each convent, so it was more informal and diffuse than the aid provided by
Żegota.
43
Lenore Weitzman, “Living on the Aryan Side in Poland: Gender, Passing and the Nature of
Resistance,” in Women in the Holocaust, eds. Dalia Ofer and Lenore Weitzman (New Haven and
London: Yale University Press, 1998), 187-222.
44
See also the edited collection, Jacques Semelin, Claire Andrieu, and Sarah Gensburger, eds.,
Resisting Genocide: The Multiple Forms of Rescue (New York: Columbia University Press,
2011) that highlights the agency of Jewish victims.
13

looks at rescue of Polish Jews by paid helpers in Poland to problematize how we think about
rescue efforts by gentiles during the Holocaust.

45

Grabowski argues that rescuers asking for

money, even significant amounts, should not be automatically branded as “immoral” and thus,
“deserving of our contempt,” because there was nothing normal about this situation and many
Poles were facing hard economic times.

46

Grabowski normalizes rescue efforts, taking into

account that these rescuers were real people with varied needs and motives and not heroic
caricatures of people.
Literature focusing on the rescuers themselves can be divided into two main groups: one
examining the motivations for rescue and another memorializing wartime aid efforts. Studies
about motivation stress personality profiles, traits, or background that motivated rescuers to go
against societal norms to aid Jews.

47

In the Polish case, Nechama Tec leads the field in

examining the conditions under which rescue took place and considers what motivated Christian
Poles to provide aid.

48

Case studies such as those compiled by Martin Gilbert and Mordecai

Paldiel look at the motivations for and challenges of rescue.

49

45

Jan Grabowski, “Rescue for Money: Paid Helpers in Poland, 1939-1945,” in Search and
Research: Lectures and Papers, 13 (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 2008).
46
Jan Grabowski, “Rescue for Money,” 9.
47

Samuel P. Oliner and Pearl M. Oliner, The Altruistic Personality: The Rescue of Jews in Nazi
Europe (New York and London: The Free Press and Collier Macmillian Publishers, 1988);
Patrick Henry, We Only Know Men: The Rescue of Jews in France During the Holocaust
(Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2007); Eva Fogelman,
Conscience and Courage: Rescuers of Jews During the Holocaust (New York: Anchor Books,
Doubleday, 1994); and Malka Drucker, Rescuers : Portraits of Moral Courage in the Holocaust
(New York : Holmes & Meier, 1992).
48
Nechama Tec, When Light Pierced the Darkness: Christian Rescue of Jews in Nazi-Occupied
Poland (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986).
49
Martin Gilbert, The Righteous: The Unsung Heroes of the Holocaust (New York: Holt, 2003);
Mordecai Paldiel, The Path of the Righteous: Gentile Rescuers of Jews During the Holocaust
14

While in conversation with these other studies of rescue and rescuers, this dissertation
seeks to place rescue efforts firmly within the Polish historical context. Rather than seeking a
formulation of personality traits to explain rescue motivations for the subjects of my study, I
argue that it was the prewar relationships they established with their charges in the domestic
realm, their experience of leaving their families of origin to work, and the responsibilities of the
roles they took on during their employment that were the major motivating factors behind their
decisions to provide aid. This assertion points to avenues for new research into rescue
motivations such as looking in other private spaces. In addition, while I have the utmost respect
for the efforts of the rescuers of this study, I do not seek to make heroes of them. They did not
understand themselves as heroes or see their activities as anything out of the ordinary, but rather
50

an extension of prewar relationships and responsibilities.

Finally, this dissertation contributes to the literature on gender roles and childhood
experiences during moments of intense conflict. This literature can and should be examined in
(New Jersey: KTAV Publishing House, 1993). There is an ever increasing number of books
which are merely edited collections of testimonies that serve to bring rescue efforts to light in
part to help readers access some sort of understanding of the experience of the Holocaust and
also to honor the rescuers for their efforts. See also, Carol Rittner and Sandra Myers, eds., The
Courage to Care: Rescuers of Jews During the Holocaust (New York: New York University
Press, 1986); Mark Klempner, The Heart Has Reasons: Holocaust Rescuers and Their Stories of
Courage (Cleveland: The Pilgrim Press, 2006); and Ellen Land-Weber, To Save a Life: Stories of
Holocaust Rescue (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2000). In addition to these edited
collections, Yad Vashem has also put out an extensive collection of encyclopedias of those who
have been awarded status by their institution of Righteous Among the Nations. There are
encyclopedias for each individual country, including Poland, which has two volumes due to the
large number of Polish Righteous. This encyclopedia has brief entries for all Righteous Polish
rescuers who were awarded the status prior to its publication. See Sara Bender and Shmuel
Krakowski, eds., The Encyclopedia of Righteous Among the Nations: Rescuers of Jews During
the Holocaust, Poland. Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 2004). While these edited
volumes are useful for research they do not offer any analysis or much context for the rescue
efforts.
50
I will discuss this later in the dissertation. Evidence of this can specifically be seen in the case
of Genia Olczak who did not feel she had any choice but to aid her former employers, she felt it
was her moral obligation.
15

two distinct categories, gender roles and childhood. Much of this literature consists of case
studies designed to insert the voices and experiences of these often marginalized groups, women
and children, back into the larger historical narrative.

51

Gendered analysis has been little utilized

in studies of twentieth-century war and conflict. Scholars have brought women into the narrative
of the Holocaust, but they do not focus on the interactive experiences of both genders in their
work.

52

Nechama Tec and Marion Kaplan have employed women’s history methods to argue

51

Several edited collections of testimonies from women and child survivors of conflict were
compiled for the purpose of bringing their voices to a larger audiences and making readers aware
of their gender or age specific experiences that are often not included in the larger narrative. For
an example on women’s experiences see Brana Gurewitsch, ed., Mothers, Sisters, Resisters:
Oral Histories of Women who Survived the Holocaust (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press,
1998). There are several examples of collections of child survivors testimonies, some taken
immediately after the war and some much later. For an immediate postwar example see Maria
Hochberg-Mariańska and Noe Gruss, eds., The Children Accuse (London: Vallentine Mitchell,
1996) For examples of collections of later testimonies see Wiktoria Śliwowska, ed., The Last
Eyewitnesses: Children of the Holocaust Speak, Vol. 1 (Evanston: Northwestern, 1998). This was
also published in Poland, Wiktoria Śliwowska, ed., Dzieci Holocaustu Mówią (Association of
Children of the Holocaust, 1993). In addition see Jakub Gutenbaum and Agnieszka Latała, eds.,
The Last Eyewitness: Children of the Holocaust Speak, Vol. 2 (Evanston: Northwestern, 2005);
Elaine Saphier Fox, ed., Out of Chaos: Hidden Children Remember the Holocaust (Evanston:
Northwestern, 2013); and Kerry Blueglass, ed., Hidden From the Holocaust: Stories of Resiliant
Children who Survived and Thrived (London: Praeger, 2003). This particular collection offers
some brief analysis in a short chapter after the introduction and in a final section but the bulk of
the work is made up of testimonies. Similar is Sarah Moskovitz, ed., Love Despite Hate: Child
Survivors of the Holocaust and Their Adult Lives (New York: Schoken, 1983) in which the
author provides some context in an early section and also reflections on survivor experiences in
the end. A final and interesting example of an edited collection of child survivor accounts is
Danielle Bailly, ed., The Hidden Children of France, 1940-1945: Stories of Survival (Albany:
State University of New York, 2010) in which the survivors wrote their own contributions and
focused on how their childhood in hiding would affect their adult lives. While many of these
collections often little analysis they are useful in the classroom and for research, and useful for
bringing the voices of the underrepresented back into the narrative.
52
Elizabeth Harvey, Women in the Nazi East: Agents and Witnesses of Germanization (New
Haven: Yale University Press, 2003); Wendy Lower, Hitler’s Furies: German Women in the
Nazi Killing Fields (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2013); Katherine R. Jolluck, Women in the Nazi
East: Polish Women in the Soviet Union During World War II (Pittsburg: University of
Pittsburgh Press, 2002); Dalia Ofer and Lenore J. Weitzman, eds., Women in the Holocaust
(New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1998); and Elizabeth R. Baer and Myrna
16

that Jewish women were better prepared to cope, provide assistance to one another, and survive
the Holocaust than their male counterparts.

53

While such arguments are compelling, further

study of male networks and relationships is needed to complete the picture. Recent edited
collections have begun to include a more balanced gendered analysis.

54

Kenneth Waltzer’s

work on young boys hidden and protected in the Buchenwald camp has shown networks of
assistance and protection established by older male inmates, and Joseph Zieman’s memoir
demonstrates similar patterns of aid among boys and men.

55

I intend to contribute in this field of

research by including the entire family dynamic in my work rather than isolating the study of
genders from one another.
Finally, this work contributes to the growing body of scholarship that treats the
experiences of children during and immediately following European conflicts. Patricia Heberer
edited a collection that is a reader of primary sources with context information that is useful for
classrooms and researchers alike.

56

Several other collections of testimonies add the experiences

Goldenberg, eds., Experience and Expression: Women, the Nazis, and the Holocaust (Detroit:
Wayne State University, 2003).
53
See Nechama Tec, Resilience and Courage (New Haven and London: Yale University Press,
2003), and Marion Kaplan, Between Dignity and Despair (New York and Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1998).
54
Kevin Passmore, ed., Women, Gender and Fascism in Europe, 1919-1945 (New Brunswick:
Rutgers University Press, 2003); and Nancy M. Wingfield and Maria Bucur, eds., Gender & War
in Twentieth Century Eastern Europe (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2006). Dagmar
Herzog, ed., Brutality and Desire: War and Sexuality in Europe’s Twentieth-Century (New
York: Palgrave, 2009), focuses on gender and sexuality in analyzing twentieth century European
conflicts. In Adam Jones, Genocide: A Comprehensive Introduction (London and New York:
Routledge, 2011), Jones treats genocide in Europe, Africa and Asia and has a chapter on
genocide that explores how regimes target members of gender categories for different reasons
and through different means.
55
Joseph Zieman, Cigarette Sellers of Three Crosses Square (New York: Avon, 1975).
56

Patricia Heberer, ed., Children During the Holocaust (Maryland: AltaMira Press, 2011).
17

and voices of children to the narrative where they are often excluded.

57

In addition, a few recent

scholarly monographs and articles addressing childhood experiences during and resulting from
war and the Holocaust have also been published.

58

Many of these works rely heavily on the

testimony of child survivors, which is a fairly new development as scholars increasingly began to
utilize this important cache of experiences. My dissertation contributes to the trend of utilizing
postwar testimonies given by child survivors of the Holocaust taken both immediately after the
war and much later to recover their voices and incorporate them into the narrative.
Methodology
To construct my narrative and gain access to the domestic realm I utilized a variety of
sources. In order to provide context for the study I read interwar period Polish language daily
presses and women’s journals searching for discourse on maids and nannies including their role
in the households, reforms to their working conditions, and any other articles relating to them
57

These have been mentioned above also. Maria Hochberg-Mariańska and Noe Gruss, eds., The
Children Accuse; Wiktoria Śliwowska, ed., The Last Eyewitnesses: Children of the Holocaust
Speak, Vol. 1; Jakub Gutenbaum and Agnieszka Latała, eds., The Last Eyewitness: Children of
the Holocaust Speak, Vol. 2; Elaine Saphier Fox, ed., Out of Chaos: Hidden Children Remember
the Holocaust; and Kerry Blueglass, ed., Hidden From the Holocaust: Stories of Resilient
Children who Survived and Thrived.
58
For postwar see Tahra Zahra, The Lost Children: Reconstructing Europe’s Families after
World War II (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2011); Emunah Nachmany Gafny,
Dividing Hearts: The Removal of Jewish Children from Gentile Families in Poland in the
Immediate Postwar Years (Yad Vashem: Jerusalem, 2009); Nahum Bogner, At the Mercy of
Strangers: The Rescue of Jewish Children with Assumed Identities in Poland (Yad Vashem:
Jerusalem, 2009); Joanna Michlic, “Rebuilding Shattered Lives: Some Vignettes of Jewish
Children’s Lives in Early Postwar Poland, in Holocaust Survivors: Resettlement, Memories,
Identities, eds., Dalia Ofer, Francoise S. Ouzan, and Judy Tydor Baumel-Schwartz (New York
and Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2012), 46-87; Joanna B. Michlic, “Who Am I? Jewish Children
Search for Identity in Post-War Poland,” in Polin, Volume 20, Making Holocaust Memory, eds.
Gabriel Finder, Natalia Aleksiun, Antony Polonsky and Jan Schwarz (Oxford and Portland: The
Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2008), 98-121. For wartime experiences, see Joanna
Beata Michlic, Jewish Children in Nazi-Occupied Poland: Survival and Polish-Jewish Relations
During the Holocaust as Reflected in Early Postwar Recollections (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem,
2008).
18

such as reports of crimes committed against or by them. I examined articles and classified
advertisements from interwar period issues of Kurjer codzienny, Nasz przegląd, Chwila, Gazeta
warszawska, and Gazeta polska. Here I found discourse on the need and activities surrounding
efforts to reform the legal system to offer protections to servants. I also located articles about
household servants that illustrate both the vulnerability and agency of domestic servants. The
classified advertisements provided insight into pay, qualifications, and the job market for
domestic servants. In addition, I read the journals Dobra gospodyni, Dziecko i matka, Życie
kobiece, Życie kobiet, Rodzina i dziecko, and Gazeta dla kobiet. They contained articles
regarding the role of the servant in the home, the relationships that developed between nannies
and their charges, and middle-class culture. These contemporary documents were vital for
providing the historical context for the first half of the dissertation that focuses on the interwar
years.
I also used testimonies and memoirs from survivors of the Holocaust as well as their
rescuers when I could locate them. Some of these testimonies were taken immediately after the
war while others much later and were found in the University of Southern California’s Shoah
Foundation Visual History Archives, the Jewish Historical Institute’s Holocaust Survivor
Testimonies (RG 301), the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Oral History collection
as well as other testimonies housed at the USHMM and Yad Vashem in Israel. I accessed these
testimonies searching for cases of rescue of Jewish children by their prewar domestic servants as
well as testimonies that discussed the employment of gentile maids in the household, her role in
the home and the relationships that developed between the servant and her employers in the
domestic realm. In addition, I culled the Ringleblum Archives and the Jewish Historical

19

Institute’s collection of Unpublished Memoirs (RG 302) for discussion of rescue or persecution
by former domestic servants.
While initially I accessed the Holocaust survivor testimonies seeking out rescue cases I
soon realized that they offered entry into the private life of the domestic realm. I listened to
hundreds of testimonies that discussed prewar domestic life that have allowed me to access the
experiences of middle-class Jewish childhood in interwar Poland; to characterize the middleclass Jewish household; to better understand how a Polish Catholic domestic fit into these
households; and the attachments formed there. I listened to testimonies from survivors who had
been rescued by their Polish maid, survivors whose families were persecuted by their Polish
maids, and also that of survivors who had a maid before the war and she was not involved in
their survival efforts during the war to find a more neutral depiction of the maid and her
relationship with the employing family. These testimonies were vital to this project because they
allowed me to learn about daily life and the relationships that developed in the household. I also,
when possible, sought out testimonies and interviews of Polish Catholic maids who rescued their
former charges to gain their perspective on their wartime activities and the ways they
remembered their actions and their relationship with the child.
I recognize that there are several issues with the use of testimonies. One is that of
memory. The testimonies from the Jewish Historical Institute (RG 301) were taken rather
immediately to the liberation period so there is less time to affect the memory of the person
providing testimony. These testimonies tend to focus on the trauma and loss suffered with less
focus on aid providers. They are fairly brief and generally do not include much discussion of
prewar life. The bulk of the testimonies I used for this dissertation were those held by the USC
Shoah Foundaiton Visual History Archive. These testimonies include discussion of prewar life

20

and are usually substantial in length. These were largely recorded in the 1990s, so some fortyfive or fifty years after the events. An obvious issue with these testimonies is the length of time
that passed between the events and the retelling of the survivor’s experiences. When possible I
matched these testimonies up with other testimonies given either by the same person or another
person who was involved in their survival efforts. Often this is not possible. In addition, I
critically evaluate all testimonies with the understanding that a significant amount of time and
life experience has shaped how the survivors remember the events of the past and their
relationships. While there are potential pitfalls to using these later testimonies, without them the
experiences of these survivors before the war, during the Nazi occupation, and later would be
lost to us. There is no perfect source to get at intimate relationships and personal experiences but
even with the complications of memory and time, these types of testimonies are the best source
available for this project and proved to be quite rich.
Many of the domestic servants of this study were given status as Righteous Among the
Nations by Yad Vashem in Jerusalem. In order to confer this status upon an aid provider,
documentation has to be provided by the person or people who were given aid. This includes
testimony in their native language but also other correspondence is included in the files that are
forwarded to the committee that makes the decision. These files are held at Yad Vashem. I
attempted to access these files on two occasions to provide additional evidence for several of my
cases and while these files are used in publications by several scholars, I was denied access.
When requests for Righteous status were made through the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw
a copy of the materials was kept there, along with all correspondence with Yad Vashem
regarding the case. I was able to access those files held in Warsaw but the majority of the cases I
needed were not available there. Accessing more of these files would be beneficial to my project

21

and I can only hope that Yad Vashem begins to allow fair access to these materials sometime in
the near future.
Chapters
The dissertation consists of six chapters and is divided into two halves. The first half
focuses on the interwar period while the second treats the Nazi Occupation of Poland and the
Holocaust. The conclusion also takes the project into the postwar period and I hope to develop
this later when the dissertation is transitioned into a monograph. Chapter one, “A Girl for
Everything,” examines how Polish maids found employment in middle-class Jewish households,
the ways they found their niche within the home, their working conditions, and how relationships
formed between these domestic employees and their employers. When considering rescue by a
household servant it seems extraordinary that someone of little means and power would take the
risk and thwart occupation policies to participate in rescue activities. This chapter argues that as
a result of the power they often wielded in the household and through the experience of leaving
home and making their way in the city, domestic servants frequently developed a sense of
agency and empowerment. This made their decisions to use this power gained in the domestic
realm again under Nazi Occupation whether it was to help or harm their former employers, a
natural choice and not a sharp break in behavior.
The second chapter, “The Blurred Boundaries of the Domestic Sphere: Jewish, Polish,
and Bourgeois,” explores the cultural exchange that took place within the households of this
study. Polish middle-class Jews transmitted their own understanding of Polish middle-class
culture to their children directly and indirectly through the Polish Catholic maids that they

22

employed to supervise the children.

59

In addition to acting as a conduit of this Polish Jewish

middle-class culture, these household employees also exposed their charges to Polish Catholic
working-class or peasant culture. The chapter highlights the relationships that often developed
here in the domestic realm between the Polish Catholic caregiver and the employing family.
Finally, it argues that it was the experience of growing up in this particular milieu that allowed
these children to better pass as Polish Catholic children if they had the opportunity to do so
during the Holocaust.
The third chapter, “The Children’s Sphere,” follows the children of these households out
into the public realm and into Polish-language private schools, public schools, the schoolyard,
the courtyard, and the streets. It examines how their interactions with gentiles outside of the
home further acculturated them with Polish Catholic majority culture. The chapter suggests that
these identities aided children in developing a particular skill set that was useful when they
wanted to be perceived as primarily Polish or when they wished to be identified as Jewish. This
skill set was honed by the experiences children had in private Polish-language schools or staterun public schools. Friendships with Polish gentile children also provided some additional
socialization in Polish gentile norms and customs. The chapter examines the development of the
ability to pass as “Polish” (meaning as Polish Catholics), which allowed children to avoid being
singled out at school as Jewish and to be targeted by antisemitic classmates and also later when,
under Nazi rule, survival depended on being identified as a Pole.
The second half of the dissertation shifts to the Nazi invasion and occupation with the
fourth chapter, “Responses to War, Occupation, and Ghettoization.” This chapter examines the
59

Alternately the gentile servants became accustomed to middle-class Polish Jewish culture as
they acted on the directives of their employers and participated in middle-class life through
activities such as vacationing in the countryside, living in a middle-class home, etc.
23

immediate responses of both the Polish Jewish employers and their Polish Catholic employees to
the war. This chapter argues that prewar relationships between gentile domestic servants and
their Jewish employers affected the desire of these employees to stay with the family after the
outset of the war. Sometimes this also involved later assisting the family when the maids were
not able to continue to live with the families as Jews increasingly became special targets for
German aggression, were separated from the general population, and confined in ghettos.
Alternatively, these prewar relationships or even the lack of their formation could motivate
former employees to harm their former employers for their own gain or personal satisfaction.
The fifth chapter, “Decisions,” looks at survival efforts inside the ghettos during the
period leading up to and during the deportations. It examines the ways prewar relationships
influenced decisions to seek or provide shelter outside of the ghettos. This chapter argues that the
offer to take a child or the request to take one’s child from the ghetto was a continuation of the
prewar relationships that developed in the domestic realm between the employers and their
servant and was a natural extension of this role. These domestic servants were trusted to care for
their charges before the war, so they were a logical choice when a gentile was needed to keep a
Jewish child on the so-called Aryan side. This chapter also seeks to place Jewish survival efforts,
including self-help and flight in the realm of resistance.
The final chapter, “Life in Hiding on the Aryan Side,” examines cases in which prewar
domestic servants took their former charges from the ghetto to hide them on the so-called Aryan
side. This chapter argues that the conditions of the Nazi occupation changed the relationships
between the caregiver and charge she rescued, her former employers, and often her own
acquaintances, family, and friends. The rescue dynamic led to both a greater intimacy between
the caregiver and charge as they became partners in conspiracy even while their clandestine

24

activity greatly narrowed their universe and altered the prewar pattern of authority between the
former employers and employees. The new dynamic also changed the character of the
relationship between the child and caregiver, complicating it, and adding new tensions as the
level of intimacy increased. And finally, this chapter seeks to demonstrate how this new situation
led to an alteration in the inter ethno-religious ties and relationships that existed during the
interwar period.
Overall, it is my intention that these chapters will make two main points. First, prewar
relationships did in fact influence decisions to seek or provide aid during the Holocaust. The
domestic realm was one space in which Catholic Poles and Polish Jews could have intimate
contact with one another and come to see each other as members of a community of moral
obligation rather than as “others.” This was a space in which boundaries such as ethnicity,
confession, and social class were sometimes permeable. Secondly, I hope to illustrate that as the
war upended life for everyone, altered the social structure and pulling families apart, it also
changed the nature of Polish-Jewish relations, even between those who had formed intimate
bonds. And finally, I hope to illustrate that the prewar and wartime experiences of the prewar
domestic servants of this study would forever alter them, changing their expectations for the
postwar.

25

CHAPTER ONE
A GIRL FOR EVERYTHING: POLISH CATHOLIC DOMESTICS IN MIDDLE-CLASS
JEWISH HOUSEHOLDS IN INTERWAR POLAND
Introduction
During the interwar years in Poland, even amidst a depressed economy, employment of
domestic help by middle-class families was reasonably attainable. If a family could afford to
feed an extra mouth, spend 20 to 40 zloty monthly, and had a space in the kitchen for a cot, it
could hire a dziewczyna do wszystkiego, or a “girl for everything” to help maintain the home.
Such households would usually only employ one maid, but as Maury Adams states in his
testimony, “every Jewish family had a maid, even the poor families, always had a maid, a non1

Jewish maid….for doing laundry, or cleaning…for all this we had maids…” This idea that
“everybody” had a maid is mentioned in a multitude of oral interviews by Polish Jewish
Holocaust survivors and probably was true for Polish middle class as well as Jewish middle class
2

families. Both middle-class and lower middle-class Polish and Jewish households quite often
employed maids because they were inexpensive. The presence of these Polish Catholic maids

1

Videotaped testimony of Maury Adams, File no. 08896-3, Nov. 17, 1995, Tape I, The USC
Shoah Foundation Institute, 6:46.
2
Self- identification or social identification as a “Pole” or a “Polish Jew” was often laden with
meaning. Many Polish citizens were Ukrainian, Lithuanian, or German speaking and may not
have necessarily identified themselves as “Poles”; thus I use the term Polish citizens. Jews living
in Poland would have been Polish citizens but would not necessarily label themselves as Polish
Jews; however, in many of the Holocaust survivor testimonies I drew from to gain access into
prewar life in Poland, those survivors interviewed did feel themselves to be “Polish Jews.”
Poland was their home and they felt very patriotic. In order to be inclusive of those who did not
specifically identify themselves as Polish I will not use the label “Polish Jew” but I do not mean
to strip away the identity of those Polish Jews who did see themselves as such. During the
interwar period and the Holocaust many non-Jewish Poles did not view their Jewish neighbors as
their “own” or feel a mutual responsibility to them, which had life altering repercussions for
them. I am in no way meaning to reify this, but am simply using the label Jew or Jewish rather
than Polish Jew in order to include those Jews living in Poland who did not feel “Polish.”
26

and nannies employed and living in Jewish households helps us not only to better understand
their place in society as a whole, but also increases our understanding of one form of rescue and
aid given to Jewish adults and children during the Holocaust.
This chapter argues that while these domestic servants were in many ways marginalized
and lacked social power, their experiences of having left the control and shelter of their families
of origin to make their own ways also fostered their empowerment. This empowerment is later
evident in the actions of some former servants under Nazi occupation, especially in their
reactions to the plight of former Jewish employers who found themselves in increasing danger.
Leaving home and being responsible for important household functions gave these women a
body of experience to draw on when they made the decisions to either aid or persecute their
former employers under the changing conditions of occupation. Also, in many cases, decisions to
persecute, assist, or abandon former Jewish employers were rooted in a continuity of the prewar
relationships that formed between these employees and their employers and the relative
empowerment these women gained in their positions as domestic servants. This chapter
examines the germination and development of these relationships.
Daily Life in Interwar Poland
One only has to open an issue of Kurjer codzienny, Nasz przegląd, Gazeta warszawska or
similar interwar daily Polish language presses to find evidence of the importance of Polish maids
in daily life and the economy in these years. The classified advertisements were full of
households seeking maids and maids seeking employment, specifying what the position entailed,
the pay that was offered, and the qualities that the ideal candidate would possess. Other articles
detailed the occasional suicide of maids, maids involved in various accidents, maids accused of
stealing from or murdering their employers, or maids being beaten or even killed by their

27

employers. These types of articles were quite sensational because these women were part of the
domestic realm and were involved in intimate family space and social relations. This made such
crimes and scandals, no doubt, all the more shocking and exciting to the public. Articles
regarding efforts to pass legislation to regulate the working conditions of maids and offer them
some protections from exploitative employers can be easily found. While we have little
documentation directly from these women themselves, in their own words, from which we can
learn about their experiences, if a reader looks carefully, evidence of this social group and its
experiences abounds throughout the presses.

3

3

“Służąca trucicielka,” Kurjer Codzienny, July 3, 1938, 1; “Służąca otruła się gazem,”Kurjer
codzienny, July 6, 1938, 1; “Tajemnica morderstwa przy ulicy opaczewskiej pracodawczyni
zastrzeliła swą starą służącą,” Kurjer codzienny, July 7, 1938, 1; “Dzielna pracownica domowa
uratowała mienie pracodawoc,” Kurjer codzienny, August 23, 1938, 3; “Urlopy: dla służby
domowej,” September 6, 1938, 4; “Unormowanie warunków płacy i pracy: służba domową nie
będzie juz upośledzona,” Kurjer codzienny, September 16, 1938, 3; “Chlebodawca: Zboczeniec
uwiódł i znęcał 13- letnią dziewczynką,” Kurjer codzienny, March 20, 1937, 3; “Dzielna służąca
przepędziła bandytów,” Kurjer codzienny, March 20, 1937, 3; “Potworni mordercy dwu kobiety:
staną wkrótce przed sądem,” Kurjer codzienny, March 28, 1937, 4; “Opłaty od służby domowej
na rzecz ubezpieczeń społecznych- ustalone. Ale tylko tymczasowo,” Nasz przegląd, February
10, 1934, 9; “Sprawa opłat ubezpieczeniowych od służby domowej,” Nasz Przegląd, February
11, 1934, 10; “Opłata ubezpieczeniowa za służącą- 8 zł?” Nasz przegląd, February 13, 1934, 12;
“Opłaty ubezpieczeniowe od służby domowej: Będą ustalone w tych dniach,” Nasz przegląd,
February 14, 1934, 8; “Ustalenie opłat ubezpieczeniowych za służące,” Nasz przegląd, February
19, 1934, 7; ”Nowy kłoput z opłatami ubezpieczeniowemi za służbę domową: za opóżnienie
władz ma ją płacić pracodawcy!” Nasz przegląd, March 4, 1934, 10; “Składki trzeba płacić bez
wezwan: Dlaczego Naraża się pracodawców na niepotrzebną stratę czasu?”Nasz przegląd,
March 11, 1934, 8; “Usiłowanie zgwałcenia kobiety w pociągu fatalny skok napadnietej,” Nasz
przegląd, May 15, 1934, 8; “Studenci mordercami służącej,” Nasz przegląd, May 23, 1934, 2;
“Nagrody dla służby domowej: za wieloletnia nienaganna służbe,”Gazeta warszawka, January 8,
1934, 4; “Skladki ubezpieczeniowe za pracowników: zgłoszenia obowiązują kazdą rodzinę
utrzymujacą służącą,” Gazeta warszawka, January 10, 1934, 8; “Obowiązek zgłaszania służby
domowej,” Gazeta warszawka, January 30, 1934, 8; “Popłoch wśród służby Domowej:
Zapowiedz wysokich składek grozi nowa fala bezrobocia,” Gazeta warszawka, February 9,
1934, 9; “Absurd emerytur dla służących: solidarne stanowisko pan I służących,” Gazeta
warszawka, February 14, 1934, 8.
28

According to the 1931 population census, approximately 441,100 Polish citizens were
4

employed in domestic service. Roughly 22,500 of these domestic workers were Jewish, so the
vast majority were gentiles. This 441,100 citizens is a significant segment of the population and
domestic service was a very common source of income for many young Polish women. This
sector of the economy employed greater numbers of Polish citizens than were employed in the
5

categories of “Education & Culture” or “Health Services, Healing & Hygiene, etc.” While
statistics are not available to determine how many Polish Catholic women were employed as
servants in Jewish middle-class households, it can be assumed from the significantly larger
number of Polish Catholic domestics in the field and also from discussion in testimonies by
many Holocaust survivors, as well as from articles in the interwar period press, that it was a quite
significant number. Polish Catholic maids employed in Jewish homes were common.
Women who worked as domestics generally came from the countryside nearby to a city
and found work in more urban settings than the areas from which they came. Many Jewish
families employed non-Jewish maids in their homes, where they often worked alongside the
mistress of the house or presided in her absence because she was heavily involved in the family
business. Even for women who were free from working in the family business, social
commitments often kept them outside the home for much of their time. Domestics were often
quite involved in raising their employer’s children and became intimately knowledgeable about
the families for whom they worked. Historical studies of interwar and occupied Poland do not tend
to acknowledge the existence of such sustained, meaningful contacts between Catholic Poles and Jews,
but Polish nannies and housemaids represent a key example of the ways intimate relationships
4

Joseph Marcus, The Social and Political History of the Jews in Poland, 1919-1939 (Berlin,
New York and Amsterdam: Mouton Publishers, 1983), 438.
5
Ibid.
29

6

developed in the domestic realm and affected action later during the war. Scholarship by Marci
Shore and Sean Martin highlight ways that Polish Christian and Polish Jewish communities
operated within Polish society, characterizing their relations as ranging from symbiotic to
antagonistic, but nonetheless, as interrelated.

7

Young Polish Catholic women who came from the countryside to work in urban centers often
suffered from feelings of isolation from their families and lacked good support networks within their
new surroundings. Esther Avny, a Jewish survivor of the Holocaust, remembers the maid who worked
8

for her family in Gniezo when she was a young girl. She recalls that the family had a young Polish
(non-Jewish) maid who came to work for the family from a village outside of Gniezo, and states that,
“she was very young and always she was very, very like my mother’s daughter. You know, they take
6

See Norman Davies, “Ethnic Diversity in Twentieth-Century Poland,” in From Shtetl to
Socialism: Studies from Polin, ed. Antony Polonsky (London and Washington: The Littman
Library of Jewish Civilization, 1993) for treatment in Polish narrative of pre-World War II
Polish- Jewish interactions. For discussion of the segregated treatment of Polish and Jewish
communities in historical narratives see Michael Steinlauf, Bondage to the Dead: Poland and the
Memory of the Holocaust (New York: Syracuse University Press, 1997); Theodore Weeks
“Assimilation, Nationalism, Modernization, Antisemitism: Notes on Polish-Jewish Relations,
1855-1905,” in Antisemitism and Its Opponents In Modern Poland , ed. Robert Blobaum, (Ithaca
and London: Cornell University Press, 2005), 20-38. Celia Heller, Edge of Destruction (Detroit:
Wayne State University Press, 1993) is a prime example of this treatment of Polish-Jewish
relations that portrays Poles and Jews as separate communities with hostile relations. Also, in
Eva Hoffman, Shtetl: The Life and Death of a Small Town and the World of Polish Jews she
discusses the Bransk Memory Book and the absence of Polish- Jewish interactions found within.
7
Marci Shore, Caviar and Ashes: A Warsaw Generation’s Life and Death in Marxism, 19181968; Sean Martin, Jewish Life in Cracow, 1918-1939; Eva Hoffman, Shtetl: The Life and Death
of a Small Town and the World of Polish Jews; Shimon Redlich, Together and Apart in
Brzezany: Poles, Jews, and Ukrainians, 1919-1945 (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana
University Press, 2002).
8
I have listened to approximately 300 USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archives
interviews of Holocaust survivors who lived in prewar Poland. This sample included both
survivors who were children and adults, as well as survivors who were rescued by Catholic Poles
and those who were not. A small number of these survivors were aided by their former
domestics, but not so many as to skew the sample set. Friendly or familial relations are not
remembered by the survivors through the window of aid; they existed separately.
30

9

care of her.” Avney continues, “She was very good for us because she helped out in the home
because my mother, she was always busy in the store with father. So, she was doing everything, and
10

taking care of us. She was very, very close to us.”

She remembers the maid being happy with the

family who treated her well. When the maid had time off she would take the children with her back to
her village to stay there with her and her own parents. Avney enjoyed this time in the maid’s village
and said that the maid’s family was very good to the children. Avney and her family grew attached to
their young maid and became familiar with her family back in the village. For the maid, Avney’s home
became something more than a place of work. Avney recalls the maid even cried at the outbreak of the
war when Avney’s father was called up for service. She states that the maid “cried like one of the
11

members in the family.”

It was not unusual for Polish Catholic domestic servants to form familial-

type bonds with their employing Jewish families such as the case of Aveny’s family.
It is difficult to characterize the “Jewish home” in interwar Poland but for the purpose of this
project my focus is primarily on urban middle-class acculturated Jewish households. Even amongst the
Jewish urban middle -class, households varied according to income levels, language spoken in the
home, levels of acculturation or assimilation, and religious observance. Based on approximately three
hundred Holocaust survivor testimonies, it was not uncommon for Polish to be spoken in the home,
even if the primary language was Yiddish. Many children were sent to Polish public schools and were
educated in the Polish language, and so were comfortable using it, and many professional Jews used
Polish as their first language in the work place. Many Jewish families kept kosher, at least at home, and

9

Videotaped testimony of Esther Avney, File no. 13775-3, March 28, 1996, Tape 1, The USC
Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive, 11:30.
10
Ibid., 12:01.
11

Ibid., 11:40.
31

went to synagogue at least on the holidays, while others were extremely observant, and some not
observant at all.
Maids often had special bonds with the children of the family. Sometimes there was not a vast
difference in age and the family’s maid would become like a sister or a mother. Carmela Finkel grew
up in Radziechów and while she does not recall the name of their maid, she states, “She raised us, she
12

helped raise us so yeah, she probably loved us the same way she would love her own sisters.”

June

Feinsilver also recalls playing at her girlfriend Rusia’s house where Rusia’s maid entertained the girls.
“We used to dress her up and color her cheeks…those are funny stories but that’s part of my
13

childhood.”

Roman Englander also recounts that the maids who came to work for the family from

the countryside were treated like a part of the family. It was a ritual in the house that while he shined his
14

father’s shoes he would also have to shine the shoes of their maid, Marysia.

Marysia’s had Sundays

off but since she liked the children she would take them to mass with her. “I had more holy water on
15

me than any Catholic child in Poland,” remarked Englander.

He celebrated Christmases with

Marysia at the Polish building superintendent’s apartment. Many Jewish children experienced
Christmas as a result of their Polish servants. Genia Figlarz also recalls going to the home of the

12

Videotaped testimony of Carmela Finkel, File no. 12543-4, February 25, 1996, Tape 1, The
USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive, 13:26.
13
Videotaped testimony of June Feinsilver, File no. 10031-5, December 13, 1995, Tape 1, The
USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archie, 9:30.
14
Videotaped testimony of Roman Englander, File no. 16533-3, June 26, 1996, Tape 1, The
USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive, 14:43.
15
Ibid., 15:30.
32

family’s laundress to celebrate Christmas. She was excited to go but she ate only the doughnuts so as to
16

try to adhere to the laws of kashrut.

In many cases these maids did become part of the family, as expressed above by Englander.
Edward Davis grew up in a kosher home in Drohobycz and the family always had a maid from one of
the surrounding villages. He recalls that the women were very poor and did not have enough to eat at
17

home, so they came to the city looking for work and “really became part of the family.”

“They lived

a life with us,” “slept with us, and were a part of it (the family),” and usually stayed until they were in
their early 20’s and then they would marry or go back to the village, to be replaced by another Polish
18

girl.

He recalls that the maids would have Sundays off but would still eat dinner with the family.
Aside from the closeness and familial bonds that sometimes developed between a servant and

the children, many mothers developed a felt dependence on such employees. Often, in middle- class
Jewish households the parents were heavily involved in the family business or the mothers had social
commitments. This meant that a family’s maid or nanny played a crucial role in the upbringing of the
children, and often the children spent more time with these servants than their own mothers. Morris
Feldman’s family lived outside of Skarzysko, Poland. He describes the family as observant; his mother
kept her hair covered, and she and his father were always busy with the family’s hardware store. He
says, “We had a Polish lady, young lady, who was taking care of us because they were quite involved
in it, in the store, and I probably, I suppose I probably had more attention from that Polish woman who

16

Videotaped testimonyof Genia Figlarz, File no. 35508-2, November 17, 1997, Tape 1, The
USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive.
17
Videotaped testimony of Edward Davis, File no. 28953-38, May 9, 1997, Tape 1, The USC
Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive, 15:10.
18
Ibid., 15:57.
33

19

worked for us.”

Holocaust survivor Anna Degan remembers one maid in particular, named Valerka,

who remained with her family a long time. Degan remembers Valerka dressing the children and taking
them for walks, to their play dates, and to visit their grandmother. The interviewer asks Degan if her
mother did any of that as well and Degan replies no, “Mother had an easy life,” she attended concerts,
events, and visited with friends and family.

20

She left the daily care of the children to their servant.

Degan’s mother was by no means unusual in her social activities and her reliance on domestic staff.
Finding a Niche in the Jewish Household
Polish Catholic women were in many cases able to form their own niche in Jewish households
despite cultural, class, or religious differences. In part this was out of necessity. These domestic
servants needed employment so they really had to try to fit into the rhythms of the families who
employed them. As mentioned in the testimonies of Roman Englander and Genia Figlarz, Jewish
children became acquainted with their maids’ religious customs and practices and this was often
reciprocal. Many Polish Catholic maids became intimately familiar with Jewish religious and cultural
customs as well. When Deborah Herzog was born, her mother had to hire a wetnurse because she had a
medical condition that made it difficult for her to breast feed her own child. This wetnurse stayed on as
the family’s housekeeper until the outbreak of the war. The maid, Jadzka, did all of the cooking and
cleaning and cared for young Deborah. Deborah remembers that when she was a child she spent most
21

of her time with the maid and even spent some time with Jadzka’s family in the countryside.

19

Videotaped testimony of Morris Feldman, File no. 22863-5, November 17, 1996, Tape 1, The
USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archives, 9:49.
20
Videotaped testimony of Anna Degan, File no. 37007-40, October 15, 1997, Tape 1, The USC
Shoah Foundation Visual History Archives, 15:03.
21
Videotaped testimony of Deborah Herzog, File no. 42124-40, March 14, 1998, Tape 2, The
USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive 4:10.
34

Deborah’s family spoke Polish at home and they were observant; she recalls they kept kosher
and observed the Sabbath. Jadzka, a Pole, found her niche in the home and became a member of the
family. She was responsible for all cooking and thus was trusted to observe the laws of kashrut.
Deborah remembers Jadzka even made the challah. Her mother would come home from the shop when
they were ready and she would say a prayer over the dough. When Deborah’s grandmother came to
visit, she, Jadzka, and Deborah would say prayers together, and Deborah assumes that her grandmother
taught Jadzka the prayers. Holocaust survivor Dina Jackson also remembers the family’s Polish
Catholic maid teaching her Hebrew and prayers after learning them from Dina’s older brothers and
22

sisters.

Jula Jurek came from the town of Brody in northern Eastern Galicia and found work at the
Kohn household in nearby Lwów. They maintained a kosher kitchen, celebrated the Jewish holidays,
and went to synagogue. Jurek was illiterate, Catholic, and nine years older than the Kohn’s. In their
home, Jurek learned to speak Yiddish and keep the laws of kashrut. She also, however, convinced the
children’s mother to allow her to feed the children pork because she believed it would make the
23

children strong.

In Kraków, Anita Lobel’s nanny, Franciszka Ziemiańska, also managed to carve out her
own niche within the household and assert her Catholic identity, despite her employer’s
displeasure. Lobel recalls that her parents argued with her nanny about “Christian things.”

24

Ziemiańska was even fired and replaced but she recounts that she screamed and cried until her

22

Videotaped testimony of Dina Jackson, File no. 46745-0, November 22, 1998, Tape 1, The
USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive, 11:07.
23
Ruda, Nava, One Day This Will be a Film: Childhood Memories of a Girl from the Lvov
Ghetto, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Acc. 2004.615, 7-8.
24
Anita Lobel, No Pretty Pictures: A Child of War (New York: Greenwillow Books, 1998), 8-9.
35

parents rehired her nanny, saying, “My parents had to let Niana have her way.”

25

After

Ziemiańska returned she hung a picture of an angel over the child’s bed, baked them
gingerbread cookies for St Nicholas Day, showed them how to make garlands, and hung
chocolates for Christmas morning. In this battle of wills, the nanny won out as she proved to be
indispensable to maintaining the peace of the household.
These cases are illustrative of the manner in which Polish Catholic maids and nannies
both shaped themselves to fit in as well as asserted themselves inside the homes of their
employers. Mirka-Miki Berliner-Pear lived in Warsaw before the outbreak of the war. Honora, a
Polish Catholic woman from the countryside, had worked for her family for years. First Honora
worked for Berliner-Pear’s grandparents, caring for her mother as the family’s wetnurse turned
maid where she “practically brought up” her mother and later she would occasionally care for
Berliner-Pear.

26

When Berliner-Pear was young she became very ill and her grandfather brought

in doctors and specialists from all over; when there was no improvement in her condition they
thought she would surely die. Berliner-Pear says the family called on Honora, who although she
was a Catholic woman, “she had lived so long with Jews she was conversant with our traditions
and our fables,” and she determined that Berliner-Pear was possessed by a dybbuk.

27

She

informed the family that the child needed an exorcism of the spirit and in order to accomplish
this they must fool the spirit by “selling” the child to another and giving her a different name. On
Honora’s suggestion they pretended to sell the child to her mother’s brother for a “cap full of
25

Ibid.

26

Videotaped testimony of Mirka-Miki Berliner-Pear, File no. 48408-2, December 29, 1998,
Tape 1, USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive,14:28.
27
Videotaped testimony of Mirka-Miki Berliner-Pear, File no. 48408-2, December 29, 1998,
Tape 2, USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive, 15:20.A dybbuk being the spirit of a
dead person that can attach itself to a living person.
36

groszy” and he gave her a new name and the uncle forever acted as a second father to her.

28

Berliner-Pear recovered after this.
While the family initially sought to use modern medicine and relied on doctors and
specialists to cure their ailing child, when that failed they resorted to traditional methods. They
trusted Honora’s judgment in a time of desperation and she in turn incorporated Jewish traditions
and superstitions into her own world view and interpreted the situation accordingly. This
exchange and flexibility can be found in all of the above examples. Jewish households and
children were exposed to Catholic traditions and beliefs while Catholic maids and nannies
incorporated Jewish religion and culture into their daily lives. Sometimes this caused friction
between members of the household but somehow in many cases the employee and the employing
family managed to operate symbiotically.
The Family’s Reliance on Household Help
Closeness between the maid and the family members was by no means a given, however.
David Borgenicht lived near Kraków as a boy and his family employed a Polish nanny. He remembers
29

that she was “not exactly friendly to us.”
30

loveable...”

He states, “She just did it as her job, but she was not

Many Holocaust survivors remember having a Polish maid but do not recall anything

special about them, not even their names. Often times these maids would remain under the family’s
roof only temporarily, leaving because of incompatibility, to marry, or to pursue other employment
opportunities.

28

Ibid., 15:32.

29

Videotaped testimony of David Borgenicht, File no. 10797-2, January 10, 1996, Tape 1, The
USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive, 6:25.
30
Ibid., 6:30.
37

However, even when familial bonds or affection did not form between the employing
families and their maids and nannies, they were nonetheless pivotal in the operations of the
household. As mentioned above, these women often spent as much, if not more, time with the
children of the household than their own parents did. Often times they were responsible for the
daily running of the household, the shopping, the cooking, and the cleaning. In addition to the
necessary service provided to their employers, these women often became intimately familiar
with the family’s private life and knew their employers’ habits and quirks.
A 1936 issue of Gazeta dla kobiet addresses the difficulty faced when a family must find
a new servant. The author writes that when the lady of the house changes servants it causes much
confusion since the family was already accustomed to the previous servant.

31

The author

continues: “she knew her work, times for activities and habits of the family members, when
suddenly-- she fails.”

32

The author muses that perhaps the maid has fallen ill, returned home to

the countryside, began to fulfill her duties carelessly, or at worst, “she replied impudently to her
33

mistress.”

Whatever the reason, when a family and their servant had to part ways, it created a

terrible inconvenience. The author laments that while inspecting potential replacements, “some
of them are rural girls, ruddy and healthy but less polished and often without certificates” and
seeing them was a reminder of “how much effort you put into familiarizing a girl to work in the
home.”

31
32
33
34

34

The author cautioned that one should go about choosing a new maid who will be with

“Pani godzi służącą,” Gazeta dla kobiet, nr. 11 (1936), 125-126.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
38

the family long term so as to not “expose oneself to frequent change and losses.”

35

Maintaining

continuity in household servants was important to ensuring that the home functioned effectively,
thus freeing up the mistress of the house to focus on business or social activities.

36

In addition to her significance in keeping the home running smoothly, it was also
apparent in public discourse that the relationship between the children of the home and the
servant was of great importance. In an issue of Rodzina i dziecko discussing this relationship, the
author acknowledged that “the servant is a foreigner in the family, but she is available to do
anything and is dependable.”

37

The author advised readers that it is natural for children to feel

comfortable with their maid or nanny because that child has become accustomed to and trusts
her, and when it comes time for the child and caregiver to separate it is often “their first painful
tragedy.”

38

In both of these women’s journals, Gazeta dla kobiet and Rodzina i dziecko, it is

evident that the domestic servant is an important part of the household, particularly in the role as
caregiver to the children.
Working Conditions and Vulnerabilities
Domestic servants in interwar Poland often faced harsh working conditions and very little
legal recourse for abuses committed by their employers. On average a domestic in 1930 made 40
zl a month, not including their payments in kind which have been equated to 1.5 times the value

35

Ibid.

36

These concerns are common amongst middle-class Americans in the nineteenth century as
well. See Faye E. Dudden, Serving Women: Household Service in Nineteenth-Century America
(Middletown: Wesleyan University Press, 1983).
37
“Służącą i Dziecko,” Rodzina i Dziecko, nr. 4 (1935): 109-111.
38

Ibid., 109.
39

of money wages.

39

Many positions advertised in Nasz przegląd, Kurjer codzienny, and Gazeta

warszawska offered less. In most advertisements seeking servants, the pay offered ranged from
20zl to 40zl monthly depending on the level of skill required by the potential employer and the
duties the job entailed. Advertisements seeking a “girl for everything” (dziewczyna do
wszystkiego) or a general servant (służącą) seem to offer less than those seeking a nanny or
governess (wychowianki). Those seeking a governess would often require a candidate to possess
foreign language skills and a much higher level of education than someone who just wanted a
servant to clean and mind the children. It was common knowledge amongst both middle-class
European employers and servants that in a home with children some of the burden to care for
them would fall on the maid regardless of whether she was hired specifically to care for them or
not.

40

Steedman illustrates that often servants preferred homes without children because of the

extra work of caring for and cleaning up after them.

41

The majority of poor uneducated women

from the countryside found positions as general servants who performed multiple functions in
the home, and many of these homes, like those of this study, contained children.
If a woman had references, knowledge of how to clean and maintain a home, and could
display to a potential employer that she could follow directions, she could often find employment
as a domestic servant, but the conditions were sometimes quite grim. This job involved hard
physical labor, low pay, and if a servant was hurt on the job and unable to continue to work she
had no real recourse other than returning home to the village. Most servants were “live-in” but it
was very infrequent that they had their own quarters unless the family was very wealthy. In
39

Joseph Marcus, The Social and Political History of the Jews in Poland, 1919-1939.

40

Carolyn Steedman, Labours Lost: Domestic Service and the Making of Modern England
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 228-29.
41
Ibid., 229.
40

general, she would sleep on a fold-out cot in the kitchen. This meant that she had very little
privacy and everyone had access to her, which made her vulnerable to the sexual advances of the
men in the household and often resulted in her working additional hours for the family. For the
Catholic domestics employed by Jewish families being required to work on Sunday interfered
with their ability to attend church services. As a result it was not unusual for these servants to
take their employers’ children with them to worship services, which in some instances helped
Jewish children later to pass as Catholic Poles under the Nazi occupation.
There were few social protections for domestic servants in interwar Poland. Public
discourse regarding the attempts to regulate work and afford maids with state sponsored social
insurances was prevalent in the daily presses Nasz przegląd, Gazeta warszawska, and Kurjer
codzienny.

42

“Ustawy Scaleniowej” was a legislative measure that was intended in part to

provide insurance for domestic workers but as the large quantity of discourse in the daily presses
testifies to, it actually created a sharp decline in the quality of life for these women. In response
to this measure an association of domestic workers in Łódź submitted a memorandum to the
President criticizing the measures. This regulation required employers to pay premiums for their
servants that employers claimed were unreasonable. As a result, in Łódź alone, some 9,000 of
42

A few examples: “Opłaty od słuby domowej na rzecz ubezpieczen społecznych- ustalone, Ale
tylko tymczasowo,” Nasz przegląd, February 10, 1934, 9; “Sprawa opłat ubezpieczenie wych od
służby domowej,” Nasz przegląd, February 11, 1934, 10; “Opłata Ubezpieczeniowa Za Służącą8 zł,” Nasz przegląd, February 13, 1934, 12 and throughout the rest of the year, particularly in
March and April. This issue is also frequently discussed in Gazeta warszawska. For examples
please see “Dziewięć tysięcy służcych na braku: Pierwsze skutki ustawy scaleniowej,” Gazeta
warszawska, February 27, 1934, 5; “Obowiązek Zgłaszania służby domowej,” Gazeta
warszawska, January 30, 1934, 8; “Nikt nie wie ile płacić za służaca: Stan Bezprzykladnego
chaosu w stosowaniu nowych przepisów o ubezpieczeniach,” Gazeta warszawska, February 9,
1934, 8; “Absurd Emerytur Dla Służacych: Solidarne Stanowisko Pan i Służacych,” Gazeta
warszawska, February 14, 1934, 8. This issue also frequently turns up in issues of Kurjer
codzienny in 1938. For a few examples see: “Unormowanie warunków płacy i pracy: Służba
domowa nie będzie już upośledzona,” Kurjer codzienny, September 16, 1938, 3; “Urlopy dla
służby domowej,” Kurjer codzienny, September 6, 1938, 4.
41

the district’s 35,000 household servants were let go.

43

Some employers decreased the servants’

salaries to offset the cost. The article claimed that women who once averaged 25 zl. per month
saw their wages reduced to 15 zl or even 10 zl. per month.

44

If a domestic servant became ill,

even with this insurance, they were still responsible to pay for their doctor and any necessary
medicine out of their meager wages.
In 1938, public discourse on legislation regulating domestic servants was still prominent
in the daily presses. In April, Nasz przegląd reported that an association of household servants
submitted a memorandum to the government in Warsaw regarding the excessive numbers of
women and girls coming in from the countryside looking for employment and the difficulty this
created for finding work.

45

In addition to there being more domestic servants than positions

available, employees still had difficulty in being able to use the few protections that were
afforded to them. Under the Act of May 16, 1922, domestic servants were entitled to a week of
paid vacation after one year of service for the same family, and fifteen days after three
consecutive years of service.

46

According to this particular article the terms of the vacation were

set by the employer so they had the final say in when the employee could take their vacation. If
the servant wanted to return home to her family for the holidays, it was at the pleasure of her
employer, who may or may not have allowed it. In September Kurjer codzienny reported that

43

“Dziewięć tysięcy służcych na braku: Pierwsze skutki ustawy scaleniowej,” Gazeta
warszawska, February 27, 1934, 5.
44
Ibid.
45

“Nowiny Dnia: Służba Ze Wsi,” Nasz przegląd, April 4,1938, 14.

46

“Urlopy dla służby domowej,” Kurjer codzienny, September 6, 1938, 4.
42

reform was at hand even though they had been fought by employers at every turn.

47

The press

reported that organizations of ladies of the house and employer’s associations had “tried to
paralyze all of the great efforts” to allow vacations, to normalize pay, to provide old age
insurance, and generally to allow these women to be treated like other workers who did not live
in.

48

In addition to marginalization by employers, in the legal system, and in the public sphere,

these women faced difficulty in the private, domestic realm where they worked as well.
Many women employed as domestic servants were from families of lower socioeconomic
standing and not well educated. They often did not possess the means to assert their own legal
rights. As a result, these women suffered abuses at the hands of their employers and were not
able to use the small legal protections they were afforded. Thirteen year old orphan Felicja
Orzechowska found employment as a maid in the home of Mr. Jakowlew. One evening the
neighbors heard yelling and crying coming from the apartment and alerted the authorities who, in
response, broke in and found the man raping the young girl. It was reported that he began beating
and raping her after her second day of employment but threatened to file a complaint against her
for theft if she told anyone. Afraid of being charged with thievery, she submitted to his abuse.

49

His threat and her understanding of her disadvantage made this young servant extremely
vulnerable to this abusive employer.
Daily presses also brought to light maids who, in desperation and despite the cultural and
religious taboo, attempted to commit suicide because they could not cope. Twenty-three year old

47

“Unormawanie warunków płacy i pracy: Służba domowej nie będzie już upośledzona,” Kurjer
codzienny, September 16, 1938, 3.
48
Ibid.
49

“Chlebowdawca- zboczenic: Uwiódł i znęcał sięnad 13-letnią dziewczynką,” Kurjer
codzienny, March 20, 1937, 1.
43

Maria Makulska attempted to asphyxiate herself with gas from the stove after her employers
went to bed for the night. They caught her in time and she survived.

50

The Boren family of

Warsaw also thwarted the attempt of their maid who decided to commit suicide in the same
manner. Adam Boren’s father awoke to the smell of gas and rushed into the kitchen to discover
the maid, who was still alive. The family was very alarmed because they could have also
asphyxiated or been killed by an explosion caused by the gas. Immediately after the incident
Boren’s father had the gas cut off to the flat and they switched to a coal stove and a primus
burner.

51

While we cannot know what drove these young women to these attempts to take their

own lives, we can consider that many of them were young, away from their families, and
possibly felt isolated or unable to cope.
If an employer refused to pay a domestic or accused her of theft she would often have
little recourse. Word of mouth and glowing recommendations were often crucial in finding a
position in a household. If a domestic fell out of favor with her employer it could have much
more serious consequences than her losing that particular position. A former employer could
spread the word to all of her acquaintances that her former employee was lazy or a thief, thus
hurting her chances for employment in that neighborhood again. Most positions advertised in the
classified sections of daily papers required recommendations from former employers, so refusal
to provide this was a real threat to a former employee’s future livelihood.
Even with all of the potential pitfalls, working as a maid or a nanny in the city had its
positive points. Economically, employment in the city was advantageous for these women and

50

“Zamach samobójczy pracownicy domowej,” Kurjer Codzienny, November 2, 1937, , 1.

51

Videotaped testimony of Adam Boren, File no. 18575-3, 14 Aug 1996, Tape 1, The USC
Shoah Foundation Institute, 17:35.
44

often their families as well. Some girls were sent to the city to work to help reduce the family’s
financial burden. Not only would this mean one less mouth for the family to feed, sometimes a
maid would send some of her earnings back home to help supplement the family’s income. Also,
while life as a maid or a nanny often involved heavy manual labor, low pay, and irregular hours,
life in the country was often harder, so sometimes her employment brought a better living
standard. In addition to these advantages, some of these women found their way to the city
because they wanted to get away from the supervision of their parents and find excitement or a
husband. Genia Olczak was asked to move to Łódź and serve as a housekeeper and nanny for
Roma Rozencwajg, whom she had known for years. She agreed even though her family did not
want her to move so far away. She decided to go both because of her affection for Rozencwajg
and because she always wanted to go to a “big town.”

52

Perhaps Olczak was hoping to find

freedom or adventure in the big city.
Freedom and Agency
While many of these domestic servants were quite vulnerable or at least at a
disadvantage, it is also clear that they often wielded a surprising degree of power or influence in
the household and exhibited a large degree of agency. As mentioned above, Jula Jurek learned
some Yiddish and the laws of kashrut, but she also convinced her employer to break with dietary
laws and feed the children pork. Anita Lobel’s parents were unhappy with their nanny’s attempts
to inculcate their children with Catholicism and when she did not comply with their wishes they
dismissed her. When it was apparent that the children would not give them any peace until she
returned, they brought her back and she was allowed her way. Many Jewish children attended

52

Interview of Genia Olczak, Warsaw, Poland, October 4, 2005, translated and transcribed by
Bianka Kraszewski. Introduction to Interview, Bianka Kraszewski, February 1, 2006. Provided
by Paul Zakrzewski.
45

mass with their Catholic maids, even at the displeasure of their parents, because the domestic’s
duties interfered with the domestic’s attendance. In short, these domestic servants compromised
but also sometimes used their power to shape their working situations to meet their needs.
Households relied on these female employees and they were often given a large degree of leeway
to raise the children and sometimes to run the home with limited supervision. While this was not
always the case, as illustrated by the abuses heaped on the young orphaned servant Felicja
Orzechowska, parents had businesses to run and social commitments and children relied upon
and became attached to these maids and nannies. A family’s heavy reliance often gave these
maids and nannies an increased degree of power. In addition to the power that they gained from
the family’s reliance on them that they wielded in the household, some domestic servants went
even further.
While the presses inundated readers with sensational tales of murdered and abused
housemaids, maids dying alone in poverty, and desperate suicidal maids to sell their papers, they
also contained tales of domestics lashing out at employers or in some cases possibly turning the
tables on them. While the brief article does not give any indication of her motivations, it does
relay that the housemaid Stanisława Terkak was accused by her employer, Jan Skolomkowski, of
putting poison in the milk she served him at breakfast, and the police investigated his
accusations.

53

Genowefa Millewska apparently parted ways with her previous employers on

poor terms and later made the paper after she terrorized their new maid along with her
companions.

53

54

Sometimes, in acts of retribution or spite maids would steal from their employers.

“Służąca trucicielka,” Kurjer codzienny, July 3, 1938, 1.

54

“Służąca teroryzowana przez kompanów swej poprzedniczki,” Nasz przegląd, April 10, 1938,
26.
46

Estera Liberman was hired to be a maid in the Mejhofer household.

55

On her very first day of

service Mr. Mejhofer claimed to have caught her in the act of stealing from them. When the
police were called they reported that she was wanted for numerous cases of theft. Terkak
allegedly attempted to poison her employer, Liberman was accused of stealing from employers
on multiple occasions and Millewska was apparently displeased with being replaced. Perhaps
these women felt their behavior was justified as a result of the abuses they had endured or
perhaps they were just ill-behaved women of low character; either way they were bucking the
system, so to speak, and not merely weak and vulnerable women at the mercy of their middleclass employers or the society that marginalized them.
Additionally, a Polish Catholic domestic servant had another tool she could potentially
use against a Jewish acquaintance or a Jewish employer. Due to her socio-economic status, a
Polish Catholic servant stood on the lower rungs of the social ladder, making her vulnerable
against her middle-class employers who held significantly more social capital than she. While a
Jewish employer was socially superior to a Polish Catholic maid on many levels, the maid could
potentially “other” her employer and harness prejudices and antisemitism to use as a weapon
against them. During the interwar period, Poland was wrestling with its national identity in the
newly reconstituted Second Republic. Catholicism was linked to Polishness. There was much
conflict regarding the inclusion of national minorities, and antisemitism (of both racial and
economic varieties) was increasing towards the end of the 1930s, as it was throughout Europe.
While in many of the Holocaust survivor testimonies I examined for this study the subjects stated
that they characterized themselves as Polish Jews, who felt patriotic towards Poland, and were
quite acculturated, in general the Polish majority society would have viewed them as different

55

“Służące- Złodziejki,” Nasz przegląd, April 4, 1934, 8.
47

based on their status as non-Catholics. Bajla Goldwaser and her former maid, Helena Pariewska,
had a “fierce argument” during which Pariewska claimed Goldwaser made defamatory remarks
against the Polish nation.

56

Pariewska made a complaint with the police who were investigating

the matter at the time of publication. In this instance, a claim that a Jewish former employer
defamed the Polish nation could be a means of pointing out that the former employer was in fact
a member of the group of “others” living in Poland. It may have been intended to play on antiSemitic beliefs that Jews were disloyal citizens and were not vested members of the society. This
was one way this former employee could attempt to place herself above her former employer
based on her own identity as a Pole.
Concerns about Polish Catholic girls working in Jewish households were common long
before the interwar period, by both Catholics and Jews. Complaints about this practice can be
found in Church discourse as far back as 1267.

57

In the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, legal

restrictions to prevent Christians from working for Jews were passed by the Sejm in 1565 and
revoked in 1775.

58

This included all Christian employees, a large segment of which included

female Christian domestic employees who worked within Jewish homes. While there was not
legislation in place to prevent Christian women from working in Jewish homes again until
September, 1940 during the Nazi Occupation, there were some who found the practice
problematic during the interwar period.

59

It was also thought by some that Jewish men were

56

“Służąca skarzy chlebodawczynie o obrazę narodu polskiego,” Nasz przegląd, March 24,
1938, 14.
57
Judith Kalik, “Christian Servants Employed by Jews,” Polin: Focusing on Jews in the Polish
Borderlands Vol. 14 (2001): 259-70.
58
Ibid., 261-262.
59

Karol Marian Posieszalski, Hitlerowskie: “Prawo” Okupacyjne w Polsce, Wybór
Dokumentów (Poznan: Instytut Zachodni, 1958).
48

lustful by nature and therefore the Jewish men might seduce these Polish Catholic women who
were so easily accessible in the household.

60

Tropes of Jewish men as sexualized and predatory

were common in Poland.
In 1938, a rather sensational case was brought to the Polish courts. Janina Bednarska, the
maid for the Wesolowski family, claimed that a Jewish glassworker hired to repair the windows
in the employer’s home attempted to sexually assault her.

61

She claimed that he attempted to

rape her and intended to rob her employers. According to Bednarska, he pushed himself on her
and when she fought him he choked and beat her. She stated that she pushed him off from herself
and when she ran away the family dog attacked him. The glassworker provided a very different
account of the events. He claimed that when he walked into the living area to present the girl
with a receipt, the servant’s male friend who was visiting while her employers were not present
told him that he would not be paid because Poles should not employ Jews. The glassworker
claimed he was then hit on the head and when he regained consciousness the maid commanded
the family’s dog to “Attack the Jew.” The dog set upon him and after a scuffle with the maid,
who tried to prevent him from leaving, he escaped. When the police investigated they found the
maid’s hair and dried blood all over the room. Upon seeing the evidence and finding that the
glassworker had a criminal record, the police arrested the glassworker. During the hearing the
defense reported that both parties were lying and that what actually happened was that she

60

Judith Kalik, “Christian Servants Employed by Jews,” 267.

61

“Szklarz żydowski pod ciężkim oskarżeniem: Sąd uznał, że rzekomy napad był tylko
imaginacja dziewczyny,” Nasz przegląd, February 27, 1938, 10.
49

allowed him to “get close” to her but then became worried her employers would catch them and
pushed him away, and then the fighting ensued. The court threw the case out.

62

This is particularly interesting because both parties were using common tropes and
stereotypes. The Jewish glassworker said that the servant had a “male friend” visiting when her
employers were not home and that he was attacked based on economic antisemitism. This paints
the servant as antisemitic, and possibly promiscuous, a common concern among the middleclass. She paints him as a Jew trying to steal from her Polish employers and attempting to rape
her, drawing on the tropes of the sexualized and predatory Jewish male. This version also
appears to be an attempt to harness antisemitic ideas about Jews stealing from the Poles. Both
the accused and the accuser’s stories seem much less likely than the explanation offered by the
defense. Whether or not she initially consented to intimate physical contact with this
glassworker, she was beaten and did not get justice. In this sense she was victimized by this man
and again by the court system. This victimization fits into our conceptions of domestic servants
as marginalized and rather downtrodden. If she constructed a story to cover her own behavior,
she knew to use these tropes and antisemitic ideas about Jewish males, playing upon them in an
attempt to “other” him, which illustrates a good deal of agency on her part.
Conclusions
While we cannot know what took place between the maid and the glassworker, it is clear
that domestic servants did have an important role in their employer’s homes and did exhibit
agency. In addition, many of these female employees formed real, reciprocal bonds of affection
and familial feelings for their charges. By examining prewar conditions and relationships within
this subset of Polish society that was at particular risk for exploitation and abuse but also could

62

Ibid.
50

use various methods to take control their own environment, we are able to understand the roles
they played later in the aid or persecution of their former Jewish employers during the Holocaust.
These relationships and activities point to important continuities between the interwar
and Nazi-Occupation periods. The agency and affection demonstrated by these former
employees would in some cases carry over and result in domestic servants choosing to aid their
Jewish employers when they experienced extreme persecution under the Nazi regime. Agency
and animosity would also carry over, illustrated by incidences of former maids and nannies
actively harming their former Jewish charges either for financial gain or out of spite and
retribution. This chapter has sought to make two main points. First, that the bonds that did or did
not form during the interwar period played a crucial role in how a Polish Catholic servant reacted
towards her former employers in their time of need. These bonds affected whether or not the
servant remained indifferent, decided to aid her former Jewish employers, or in some cases took
advantage of the situation and sought to harm them. My second point is that as a result of their
power in the household or leaving home and making their way in the city, domestic servants
often developed a sense of agency and empowerment. This made domestic servants’ decisions to
use this power gained in the domestic realm again, under Nazi Occupation, whether it was to
help or harm their former employers, a natural choice and not a sharp break in behavior. If a
former servant was a marginalized, powerless victim of her lot in life, choosing to risk her life
would be truly unexpected and new behavior. But, I assert that this power was not something
new that arose out of the changed political and social situation brought about by the Nazi regime;
it was in fact, present to some degree all along.

51

CHAPTER TWO
THE BLURRED BOUNDARIES OF THE DOMESTIC SPHERE: JEWISH, POLISH, AND
BOURGEOIS
Introduction
The Polish Jewish writer Bruno Schulz offered a window into the prewar middle-class
household and its bustling activity in The Street of Crocodiles, written in 1934. The fictional
family in Schulz’s tale was not wealthy, but they owned a shop where both parents worked and
help was employed both in the shop and home. The story is narrated from the perspective of a
child in the home, who describes the members of the household and daily life as he perceives it.
He introduces the family’s domestic servant, offering a gaze into the kitchen, “with its buckets
and cloths full of complicated and intriguing smells, the clacking of Adela’s [the maid] slippers
and her noisy bustle.” Outside the kitchen, Nimrod (the family dog) finds the “splashing of warm
1

lye, flooding all the furniture and the loud scraping of Adela’s brushes.” At the center of
household activity, as described by the narrator, is the maid Adela.
At one point Schulz’s narrator tells the readers that their:
apartment sank deeper and deeper into a state of neglect owing to the indolence of my mother
who spent most of her time in the shop, and the carelessness of the slim-legged Adela, who,
without anyone to supervise her, spent her days in front of a mirror, endlessly making up and
2
leaving everywhere tufts of combed-out hair, brushes, odd slippers, and discarded corsets.
Even though his mother’s absence was necessary, the narrator blames the apartment’s condition
on her because she was not around to properly supervise Adela, and he blames Adela for
shirking her duties and wasting time on frivolity. The narrator’s father plays a very minimal role

1
2

Bruno Schulz, The Street of Crocodiles and Other Stories (New York, Penguin, 1977), 43.
Ibid., 11
52

in running the household. The real driving figures of this realm are the women, the mother and
the maid.
While the image of the household presented here is fictional and meant to capture the
imagination of readers, some aspects are also reflected in memoirs and testimonies of Polish
Jewish survivors of the Holocaust. In both fictional and primary sources, Jewish households
were female-dominated spheres. As in Schulz’s tale, in testimonies and memoirs women ran the
households and carried out daily tasks of childcare, cooking, shopping, and cleaning, while they
also engaged in employment and social obligations and tended to their own spiritual and social
needs.
Jewish children from acculturated households often managed to survive Nazi occupation
because of their ability to adopt Catholic social norms. This affinity for Polish culture was the
result both of the efforts of their own middle-class households to acculturate into the bourgeois
society around them and from their daily exposure to the rural Catholic girls and women who
were omnipresent as household servants in middle-class Jewish households during the 1920s and
30s. Their upbringing allowed these children to assume a Polish Catholic identity more readily
than a child who did not have this body of experience to draw from.
Based on the memoirs and testimonies of survivors of the Holocaust as well as contemporary
Polish language middle-class women’s journals, this chapter looks at how middle-class values
and hybrid Polish Jewish identities were transmitted to children in the private feminine domestic
sphere and the role of the maid in this process. It also examines the benefits children gained by
being raised in such households. The familiarity these Polish Jews had with Polish culture and
the connections they formed within the domestic realm often aided them in their efforts to evade
Nazi oppression.

53

First, in this female dominated realm, middle-class and affluent acculturated Jewish women
transmitted bourgeois values and culture to their children as they demonstrated this culture in the
home. Yet, at the same time, two other processes were unfolding. First, the Polish Catholic
servants that they employed as a demonstration of their middle-class status served to transmit
their own type of Catholic, lower-class Polish culture to the children in the household. The
transmission of middle-class Polish culture and rural, Catholic-centered Polish culture to the
children of these households aided in their ability to pass as Polish gentiles during the Holocaust.
Secondly, at the same time, these maids themselves became acculturated to middle-class
behavior and activities. In Schulz’s tale, Adela is applying make-up, fussing with her hair, trying
on corsets, all activities associated much more with that of a bourgeois woman than a peasant
from the country side or a working-class woman from the city. Behavior of this type by
household servants is evident in the memoirs and testimonies as well. Many families took their
household maid with them on vacation in the country or at the seaside. In her role as the family
maid or nanny a woman of limited financial means was sometimes able to participate in a social
class that would have been unattainable without her position in the household.
Often ignored by histories of Polish Jewry, a small middle class thrived within Polish Jewish
society. The experiences of this stratum in many ways set them up to survive or pass during the
3

Nazi occupation if the opportunity was available. Most Jews during and before the interwar
period were quite poor, but a small segment of Polish Jewry had ascended to the middle class

3

Other social/ economic groups of Polish Jews also possessed certain skill sets that enabled
them to pass on the so-called Aryan side when the opportunity could be found. For example,
working-class Jews who worked side by side with Polish workers also were socialized to Polish
working-class culture and made connections with Polish gentiles that could be useful when aid
was needed. In many of these families women were not able to stay home and the family could
not afford a maid to supervise the children so they had a degree of freedom that sometimes
resulted in independence and street savvy.
54

4

and economic elite and remained there until the Second World War. This group consisted of
men who made their living as merchants, factory owners, shop owners, lawyers, doctors, and
5

professors, and men involved in work with the Polish military. Women also often played
important roles working in the family business, as dress makers, and in philanthropic
organizations such as orphanages, committees to aid the poor, or promote the arts. Middle-class
Jews varied greatly in income level and social standing. A large number of families struggled to
stay within this middle-class category and maintain their lifestyle as economic conditions
became increasingly difficult.

6

4

Ezra Mendelsohn, Jews of East Central Europe Between the Two World Wars (Bloomington:
Indiana University Press, 1983), 27. Mendelsohn described this group as “numerically small but
important,” consisting of a bourgeoisie numbering 100,000, and the professionals and
intelligentsia at 300,000 people, which included dependents. The petty bourgeoisie was made up
of approximately 2,000,000 and they would have ascribed to middle-class values and
sensibilities.
5
Joseph Marcus, Social and Political History of the Jews in Poland: 1919-1939 (New York and
Amsterdam: Mouton Publishers, 1983), uses 1931 Polish census numbers to sketch the social
structure of the population during the interwar period. According to Marcus’s interpretation of
the census statistics he gathered from the Statystka Polski, 428,900 Jews were involved in
commerce, banking, insurance; 38,000 in transport and communication; 19,900 in civil service,
churches, legal professions; 33,000 in health services, healing, hygiene; and 45,000 were
employers in Mining and Industry (including handicrafts) out of a total Jewish population of
3,113,900 (437-38). Out of those Jews who acted as head of household which were 1,046,300,
approximately 3.4% or 35,815 fell into the category of Entrepreneurs. Of these Jewish
entrepreneurs, 20.9% were involved in Industry, 65.7% in Business, and 13.4% in the Liberal
Professions, p. 439. This data demonstrates that even with a large working class, Jews were
heavily employed in commerce and the professions. Of those Jews considered to be working
class, they were often craftsmen involved in light industry. Jewish workers were typically
shoemakers, bakers, tailors, or other craftsmen who worked in small shops according to Ezra
Mendelsohn, The Jews of East Central Europe Between the World Wars, 27.
6
Mendelsohn, The Jews of East Central Europe Between the World Wars, 25. Census data from
1921 and 1931 illustrates that during the course of a decade more Jews came to derive their
earning from Industry than Commerce in a way that was unparalleled in East Central Europe.
While this process is described as “proletarization” Mendelsohn argue that it would realistic to
say it was actually “pauperization” of the Jewish population. As economic conditions in Poland
declined families often found themselves experiencing financial hardships.
55

Many Polish Jews felt an affinity to Poland and loved their home country; many embraced
aspects of Polish culture, including the Polish language. Urban middle-class Jewish families and
households were acculturated to varying degrees; many resembled their bourgeois Polish
Catholic counterparts in their living standards, levels of education, and leisure activities while
7

others held on more firmly to traditional religious and cultural customs in the home. Geographic
region, professional occupations, family history, personalities, religious beliefs, political
leanings, and income all contributed to diversity within this relatively small subset of Polish
Jewry. Many members of this group identified themselves as Polish Jews and felt a patriotic
loyalty to their country, were attached to Polish middle-class culture, and yet also held on
selectively to many of their Jewish traditions and customs. They formed hybrid identities that on
one hand allowed them to participate in both the Jewish and gentile communities but on the other
sometimes kept them from being fully accepted in either. The domestic realm was a place where
bourgeois norms and values were practiced and perpetuated sometimes alongside traditional
Jewish religious practices. Here, “Polishness,” as it was understood by this segment of the
population, was performed and transmitted to the next generation.

7

Sean Martin, Jewish Life in Cracow, 1918-1939 (London and Portland: Vallentine Mitchell,
2004). I will use the term “acculturation” throughout this chapter using Martin’s working
definition of acculturation, while also acknowledging that the subjects of this study were not
merely shaping their own patterns to that of the majority culture, but were using those patterns to
create their own, drawing from elements of both Polish middle-class culture and Jewish
traditional and Jewish secular culture. Sean Martin draws on Milton Gordon and explains that the
term “assimilated Jews” in interwar Poland would be used to described those Jews who had truly
assimilated as in “exchanging an identification with the Jewish community for a home among the
Poles and in Polish,” 11. The term “acculturated Jews” would have been in line with Gordon’s
definition of cultural assimilation as in the adaptation to the cultural patterns of another group.
Martin explains that “cultural assimilation went along with a process of increasing Jewish
national identification” while at the same time in the early twentieth century actual assimilation
of Jews into the Polish majority became untenable.
56

Inculcating Middle-Class Values in Jewish Homes
Domestic orderliness and serenity within the patriarchal family were main values of middle8

class European culture. Both Paula E. Hyman and Marion Kaplan point to Jewish middle-class
families attempting to demonstrate their adherence to bourgeois norms and belonging through
9

their efforts to shape their households according to middle-class standards in Germany. It was
in the household and family where “people tried to live decently- that the most marked
embourgeoisment took place,” and it was women who made sure their families, especially their
children, adapted to middle-class speech, clothing, and education.

10

While in reality this was

difficult to achieve, it was an integral component of bourgeois class consciousness that the
family act as a haven from the stresses of modern urban life.

11

European middle-class women,

including Jewish women in Poland, experienced the double burden of commitments outside of
the house while also being responsible for transmission of middle-class culture and values to
their children, displaying them through their household and family, and everyday maintenance of
the home. Elements of middle-class culture included the running of an orderly household, which
meant supervising the help and maintaining “a firm hand” at the helm of the household finances,
engaging in the proper leisure time activities, dressing according to class stature, and displaying

8

Paula E. Hymen, “The Modern Jewish Family: Image and Reality” in The Jewish Family:
Metaphor and Memory, ed. David Kraemer (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1989), 179.
9
Hymen, “The Modern Jewish Family,” in The Making of the Jewish Middle Class: Women,
Family, and Identity in Imperial Germany, ed. Marion Kaplan (New York and Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1991).
10
Ibid., 3-4.
11

Ibid., 16.
57

the proper amount of education and decorum.

12

The tenet of orderliness applied not only to the

family budget and household, but also applied to childrearing. It was thought that a regimented
schedule of feeding, sleep and activity from the start of a child’s life would help them grow into
a rational and healthy adult.

13

This chapter examines elements of these middle-class values and

the ways that these values were demonstrated in Jewish households in Poland to understand how
Jewish children internalized enough bourgeois practices to assimilate when they needed to. And
this chapter asks which habits/rituals/patterns did they adopt and how were these practices
transmitted to them.
While Jewish tradition promoted different roles for men and women, economic necessity and
the social demands made upon middle-class women required them to spend a significant amount
of time outside of the home. Even while these commitments kept women outside of the home,
the functioning and orderliness of the home and rearing of the children remained nearly entirely
their responsibility. The key to managing this double burden of sorts and thus maintaining these
bourgeois cultural norms was the domestic servant.
Many Polish Catholic women worked in these Jewish homes as domestic servants, thus
fulfilling this need. Despite differences in religion, class, culture and language, Polish Jews and
Catholics exchanged ideas, explored social norms, and negotiated the boundaries that often
separated them in public life. As I argue in the previous chapter, the domestic realm provided a
12

Evidence of the value and necessity of maintaining a strict household budget can be found in
many journal articles that were read by middle class women. For example, see “Jak notować
wydatki?” Życie kobiece, Nr. 8 (1927), 11; instructs women on the important task of using a
balance sheet to manage the household budget. With the use of the methods described in the
article the author promises the reader will be able to “maintain a strong hand at the helm of the
household finances.”
13
For examples see “Początek współżycia,” Dziecko i matka: dwu tygodnik poświęcony zdrowiu
i wychowwaniu dziecka do lat siedmu, Nr. 19, (1933), 7; and “O pawagę w stosunku do
dziecka,” Dziecko i matka, Nr. 19, (1933), 8.
58

space where a Polish Catholic maid could operate in such a way that allowed her to maintain her
own beliefs while also blending into the household and becoming accustomed to some Jewish
religious and cultural customs, sometimes adopting or incorporating them into her own world
views and practices. These gentile domestic workers in turn also acted as transmitters of Polish
Catholic culture to their employers and the children of their employers. Polish culture as it was
experienced by Polish Catholic domestic and their Jewish employers would have also varied by
class. Jewish employers would have been familiar with bourgeois culture whereas their
employees would be more familiar with Polish peasant culture. In this domestic realm an
exchange could occur.
These interactions happened as a result of a family deciding to employ a gentile maid
rather than hiring Jewish help. This decision was often influenced by the sheer number of Polish
Catholic domestic workers seeking employment. It was harder to find a Jewish maid, yet there
was generally an overabundance of Polish Catholic women seeking employment as domestic
servants. In addition to the ease of finding a gentile maid, there also must have been a level of
tolerance for a family to make this decision. Employment of a Polish Catholic maid as opposed
to a Jewish maid could be useful as a means of exposing children to Polish Catholic culture in a
safe and controlled environment. This exposure was useful because it aided children in blending
in with their peers in Polish state schools and in their daily travels outside the home. It is not a
stretch to conclude that some families could have employed these women as a strategy to help
their children learn to operate in the majority society later as adults. Dov Weissberg recalls that
his family exclusively employed Polish Catholic maids and governesses because his parents were
concerned about the “purity” of the children’s Polish language and did not want the children

59

“exposed to Yiddish-tainted accents.”

14

Speaking flawless Polish was one means of ensuring

children would “fit in” with the majority population.
The Middle-Class, Urban, Jewish Household
Which families could afford a maid? Why would families of minimal economic standing
consistently seek to employ household help even if it was a strain on the family budget? There
was a great deal of difference between a lower middle-class home in which all the members “had
enough” and that of a very “affluent” family, but both ascribed to middle-class values and sought
to participate in bourgeois life.

15

Employing household help was part of this self-image and was

not terribly costly, but could still strain some family budgets. Live-in help could be hired as little
for 20 zł a month and the cost of feeding an extra mouth. Some interviewees lived in a flat in an
apartment building or less often, a large, single family house. Their family sometimes owned the
building in which they lived, renting out apartments to other families, and sometimes they rented
their apartment. The number of rooms varied from one for a very modest apartment to four or
even five in the case of more financially well off families. Typically the family members either
all slept in one room or sometimes the parents in one room and the children in another, and in the
case of more financially well off families the children may even have had their own bedrooms,
although this was infrequent. These families often had help in the form of a live-in maid or
nanny. It was very seldom that she would have her own quarters. Out of hundreds of testimonies,
I only found the mention of a servant having her own quarters twice. She generally slept in the
14

Dov Weissberg, I Remember (London: Freund Publishing House, 1998), 27.

15

Interviewees describe their families’ socioeconomic status either as “comfortable,” as “having
enough,” “well off,” “middle-class,” “upper-middle class,” “wealthy,” or “affluent.” They base
these beliefs on how they remember their childhood before the war and the size of the family’s
dwelling, the condition of the home, the furnishings, the types of food they ate, their parents’
jobs, and a variety of other factors.
60

kitchen, on a fold-out cot, or in a few instances she shared a bedroom with the children. Many of
these middle-class families were not well off. Like their Polish gentile counterparts, Jews were
struggling economically, and yet maintaining a maid gave them a bourgeois appearance.
Employment of a maid was necessary to free a woman from some of her household burdens so
she could work and socialize. As some families increasingly struggled to maintain their middleclass status even when economic conditions declined in the 1930s and made this very difficult,
women had to improvise.

16

An author writing for Gazeta dla Kobiet informs readers of a

household budget displayed at an exhibit detailing how a family of four could live on 250 zl per
17

month.

Paying a maid between 20 and 40 zl a month was a sizeable investment of a 250 zl

budget. The bourgeois home was expected to be stylish, clean, neat, and a reflection of the
family’s good taste. Tattered furnishings or dirty rugs would not reflect well on the family,
particularly on the woman of the house who was responsible for its maintenance. In Życie
kobiece, an author explains to her readers some tips to refresh the appearance of a home and
maintain its cleanliness in a frugal manner.

18

The author suggests using items around the house

16

Survivor testimonies and memoirs often touch on the “pauperization” of the Jewish
population as families lost their businesses and faced tough economic conditions. For example
see the Videotaped testimony of Sylvia Bell Asher, File no. 24511-3, January 1997, Tape 1, The
USC Shoah Foundation Institute, Bell Asher recalls that her father went from earning a living
manufacturing shoes to building houses because he “knew how to make money” and could adjust
to the economic conditions as needed. In the videotaped testimony of Regina Blank, File no.
21412-3, October 29, 1996, The USC Shoah Foundation Institute, Blank recalls that her father
lost the family business when the economic situation deteriorated. This resulted in the family
moving and her father working as a tailor for the Polish military.
17
Some families who employed household help struggled to maintain their middle-class status
during the difficult economic times. One journal featured an article based on a booth put together
by the women of the School of Commerce and Industry at the Poznan exhibition, “All for You.”
See “Budżet rodziny: 4 osoby- 250 zł,” Gazeta dla kobiet: miesięcznik ilustrowany, nr. 11
(1935), 85-86.
18
“Wizyta u parababki,” Życie kobiece: Tygodnik Illustrowany, nr. 10, (1927), 11.
61

to make cleaning products but also employing modern conveniences such as a vacuum cleaner.
This would allow her to maintain the standards of a clean and orderly home but also
accommodate the family’s financial situation as well.
The Female Dominated Realm of the Household
As the Bruno Schulz example suggests, the domestic realm was a highly feminized space.
The male head was often away traveling for business, at work, or engaged in social
commitments. Even when he returned home, the hands-on management of the home and the
children were not his responsibility. Sylvia Bell Asher recalls both her own home and the two
homes of her grandparents as being run by very strong women while the men played limited
roles, as Asher’s own father was always away for business. Her father first manufactured shoes
and later began building houses, leaving the house around six o’clock in the morning to check on
the workers at his construction sites, and only returning home at night.

19

However, even though the wife/ mother of the house was also often times away from
home for work, socializing, or philanthropic activities they were expected to maintain the home.
Women were often volunteering their time for orphanages, distributing food for the poor, or even
helping young, poor brides gather the trousseau and gift for her future husband that she was
unable to attain on her own. Bell Asher remembers growing up in Warsaw under the supervision
of her mother, her grandmother, and the family maid.

20

Her grandmother had twelve children

and ran a steel business. Her grandparents owned a home outside of Warsaw that was always full
of cousins and extended family as well as a home in the city at Ulica Nowolipki 14.

19
20
21

Videotaped testimony of Sylvia Bell Asher, Tape 1, 6:45.
Videotaped testimony of Sylvia Bell Asher, Tape 1.
Ibid., 28:10.
62

21

Her

grandmother, with the help of the servants that she employed, managed both households while
also running the family steel business. Asher states, “She knew what we’d have for dinner, the
maid in one house and a maid in the other house, you would not believe it, [she was] like a
general.”

22

She remembers her mother’s life as being “boring” because “she didn’t do anything.

She never went in the kitchen her whole life. She never knew how to cook.”

23

Her mother was

raised to appreciate bourgeois values and while the ability to run a household was important, it
was expected that a woman would have a cook; therefore her desire to cook herself was quite
unimportant. Asher remembers the family having two maids and a governess, along with the
cook, who managed the household staff and made important decisions about the functioning of
24

the home.

Asher’s mother appeared to leave much of the running of the house to the cook

while she was busy with her own sisters.

25

Even though children spent a great deal of time with their caregivers, the parents,
especially their mothers, were still responsible for their upbringing. While parenting was
sometimes less “hands-on” in these instances, the caregivers were generally following
instructions from the children’s mother. Jan Imich, who lived in Kraków as a boy, remembers his
daily life as being “regimented.”

26

His mother spent her days frequenting coffee houses, visiting

friends and playing cards, and at the same time she supervised the kitchen but the family maid

22

Ibid., 28:15.

23

Videotaped testimony of Sylvia Bell Asher, File no. 24511-3, January 1997, Tape 2, The USC
Shoah Foundation Institute, 6:45.
24
Asher’s testimony specifies that the two maids were in fact Polish, but it appears that the cook
who played such an important role in the household was likely Jewish.
25
Videotaped testimony of Sylvia Bell Asher, Tape 1.
26

Videotaped testimony of Jan Imich, File no. 35827-23, September 9, 1997, Tape 1, The USC
Shoah Foundation Institute, 6:50.
63

and cook did all the shopping and cleaning of the house.

27

The family also employed a nanny to

look after Imich. He recalls his nanny “used to carry out my parents orders exactly to the
letter.”

28

While he did have contact with his parents every day, he says he spent “quite a lot of

time” with this nanny.

29

In the afternoons he was not allowed to play in the streets with the other

children, but instead went for planned play dates at the home of friends where the children would
“play under the watchful eyes of both nannies who were gossiping.”

30

He remembers this nanny,

Victoria, being very strict, but in retrospect he believes she was just attempting to follow his
parents’ directives as closely as she was able. The woman of the house needed a servant who
could carry out her instructions fully and with care so the servant could act as a conduit for the
parental values. Employment was not necessarily easy to find and a maid or nanny did not want
to be dismissed. Carrying out the instructions of one or both parents was vital to maintaining a
position. While the women who worked as maids and nannies were often from rural
environments and the economic lower-classes, they still often acted as a transmitter of bourgeois
values to the children they cared for. These were received by the domestic servant by watching
the example of the lady of the house and through her implicit directives, were passed on to the
children as she cared for them.
The woman of the house was involved to varying degrees in the cooking, shopping, and
planning of activities. The young female children of the house had varying degrees of
involvement as well. Rachel Birnbaum recalls that her mother baked but the girls did not help
her when they were young. The family had an aunt who lived in their home and a servant, and
27

Ibid.

28

Ibid., 6:59.

29
30

Ibid., 3:15.
Ibid., 38:21.
64

both helped her mother. She remembers that as her sister grew older their mother began calling
her into the kitchen more frequently to observe, saying, “I know you’re going to have a maid, but
if you have a maid and don’t know what you are doing, the maid’s not going to know either.”

31

Lola Blady of Łódź also remembers her mother doing the cooking with the help of the maid and
her mother taught the three girls how to cook.

32

Whether or not the mother of the family

participated directly in the shopping and cooking, it was important that she have the knowledge
to manage the home and direct the servant. As mentioned earlier, Bell Asher’s mother never
cooked and did not know how, but she was able to instruct the household servants. Young girls
would have likely been taught to run a household or to cook, either by their mother or the family
maid in preparation for their maintenance of their own home someday. Even though she may
play a rather limited role in the actual activities other than supervision of the help who carried
them out, a woman needed these skills.
Much as the type, size, and location of the home depended upon multiple factors, so did
the daily functions of the households themselves. Level of acculturation, religious adherence,
political leanings, and income levels influenced daily life and leisure activities for a typical
middle-class family. Often, both parents were involved in the family business. Sometimes in
more affluent households, the mother of the house was freed from business commitments but
still spent a large amount of her time outside of the home engaging in social and philanthropic
activities such as volunteering time at an orphanage or helping young brides unable to afford
wedding gifts for their future husbands.

31

Videotaped testimony of Rachel Birnbaum, File no. 06703-5, December 21, 1995, Tape 1,
The USC Shoah Foundation Institute, 9:09.
32
Videotaped testimony of Lola Blady, File no. 31248-3, July 17, 1997, Tape 1, The USC
Shoah Foundation Visual History Archives.
65

The level of religious observance and acculturation or assimilation in the family
profoundly affected the daily rhythms of the household. In addition to dictating whether a child
went to religious or state school and whether or not a child attended school on Saturdays, it
determined whether a household kept kosher, the holidays they celebrated, whether they attended
synagogue, if they held shabbos dinner, and so on. Polish gentile maids were found in homes
that were very much observant as well as in highly acculturated homes. Sometimes in an
observant home a family would prefer a Jewish domestic servant if her duties included the
shopping or taking part in the cooking. Anna Balaban, who was born in Słomniki, near Kraków,
recalls that while the family had a Polish maid, her own mother did all the cooking.

33

Her

grandmother, however, chose to employ a very distant relative to work as a housekeeper in her
home because she wanted to be certain that she would cook kosher.

34

Some observant families

did employ gentiles to take part in the cooking and the domestic servants either learned to cook
according to the laws of kashrut so they could prepare meals with little supervision or sometimes
they cooked in the kitchen alongside the woman of the house. This happened for various reasons.
Most interviewees point to the abundance of Polish gentile women seeking employment and the
low wages they would accept.
Participating in Hybrid Middle-Class Identities
Better off Jewish households were often made up of parents who were less traditional
than their own parents, and their children were influenced by both their parents’ hybrid identities
and that of the hired caregivers in their homes. Middle-class Jewish values would have been
diverse and comprised of both secular middle-class ideals and a varied level of Jewish traditional
33

Videotaped testimony of Anna Balaban, File no. 26141, February 26, 1997, Tape 1, The USC
Shoah Foundation Institute, 6:40.
34
Ibid., 6:49.
66

values. The maids would have also been experiencing this hybrid version of middle-class identity
and transmitting it to children as they themselves acculturated.
Some acculturated households observed Polish customs. This could be as a demonstration
of patriotism, an attempt to fit in, or because the family just felt compelled for personal reasons
to participate. Jan Imich describes his parents as non-practicing and says that “Jewish life” in
35

their home was “fairly non-existent.”

The family celebrated both Jewish holidays and Polish

Catholic holidays, and he recalls enjoying both Christmas and Passover foods.

36

Imich’s family

life reflects the blurring of religious lines in many acculturated families. These families managed
to deftly weave Jewish traditions with Polish Catholic practices as they became more
acculturated. Imich’s family had a Christmas tree and entertained guests with a szopka (a birth of
Christ show).

37

Lillian Goss, who lived in Warsaw and then moved to Lodz before the outbreak

of the war, had an aunt who married a Pole.

38

celebrate Christmas with a tree and presents.

Her family was not observant and they would

39

She describes this activity as patriotic rather than

religious. And yet, the family also celebrated Passover at her grandparents’ home. The pattern of
observing some Polish Catholic cultural customs (that are religious in this case) and also at the
same time celebrating traditional Jewish religious customs with their parents is a common theme
and shows generational shifts in the Polish-Jewish community. Many of the interviewees

35
36
37

Videotaped testimony of Jan Imich, File no. 35827-23, 20:57.
Ibid., 22:18.
Ibid., 22:25.

38

Videotaped testimony of Lillian Goss, File no. 41069-3, April 2, 1998, Tape 1, The USC
Shoah Foundation Institute. According to Goss’s testimony her Polish uncle aided Goss. He kept
her in his home outside the ghetto and after being blackmailed he placed her in Warsaw in the
home of his own brother and sister-in-law.
39
Ibid.
67

mention that their parents were very modern and less observant than their own parents.

40

This

generational divide makes it appear that in some cases, these parents of the interviewees were the
first generation to embrace fully this Polish middle class-culture and pass it on to their own
children. These families were already acculturating, thus the presence of Polish Catholic maids
in the household was part of this acculturation process in progress.
Acculturated, economically well off families engaged in leisure activities in line with
their status as middle-class urban dwellers, which were mirrored by their gentile counterparts’
activities as well. This would later help children “perform Polishness” when they needed to pass
during the Nazi Occupation. These activities included walks in the parks or on the trendy streets
in the city in which their families lived, taking in a show at the local theater or cinema, attending
a concert, or visiting with friends and family. Halina Biderman, who was around seventeen at the
outbreak of the war, recalls on Saturday evenings she went dancing and listened to records in
private homes.

41

On Sunday morning they went walking near the park. Zofia Blitz, born in

Warsaw, recalled that her mother had things to do outside of work but her father spent his free
42

time with her and her two siblings.

He would often surprise the children with an impromptu

40

In some cases the children’s only interaction with religious practice occurred when their
parents took them to visit their grandparents. This is mentioned in the videotaped testimony of
Lillian Goss, File no. 41069-1, April 2, 1998, tape 1, The USC Shoah Foundation Institute, and
in the videotaped testimony of Rosa Hochberg, File no. 38828-0, December 12, 1997, Tape 1,
The USC Shoah Foundation Institute.
41
Videotaped testimony of Halina Biderman, File no. 23694-1, November 29, 1996, Tape 1,
USC Shoah Foundation Institute.
42
Videotaped testimony of Zofia Blitz, File no. 40853-3, March 30, 1998, Tape 1, USC Shoah
Foundation Institute.
68

walk, carriage ride, or trip to a movie or concert.

43

The weekend was a time for parents to

socialize with friends or extended family and often for parents to spend time with their children.
Summer holiday was also an opportunity to demonstrate middle-class status and
participate in bourgeois life. Jan Imich, mentioned above, spent six weeks in Zakopane most
44

summers.

He and his mother would stay in a hotel and his father would come for two of those

weeks. He would go for walks every day with his nanny while his mother played bridge and
chatted with her friends. When his father arrived the nanny would get time off and Imich spent
time with just his parents. Depending on individual families, sometimes the summer holiday was
spent with extended family. Cousins spent the day playing, while their mothers played cards and
enjoyed leisure activities. Going on summer holiday in the country or the seaside gave a family’s
maid the chance to experience a middle-class life that she would not have been exposed to back
home in the village of her origin or as a poor single woman in the city. While Polish Catholic
domestic servants acted as transmitters of Polish Catholic culture, they were also able to become
acculturated to middle class Polish norms.
Acculturation as a Two-Way Street
In observant or more traditional homes, the rhythm of the household was shaped also by
religious practice. The workweek still dictated the schedule to a large degree but the activities of
these families were subjected to the rules of kashrut and other Jewish laws. These laws, along
with prayer ritual and religious study, divided the sexes just like everything else in the Jewish
household. Unlike many children of acculturated families, children from observant households
who attended state public or secular private schools stayed home from school on Saturdays.

43
44

Ibid., 10:10.
Videotaped testimony of Jan Imich, File no. 35827-23, 15:00.
69

Mothers would often be home preparing the meals with or without the direct help of the family
servant. David Geller was born in 1922 in Rzeszów. His family owned a grocery store which
both parents worked in and he described them as “very observant.”

45

The family had a Polish

Catholic maid and he remembers that on every Thursday night his mother, along with the
family’s gentile maid, “cooked and baked practically the whole night.”

46

Jack Arnel was born in Vilna in 1929. His father was a furrier and his mother a
dressmaker whose clientele were among the city’s elite.

47

They maintained a kosher home,

attending synagogue on Saturdays. The family employed a Polish Catholic maid and governess
with whom they communicated in Polish even though they knew a lot of Yiddish. The gentile
domestic servants were also able to “prepare certain meals and all that, they knew all about the
48

Yiddish traditions.”

Arnel recalls, “My mother used to light the candles on Friday and even

our housemaid helped with this, she used to set it all up and we were all together including the
housemaid and many times the governess would join us to celebrate Friday nights and the special
Friday night dinner.”

49

On these nights the home would often be filled with family and friends.

Arnel’s mother loved to entertain and frequently his mother’s siblings and their families visited
and they were together as “one big happy family.”

50

In this environment, the family’s maid was

45

Videotaped testimony of David Geller, File no. 02193, April 27, 1997, Tape 1, USC Shoah
Foundation Institute, 6:50.
46
Ibid., 7:01.
47

Videotaped testimony of Jack Arnel, File no. 19111-3, August 29, 1996, Tape 1, USC Shoah
Foundation Institute, 15:25.
48
Ibid., 12:08.
49
50

Ibid., 22:28.
Ibid., 23:08.
70

able to teach the child she cared for about Polish Catholic culture while at the same time learning
Jewish traditions.
The summer months brought a change in the rhythm of the household. The children did
not attend school during the summer and it was believed that it was better for children and adults
to leave the city during the summer months whenever possible. The city was hot and dirty and it
was thought that the clean country air and activity was good for health and well-being. As a
result, middle-class families often took extended trips to the countryside where they would rent a
house, stay at a spa, or in some cases they owned a country manor. Their ability to spend an
extended time in a resort town or retire to a villa in the countryside for holiday was an important
marker of middle-class status.
Parents still had business obligations during the summer months, so it was very rare that
both could stay with the children the entire stay. Sometimes this meant that the domestic servant
would go along and the parents would spend the week in the city, traveling to the countryside for
the weekends, or they would stay for a few weeks rather than the entire month. Sylvia Bell
Asher, mentioned above, recalls that the family would rent a house in a resort town and would go
with the maid, cook, and governess while her mother and father were working.

51

Her mother

would come part of the time and her father would sometimes come on the weekends when he
was able. Zofia Blitz testified that when she was a girl the family would rent a villa outside of
Warsaw.

52

The family packed up their belongings and she and her siblings went with the

housekeeper and governess because her parents were working. She explains, “First the baggage
went, and then the children with the housekeeper and the governess. We were not far from
51

Videotaped testimony of Sylvia Bell Asher, Tape 1, 16:29.

52

Videotaped testimony of Zofia Blitz, File no. 40853-3, March 30, 1998, Tape 1, USC Shoah
Foundation Institute, 11:00.
71

Warsaw and we stayed there the whole summer and my parents used to come on the weekends
always bringing us new toys and playing with us, different games.”

53

As the children grew older

they started going to a spa instead. Albert Graj, who lived in Kraków, also describes a similar
54

situation.

He would go first with the maid, Irena, and stay in the countryside for two months.

His mother spent about three weeks in the countryside with him and his father only used to come
for a weekend. He explains that during this time in the country the maid would run the household
in his mother’s absence until his older sister was able to do so.

55

Family Roles and Relationships
The housekeeper as conduit for middle-class identity
Children often developed relationships with, and feelings for, their household servant that
were similar to that of a mother, a sibling, or a close friend.

53

56

Many domestic servants were

Ibid., 11:42.

54

Videotaped testimony of Albert Graj, File no. 35469-40, August 19. 1997, Tape 1, USC
Shoah Foundation Institute.
55
Ibid., 17:00.
56

Intra-household relationships were varied and complex and based on many factors.
Relationships between parents, siblings, parents and their children, and the domestic servants and
each family member played out in this female dominated domestic realm. The relationship I am
able most readily to access using my base of sources is that between children and their parents
and the family domestic servants, but also relationships between the adults in the household as
they were perceived by the children. One caveat of using sources that were written after the
experience of living through the Holocaust and the passage of time and experiences of adulthood
is that the ways these relationships are remembered does influence the picture I am able to paint
with the sources. This does not however, make these sources any less useful and in many cases
these are the only sources available to reconstruct this lost domestic world. While many
survivors may have chosen to focus on the fond memories from their childhood or shy away
from speaking ill of people who they loved very deeply and were murdered, overall I found that
these testimonies are not overly idealized if the person providing the testimony is allowed to talk
extensively about their prewar childhood. Frequently a survivor will say childhood was
“wonderful” or focus on how loved they felt in the beginning, but given time to elaborate they do
give normalized versions of life. Such realities as generational gaps, parents being away for work
72

quite young when they began their careers so sometimes they were not so much older than the
children they cared for. Irene Frisch’s caregiver Frania, mentioned above, was only a teen when
she started to work for the family. Klara Halbuech, born in Kraków in 1923, recalls that the
family had a housemaid who insisted her sister take over her position when she married and left
the family.

57

Halbuech, who was too young to remember this, was told that when the girl came

she was only fourteen years old and initially cried constantly. Halbuech’s mother instructed the
family’s former maid to take her sister back home but the former maid insisted her sister should
stay and would be happy there with the family. The sister adjusted and stayed with the family
until the outbreak of the war. For many young women, this was their first time away from home.
These women were in a new place, living with strangers, shouldering a large amount of
responsibility, and needed to please their employers in order to keep their position. Often
domestic servants were closer in age to their charges than their employers, and sometimes their
charges would have a relationship with them that was more that of an older sister than a parent or
real authority figure. Thus, we occasionally see evidence of young girls confiding in their
caregivers, offering advice, and growing quite attached to them.
Domestic help also often developed relationships similar to that of a mother with the
children they cared for. In cases where a mother died a caregiver sometimes became a surrogate
in a sense. Stanley Freed, born in 1929 in Lodz, suffered the loss of his mother when he was
quite young.

58

His father hired a Polish Catholic woman to help in the house and he recalls, “she

frequently, favoring of one parent, and so on do enter into the narratives. Thus, even with the
passage of time and trauma, these accounts of everyday life are an invaluable resource.
57
Videotaped testimony of Klara Halbeuch, File no. 03582-6, June 28, 1995, Tape 1, USC
Shoah Foundation Institute, 8:57.
58
Videotaped testimony of Stanley Freed, File No. 18557-3, August 14, 1996, Tape 1, USC
Shoah Foundation Institute.
73

really raised me, her name was Stasia, and she was many years with us. She was very good.”

59

Even though Freed’s Jewish name was Israel, she called him Staszek or Stanislaw because of her
name, as if he was her own. He explains that she was trying to replace his mother and after the
war he found her again and helped provide for her.
Relationships between the mother of the house and the caregiver were also deeply
complex. In some cases, friendship and a sense of intimacy developed between these women but
in other cases these relationships were very much defined by the employer/ employee power
dynamic. The majority of relationships feel somewhere in between. Irene Frisch, mentioned
above, recalls that just a few years after getting married her mother was in the park one day with
her brother when she was approached by a teen from the countryside who commented on how
beautiful the baby was and asked to play with him.

60

She made faces at the baby and Frisch’s

mother immediately liked the girl. She asked her what she was doing in the city and the girl
replied she had come from the village looking for a job, so Frisch’s mother hired her on the spot
and took her home.

61

Frisch says that this girl, Frania, came to work for the family and “became

the most important person in our lives.”

62

It was an amiable relationship between this household

employee, the children, and the mother of the house, who liked her immediately. Frania worked
for the family until 1939 when Frisch’s mother “pushed her” to get married even though Frisch
claims she did not want to.

59

63

Frisch’s mother implored Frania by saying “Look, one day the kids

Ibid., 4:00.

60

Videotaped testimony of Irene Frisch, File no. 21825-3, October 28, 1996, Tape 2, USC
Shoah Foundation Institute, 28:00.
61
Videotaped testimony of Irene Frisch, Tape 3, 1:10.
62
63

Ibid., 1:30.
Ibid., 3:00.
74

will leave the house and what is going to happen to you? You need to have a family of your
own.”

64

Frania left on the condition that her younger sister, Marysia, take over her position and

she continued to visit and check on the children almost every day until the war broke out.

65

Frania continued to care for the family even throughout the war, hiding young Irene, her sister,
and her mother eventually. I will discuss this in more detail in a later chapter. The relationship
between Frania and Frisch’s mother is obviously one that was more than employer and
employee. The attachment that Frisch felt for this household employee before the war was then
deepened by her efforts to sustain them during the Nazi occupation.
Dov Weissberg’s memoir also highlights the complex nature of the relationship between
the lady of the house and her domestic servants. When Stasia, the children’s governess of several
years, became pregnant out of wedlock, the family could continue to employ her. Weissberg
explains, “An unmarried girl becoming pregnant was a serious scandal. A self-respecting family
could not let such an ‘immoral’ girl stay with them and raise their children.”

66

Rather than just

letting her go though, Weissberg’s mother finds employment for this governess with a family
friend, a doctor, in Zbaraz, where no one will know of her “amorous past,” and she could
continue “to raise Jewish children.”

67

This is interesting because it not only shows the sense of

attachment that his mother felt to this woman and her empathy for her, it illustrates the
importance of upholding the image of being a proper middle-class family. His mother obviously
does not have a problem with this “immoral” woman caring for Jewish children or more
specifically her friend’s children, so long as everyone does not know her past. It is more people
64
65
66
67

Ibid., 3:04.
Ibid., 3:30.
Weissburg, I Remember, 27.
Ibid.
75

knowing about the governess’s indiscretion that is troubling than the behavior itself, otherwise
she would not set up this new employment situation for her.
Transmission of bourgeois values from parents to children
Understanding relationships between parents, their children, and their hired caregivers is
essential to understanding some of the motivations in aid cases where former employees gave
assistance to their former charges when they became targets of Nazi persecution. Aside from
creating the bonds that made women risk their lives to save former employers or made former
employers entrust their children with a former employee, these relationships also acted as a
means of transmission of bourgeois customs and values to Jewish children in the home. The
customs, manners, and values children learned in the domestic realm that were delivered to them
by interactions with their parents and their family’s domestic servants sometimes became an
important set of tools later when a child had to blend in to the Polish Catholic population to hide.
The children of middling and well off, urban, Jewish households almost always note that
their parents were very busy with work and social commitments. Survivors of the Holocaust who
were children during the interwar period acknowledge that their parents’ commitments limited
their time together, but they also point out that most parents spent a great deal of time outside the
home. George Hoffman says that his parents were both busy, father with his work and mother
with her social life.

68

As a result, he considered himself to have been raised by the family’s maid

Maria, whom he describes as a part of the family. When discussing his mother’s absence he
explains, “That’s not to say she was a bad mother, in those days I don’t think it was unusual to

68

Videotaped testimony of George Hofman, File no. 17554-5, July 17, 1996, Tape 1, USC
Shoah Foundation Institute, 16:00.
76

have children brought up by help, during the day. And I saw my parents evenings and
weekends.”

69

Many testimonies mentioned parents, particularly mothers, who spent leisure time in
cafes socializing. Rosa Hochberg, born in Brzezany, describes interwar middle-class urban
Polish Jewish society as a “café society.”

70

Women who did participate in the family business

also spent time at cafes, working for philanthropic groups, and attending lectures, concerts,
plays, and films. As a result parents spent a large amount of time away from their children.
Halina Mitchley’s mother did not work.

71

Mitchley’s father had been married and his first wife

died. After her death, he served in Russia as an army doctor. While there he met Mitchley’s
mother, eighteen years his junior, and she returned to Warsaw with him. Mitchley was born
shortly after that. Her mother was a Russian Jew and spoke very poor Polish. She did not work
but spent a great deal of time with her husband’s sister-in-law. Every day the two women met
and went to socialize at the Ziemniańska Café, which was frequented by artists and literary
notables such as the Skamanderites. Mitchley’s mother, despite her difficulty with the Polish
language and her status as a Russian Jew, still participated in this middle-class activity. In many
ways Mitchley’s mother did not fit into the middle-class norm because she was not as educated
and as genteel as Mitchley’s father, and she was not steeped in Polish culture and knowledgeable
of Polish literary classics. She was in other ways attempting to participate in bourgeois culture
and pass this along to her daughter. Mitchley notes that the family at first employed a French

69

Ibid., 17:50.

70

Videotaped testimony of Rosa Hochberg, File no. 38828-0, December 12, 1997, Tape 1, USC
Shoah Foundation Institute, 7:00.
71
Videotaped testimony of Halina Mitchley, File no. 40467, February 20, 1998, Tape 1, USC
Shoah Foundation Institute.
77

governess so she would learn the language and that she was forbidden to use Russian because it
would taint her Polish. So while her mother lacked Polishness, she nonetheless attempted to
ensure her daughter would not.
Dov Weissberg’s mother was employed teaching French and German until she married,
at which time she left her job outside the home. As a proper middle-class woman it was not
necessary for her to work, but she was still very active outside of the home. She was convinced,
much to the displeasure of her own parents, that “children should be raised by a professional
governess, not by their parents” so she employed a maid for the cleaning and household
maintenance and a nanny and later a governess for the care of the children, because they were
financially able to employ both.

72

The governess had to have at minimum a high school

education and to know foreign languages, preferably German and French. The governess was
with the children “at all times” and even slept in the boys’ bedroom so that they “could get the
necessary attention (education) around the clock.”

73

Employment of domestic servants allowed

Mrs. Weissberg to spend her time engaging in philanthropic activities such as raising funds for
the Zionist organization, Keren Kayemet and the Jewish Orphans Home in Lwów. She was also
quite active in the Parent-Teacher Association at St. Ann’s School for Boys where Dov and his
brother attended.
Extended family relationships and generational divisions
Some families were separated from their extended families by geographical distance or
differences in lifestyle and religious adherence, while others maintained much closer bonds. As I
mentioned earlier, there was often a generational divide in traditional practices and religious

72
73

Weissberg, I Remember, 22.
Ibid.
78

observance. In the case of Halina Mitchley, mentioned above, her mother came from Russia and
therefore Mitchley did not have contact with her maternal extended family. Mitchley’s paternal
grandparents lived in Warsaw’s Jewish quarter. Her own family lived near the Saxon Garden in a
mixed, upper middle-class area of the city, not far from the Jewish Quarter. She would go to the
Jewish Quarter a few times a year to visit her father’s parents. Mitchley’s parents were not
religious, but her paternal grandparents were. Her grandfather was a math and religious
instructor and her grandmother had a business printing religious and Hebrew books. On Sundays
the family would have lunch with Mitchley’s father’s extended family, alternatively hosting it
between their home and her aunt’s home. The home would be full of family. Even her aunt’s
mother came, bringing her own dishes because she kept kosher. It is difficult to know if there
was tension between family members regarding religious observance but since this family made
the effort to spend time together so frequently, we can assume that the bonds were strong despite
differences in religious observation. Hosting such a large group on a bi-weekly basis was a big
commitment of time and resources, indicating its importance.
Dov Weissberg’s mother took the children very regularly to see her own parents even
though they had disagreements over how to maintain their Jewishness and how to raise children.
Weissberg recalls that while his mother felt that children should be raised by professional
governesses, her own parents did not believe this, which led to arguments. Later, when the
children had a Ukrainian governess whom no one likes, Weissberg’s grandmother had the
opportunity for an “I told you so.” Weissberg also remembers the joy of visiting his maternal
grandparents for Shabbat or the Passover holiday and noticed the differences in how his mother
and her own parents practiced their religion. His grandparents pampered the children with gifts

79

and he states “even the food (strictly kosher) seemed tastier than the food we ate at home.”

74

His

mother would take him and the boys by taxicab or carriage to the home of the grandparents but if
they traveled during Shabbat they would take a tram. He explains, “Saturdays we would take a
tram, in order to not make the taxicab driver or coachman work on the Sabbath. In her
interpretation of Halacha trams on Saturday ran anyway, so boarding one would not make a
difference as far as the Sabbath was concerned.”

75

For Passover, Weissberg would be allowed

the special treat as the eldest child of staying overnight at his grandparent’s house and after a
breakfast of fried matzo and sweet wine his grandfather would return him to his mother and
father. Weissberg notes that he was, however, delivered “by foot,” because “Grandfather never
accepted my mother’s interpretation of Halacha, which permitted a tram ride on a Sabbath or
holiday.”

76

Tensions between parents and the maternal or paternal grandparents regarding how

to incorporate the values they were brought up in and those they maintained in their own homes
highlighted the perceived difference between traditional and acculturated Jews for some children.
Extended families spent time together participating in middle-class leisure activities such
as frequenting coffee houses and spending the summer holiday together. Halina Mitchley
remembers as a girl that she and her mother would go on holiday for two months during the
77

summer.

Her father would join them for three or four weeks, but he could not be away from

work longer than that. The family would often go to the seaside, near Gdansk on the Baltic. He
remembers that her aunt and cousins would often join them. During the summer holiday, Jack
Arnel’s parents, the extended family, and his parents’ friends would often rent accommodations
74
75
76
77

Ibid., 31.
Ibid., 31-33.
Ibid., 33.
Videotaped interview of Halina Mitchley, Tape 2.
80

near one another for a month.

78

His father would only come for the weekends due to business

obligations, but he and his mother spent the month there. As a result women and children were
the primary inhabitants of the holiday domestic realm, with the men coming for shorter periods.
Thus, this was a time for adult women to enjoy leisure time with their children, their adult sisters,
and their nieces and nephews, and a time for children to bond with their mothers, aunts and
cousins.
The bonds between extended family members sometimes played an extremely important
role later under the Nazi occupation. When the Germans invaded, many Jews fled the major
cities and sought refuge in the countryside with extended family members. This initial flight was
often followed by a return to the city, and internment in the ghetto. The Jews in the ghettos who
were part of a large, close-knit extended family sometimes were able to use this to their
advantage when family members could provide gentile contacts and economic resources that
were not available directly to them.
Symbiosis and Tensions
The previous chapter examined the ways Polish Catholic domestics carved their own
niches within the household. The domestic realm did provide the environment in which barriers
between ethnic and religious groups could be much more permeable than in public life and thus,
the gentile women working in these households often became quite acculturated to Jewish
culture and religion. Conversely, the children of the households also became more acculturated
to Polish Catholic peasant culture and working-class culture though these interactions.
Independent from the influence of a gentile living in the household, many Polish Jewish families
clearly already felt an affinity to Polish culture. Parents sought to transmit their own felt Polish

78

Videotaped interview of Jack Arnel, Tape 1.
81

identities and affinity to Polish culture to their children and sometimes encouraged their children
to display their Polish identities in public to minimize any negative reactions caused by markers
of Jewish identity.
Jewish middle-class urban families spoke Polish in the home and generally had regular
contact with Polish gentiles in the public realm: in professional settings, in the market place, on
the streets. Some families had extensive contact and socialized with gentiles and felt very
comfortable in these social circles, whereas many others less so. Feeling comfortable amongst
the Polish Catholic population and the ability to participate in Polish Catholic culture would later
become a highly desirable skill when a Jewish family would need to make a decision regarding
whether or not to attempt to hide or pass on the so-called Aryan side. A family that employed a
Polish Catholic domestic brought this contact into the intimacy of their own home. As discussed
in the previous chapter, within the domestic realm members of different ethnoreligious groups
became familiar with one another, and the “other” in many instances became “one’s own.” Some
families, such as Halina Biderman’s family who lived in Warsaw, would have a Christmas tree
for their Polish Catholic maid.

79

Sometimes Jewish children went to church with their Catholic

caregivers. On Sunday businesses were closed because Poland a very Catholic country. Some
parents still needed to work or had social commitments and children still spent the day with their
caregivers. As a result, many children attended church with their caregivers because they wanted
to attend mass but still had to care for the children who were home from school. It is vital to
understand that relationships between Polish Catholic caregivers and Jewish children happened
and this familiarity developed between caregiver and children, because the parents, the
employers, allowed it. Children celebrated Christmas, went to the countryside to spend time with
79

Videotaped testimony of Halina Biderman, File no. 23694-1, November 29, 1996, Tape 1,
The USC Shoah Foundation Institute.
82

their caregiver’s family during the holidays, because their parents permitted it. In some cases
maids took their Jewish charges to mass with then without the knowledge of their parents, but
quite often when it happened it was because the child’s parents allowed it out of practical
reasons.

80

Conclusions
Middle-class Polish Jews in the urban centers were quite unlike their working-class or
rural dwelling counterparts. In the cities, middle-class and more affluent Polish Jews found their
own niche, traversing both traditional Jewish communities as well as Polish gentile communities.
These Polish Jews often retained elements of traditional Jewish culture and blended them with
middle-class culture in a way that worked for them. Parents transmitted this culture along with
its traditions and values to their children. As a result of their upbringing the children spoke
Polish, were versed in Polish secular traditions, and often identified as Polish. Importantly, a
family’s employment of a gentile maid also meant that children experienced Polish Catholic
peasant or working-class culture. As a result, children often grew up understanding the
differences and similarities between bourgeois culture and lower class culture and often were
familiar with rural, Catholic culture. Children would have witnessed their parents drawing on
80

See the following testimonies for examples of children who went to church with the family’s
domestic servant with the permission of their parents; videotaped testimony of Roman
Englander, File no. 16533-3, June 26, 1996, The USC Shoah Foundation Institute; Videotaped
testimony of Lola Fontak, File no. 09038-2, November 20, 1995, The USC Shoah Foundation
Institute; Videotaped testimony of Irene Frisch, File no. 21825-3, October 28, 1996; Videotaped
testimony of Gerda Klein, File no. 09725-1, December 7, 1995, The USC Shoah Foundation
Institute; Videotaped testimony of Zora Alberts, File no. 39770-3, March 25, 1998, The USC
Shoah Foundation Institute, and Videotaped testimony of Jack Arnel, File no. 19111-3, August
29, 1996, The USC Shoah Foundation Institute. Some maids took their charges to church
without the permission of their employers. In the videotaped testimony of Rachel Mutterperl
Goldfarb, File No. RG 50.030 0082, September 16, 1991, USHMM, Goldfarb recalled “my
parents from what my mother tells me, had forbidden her to take us to church, but she wanted to
go to church and in order to fulfill her duties of taking care of us, my brother and I, they (the two
domestic servants employed by the family) would steal off to church and take us with her,” 2.
83

their own hybrid identities in their everyday lives, in the ways they interacted with their Polish
gentile colleagues and friends and how that differed from the ways they behaved in a setting with
more Jewish friends, acquaintances, and family. They may have witnessed their parents using
Polish in public and possibly using Yiddish or slipping in a Yiddish phrase in the privacy of their
own home. Children learned to use their own hybrid identities to fit in while they were at school
and out in public. In the public sphere their hybrid identities would be shaped further by their
daily interactions with peers, friends, and adults, which will be discussed in the following
chapter.
As a result of their upbringing, some Jewish children were able to use their flexible
identities to pass as Catholic Poles when they went into hiding during Nazi persecution. In cases
where children were hidden in the open with a former Polish gentile caregiver, these children had
the advantage of being familiar with that person and possessed a body of knowledge to draw
upon to try to avoid being detected as a Jew.

84

CHAPTER THREE
THE CHILDREN’S SPHERE
Introduction
Renata Zajdman grew up between two households: her father’s home on the outskirts of
Warsaw in Sochaczew and her mother’s home located in Warsaw. Zajdman was raised an
affluent Polish Jewish child of the upper bourgeoisie. Her mother was a businesswoman, her
father a passionate lawyer. She spoke beautiful Polish, was educated in the classics, and went to
school with Polish Catholic and Jewish children. She recalls that before the war, “I was moving
freely among the Catholics. I guess the seeds for my survival were already planted in my
1

childhood because I was able to take on a Catholic identity without any problems.” Children
such as Zajdman were the members of the first generation to be born and spend their formative
years or come of age in the newly independent Poland and were often first generation Polish
Jews who grew up in acculturated, Polish language-speaking households.
This chapter argues that many such children developed hybrid identities as a result of
their upbringing, influenced by both their mother who instilled middle-class Polish values and
the family’s gentile household servants who came from peasant or working class families. The
chapter further suggests that these identities aided children in developing a particular skill set
that was useful when they wanted to be perceived as Polish primarily or when they wished to be
identified as Jewish. This skill set was honed by the experiences children had in private Polish
language schools or state run public schools. Friendships with Polish gentile children also
provided some additional socialization in Polish gentile norms and customs. The chapter
examines the development of the ability to pass as “Polish,” meaning as Polish Catholics, which
1

Videotaped testimony of Renata Skotnicka- Zajdman, File no. 37068-4, The USC Shoah
Foundation Visual History Archive, 11:20.
85

allowed children, such as Zajdman, to avoid being singled out at school as Jewish and being
targeted by anti-Semitic classmates and also later when, under Nazi rule, survival depended on
being identified as a Pole.
The Intimate Realm
In the intimacy of the domestic realm middle-class values were transmitted from mother to
child. At the beginning of the twentieth century, Poland, like the rest of Europe, was
modernizing, which meant the reduction in the number of births and focus on using scientific
2

methods to raise children to be healthy and productive citizens. While many middle-class
women were involved in pursuits outside of the house, either working in the family business,
socializing, or taking part in philanthropic activities, it was still expected that women prepare for
motherhood, her primary duty. This preparation included the study of psychology and new
3

methods of child education. Journals suggested mothers “learn psychology, pedology, hygiene”
4

and subscribe to appropriate child-rearing magazines. A good middle-class mother was
expected to be educated in and observe sanitary and hygiene requirements and ensure that
children had adequate time to play in the fresh air along with regular exercise. Mothers were
instructed that day-by-day they raise a child to lead a rational and normal life and that this begins
5

the moment the child arrives on earth. In addition to tending to a child’s physical and
educational development, a mother was responsible for the development of the child spiritually
2

An example of an article espousing the need for scientific motherhood: “Poczętek
Współżycia,” Dziecko i matka: dwytygodnik poświęcony zdrowiu i wychowaniu dziecka do lat
siedmiu, Nr. 19 (1933), 17.
3
Katarzyna Sierakowska, “Maternity in Inter-war Poland: visions and realities,” Women’s
History Review, 14, no. 1, (1994): 123.
4
Ibid., 124.
5

“Poczętek Współżycia,” Dziecko i matka: dwytygodnik poświęcony zdrowiu i wychowaniu
dziecka do lat siedmiu, Nr. 19 (1933), 17.
86

6

and for the development of the child’s relationship with the father. The mother was also
responsible for ensuring that her children received a proper, well-rounded education that
included the standard academic subjects, foreign languages, and often mastery of a musical
instrument.
This was quite a heavy load for a woman who also had a household to run and was
needed outside of the home in the family business or for various philanthropic commitments.
The employment of household help was vital in her aims. The employment of a maid, nanny, or
governess to aid in the childcare was very common and an important marker of middle-class
values. In some cases, particularly for wealthy acculturated families, it was thought that the
hands-on child rearing was best left to a professional so a trained child nurse or governess would
be employed.
As discussed in Chapter 2, relationships with gentile caregivers transmitted Polish
Catholic culture to children, exposing them to church, peasant culture, and the countryside.
Children lived in Polish-speaking homes and learned Polish middle-class culture from their
mothers directly, and these cultural traits were transmitted through the domestic servant who
acted on the directives of her employer. The time they spent with their Polish Catholic maids and
nannies also exposed children to peasant beliefs and traditions, and peasant Catholicism. Many
children attended church with their household servants. Gerda Klein remembers that her nanny
7

was “very Catholic,” in that she went to church every day and used to take Klein with her. She
felt that there was “great respect” for the nanny’s Catholic religion by Klein’s parents and her

6

Zarnowska, 125.

7

Videotaped testimony of Gerda Klein, File no. 09725-1, December 7, 1995, Tape 1, The USC
Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive, 13:50.
87

8

family’s Judaism by her nanny. Many children, such as Klein, were exposed to Catholicism and
attended mass at least once or twice with their maid.
Exposure to Catholic practices and beliefs sometimes went further than just a familiarity
with prayers or the mass service. When Halina Nelken had scarlet fever as a young girl, the
family’s Polish maid Józka, without the knowledge of the girl’s parents, brought the neighbor
Mrs. Heller, to help her attend to the child, whom she apparently believed was suffering from a
9

curse of the evil eye. The two women, one Polish and one Jewish, attempted to “ward off the
evil eye” using a ritual that involved a piece of bread, a burned out match, and a glass of water.

10

They rubbed her forehead, chest, and wrists, and then, “Józka crossed herself and prayed to the
11

Virgin Mary; Mrs. Heller gibbered something in Yiddish.”

They placed the glass of water

under her bed where it was to sit for twenty-four hours. They believed the performance of this
ritual would determine the gender of the person who placed the curse on Nelken. Nelken’s father
found this glass and to avoid letting these women “make a fool” of his daughter, dumped the
water out.

12

In this particular moment, these two women of different religions came together,

both believing in the ability of this ritual to determine (or at least narrow down the suspects) who
meant to harm Nelken. The father obviously did not see any value in this activity, and did not
want his daughter participating in what he likely perceived as silliness or a backwards practice.
The element of mysticism exhibited in this practice is important in understanding the
particular character of Catholicism that housekeepers often brought from the countryside.
8
9

Ibid., 13:50.
Halina Nelken, And Yet! I am Still Here (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1999), 4.

10
11
12

Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
88

Peasant or rural Catholicism was imbued with pagan rituals that related to the agricultural cycle
and originated in the countryside prior to the predominance of Catholicism in the Polish lands.
Women, both urban and rural, likely also identified with the Virgin Mary, who was often prayed
to for guidance and comfort.

13

Jewish children who spent an extended amount of time with

Catholic caregivers were exposed to these rural beliefs and rituals. Attending church services
with a caregiver taught children about how Catholics practice in public, but the religious stories
and rituals the children were exposed to in the private realm gave them additional knowledge
about being Catholic that could later be used to pass as a child from the countryside. This would
be valuable for children if later they needed to appear from a peasant background, and
knowledge of such rural beliefs and practices could be more convincing than just the ability to
pass as a child who grew up attending mass.
Integration with Polish culture

13

One example of the identification with the Virgin can be seen in “Aniela Salawa,”
Pracownica Polska, nr. 2, (1933), 1-5. Born in 1880, Salawa lived outside of Kraków with her
family like her older sister who had a position with a nice family; she left the countryside to
work as a maid in the city when she was old enough. Unlike her sister, Aniela found
employment with a family who treated her poorly and she was unhappy so she left. Her second
placement was also unsatisfactory. Finally, “God [] pointed Aniela in the direction of a third
home and there she worked for a very long time.” In this home she “tied” herself to the woman
of the house “like a mother” and this employer trusted Aniela with all issues of the home. Aniela
was content with her employers and felt “happy in the kitchen among all things domestic,” and
while she cleaned she imagined the Mother Mary in her home in Nazareth and felt very much
connected to her in her labor, “drowning in the spirit of the Lord,” (2). For an example of the
desire to seek the guidance or protection of the Virgin see the videotaped testimony of Elizabeth
Grotch, File no. 26284, Tape 3, The USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive. Grotch
explains that she was hidden by the family’s nanny Janina even though Janina’ mother was
intensely anti-Semitic. The mother believed the “Jews got what they deserved” because they
killed Christ (3:51). At one point Janina’s mother threw her out and she went to a convent and
she was refused help there. Finally, Grotch’s nanny said they would go to the church and stand in
front of the Holy Virgin and “if she nods her head that I should give you away I will have to. If
she doesn’t I’ll stay with you.” (7:14). Elizabeth was terrified, but Mary did not nod. This
caregiver was facing danger and despair and her reaction is to go seek the “advice” so to speak,
of the Virgin.
89

Certainly many Polish Jewish parents felt and transmitted a very real feeling of patriotism
and love of country to their children. Many of the children remember their parents’ passion for
Polish literature. Halina Mitchley and her father enjoyed discussing Polish literature together.
She attended the Catholic religion classes at her private school not so she would not be singled
out as a Jewish girl, but because it would help her to better understand the allusions made to
Biblical tales found in the classics.

14

Tola Haptman, born in 1924 Warsaw, says of Poland, “It

was my country and I loved it,” and still remembers crying when she heard in 1935 that Joseph
15

Piłsudski died.

This feeling of Poland as their own country and love of that country is quite

common in postwar testimonies. Interviewees were aware of and felt the effects of antisemitism
to varying degrees, but they still identified Poland as their home.

16

Feelings of political

patriotism and this sense of Poland as their homeland indicates that attempting to integrate into
Polish society and teaching Polish culture to their children was done not merely to avoid
antisemitism but also because these parents felt it was important to their children’s sense of
belonging and citizenship.
Dov Weissberg, mentioned in a previous chapter, came from a very affluent Lwów family.
During the early 1930’s his father’s textile business was still thriving and even expanding. As a
result, his father built an apartment building at 56 and 56a Jankowska Street. His father also
wanted to invest some money in Palestine, perhaps even build a house in Tel Aviv. He recalls

14

Videotaped testimony of Halina Mitchley, Tape 2, 17:35.

15

Videotaped testimony of Tola Hauptman, File no. 23498-40, November 26, 1996, Tape 1,
USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive, 23:12.
16
When asked if her family felt themselves to be Polish in this period she replied, “Yes, Polish
Jews, but we were very patriotic in a way, this was our fatherland, “in the videotaped testimony
of Ruth Bestman, File no. 30004-3, April 23, 1997, Tape 1, The USC Shoah Foundation Visual
History Archive.
90

that his father did not want to move there but just wanted to keep some financial reserves
there.

17

Weissberg’s mother suspected her husband of having “Zionist inclinations” and was

afraid of him having a “remote idea” that that he might want to move there so she prevented this
investment.

18

Mrs. Weissberg was a “Polish patriot, a great admirer and supporter of Marshal

Jozef Piłsudksi,” and she cried “bitterly” when he died.

19

Weissberg postulates that “the idea of

leaving Poland was far from her mind,” and he recalls her saying of their country, “here we were
born, here we shall die.”

20

Mrs. Weissberg did not eschew her Jewish identity but also found

ways to express that along with her own love of country and home. Polish patriotism, integration
into Polish society, feelings about citizenship and civics, and familiarization with Polish culture
and language certainly started at home but in many cases it was further accelerated when
children left their homes and entered the classroom.
The private realm was an important site where Jewish children were brought up with middleclass values and varied ideas of what it meant to be Jewish and Polish. These ideas and values
were transmitted from the mothers and through the gentile domestic servants of the house. The
employment of the gentile domestics in the household further influenced how these children
understood Polishness and their own identities. The particular upbringing that they received in
the domestic realm was then often further augmented in the public realm, particularly through
their school attendance and leisure activities.

17

This is interesting because it may indicate his father’s concern for the political situation and
increased hostility towards Polish Jews. The author is not clear exactly when this occurs so this
is speculative.
18
Weissberg, I Remember, 37.
19
20

Ibid.
Ibid.
91

The Public Realm
Polish public schools and Jewish private schools
After the close of World War I, the newly reborn Polish state needed to unify three regions
that had been under very different empires for over a century and build a strong state full of loyal
citizens from an ethnically and religiously diverse population. Many of these minority groups
had their own goals and aims within the new Second Republic and this created a real challenge
for the state, which needed to meet the educational needs of its citizens and at the same time
“impose any level of cultural uniformity” on them in order to build a modern, stable state.

21

A

majority of Jewish children attended Polish public schools because they were no cost to the
family and paying tuition for private school was often a hardship. In the 1930s there were at least
half a million school-aged Jewish children in Poland, and according to Joint Distribution
Committee data, whose numbers were higher than official state statistics, 64% attended public
schools, which were taught in Polish or sometimes in Ukrainian.

22

For the families who could

afford to send their children to Jewish (or any) private schools, these too were regulated by the
state and therefore were required to meet the mandated guidelines for the number of hours of
instruction in Polish subjects.

23

As a result, the school was a point of interaction for Jewish

children and the state and quite frequently, the majority culture. This was a space in which
Jewish children could be further inculcated in Polish language, culture, and customs.

21

24

Martin, The Jews of Cracow, 1918-1939, 121.

22

Chone Shmeruk, “Hebrew-Yiddish-Polish: A Trilingual Jewish Culture,” in The Jews of
Poland Between Two World Wars, 285-311, eds. (Hanover and London: University Press of New
England, 1989), 291-92.
23
Martin, The Jews of Cracow, 1918-1939, 125.
24

This was not viewed as a negative by many Polish Jews, which I will discuss further.
92

School as a site of integration and acculturation. Socialization to Polish ways was a focus of the
state’s educational mandate, and the influence of attending Polish schools often led children to
identify with Polish culture sometimes more than their parents.

25

In this new era of Polish

independence, Jewish children inhabited a “significantly different educational environment from
26

that of their parents,” because it was part of an effort to cultivate new Polish citizens.

Polish

history, lessons in citizenship, and instruction in Polish language were newly stressed in public
and private schools alike.

27

In interwar Poland, speaking Polish and fitting into the majority society was economically
and socially beneficial and important for career advancement. Middle-class and affluent Jewish
children aspired to attend gymnasium and university, making preparation for classes in Polish
28

essential.

Because many parents believed Jewish elementary schools were ineffective in

teaching the Polish language, they insisted on sending their children to state schools to prepare
them for Polish language gymnasium.

29

In the professions, the ability to speak Polish with

Polish colleagues and clientele was advantageous.
Sean Martin argues, in his study of Jews living in Kraków during the interwar period, that the
Jewish population used Polish language and culture in part to reach out and identify with the
25

After all, parents made the decisions to use Polish language in the home, what patriotic
holidays to observe, their choice to employ a Polish domestic, their own attitudes and speech
about the state and Polish majority society, etc. These choices all influenced children’s attitudes
towards Polish culture in ways that cannot be measured.
26
Martin, The Jews of Cracow, 1918-1939, 125.
27

Ibid.

28

Prospects for attending Polish universities for Jewish students became increasing grim
towards the latter half of the 1930s with the practice of numerous clausus and the institution of
ghetto benches and increase in anti-Jewish sentiment. Many families realized that in order for
their children to attend university or medical school they would have to study abroad.
29
Chone Shmeruk, “Hebrew-Yiddish-Polish: A Trilingual Jewish Culture,” 293.
93

Polish community.

30

While he focuses on Kraków specifically, a similar strategy appears to

have been employed among families living in other urban spaces throughout Poland. This did not
mean that these families were attempting to give up their own Jewish identities or to assimilate,
but rather to assert their own separate national identity while integrating into the majority
culture.

31

For example, in the above mentioned case of Dov Weissberg, his mother felt a deep

love of country and political loyalty but also wanted her son to learn Hebrew, which illustrates
her desire for her son to integrate into Polish majority society but also to preserve his Jewish
identity as she understood it. As Martin notes, “minority children were learning how to function
in two overlapping national environments” while outside of the intimate realm of the home and
engaged in their studies.

32

In addition to the further exposure to majority culture and practices through their lessons,
Jewish children also sometimes were able to interact with gentile peers and teachers. Some
Jewish children attended private Jewish schools or even public schools that were primarily full of
Jewish students, but a large number of children attended mixed public schools where they had
extended contact with gentiles. This school experience was sometimes the primary exposure that
Jewish had to their gentile peers who lived in other neighborhoods and on other city streets.
The classroom. A child’s educational experience depended greatly on the type of school he or
she attended. The state mandated that certain subjects were taught but there was a fair amount of
leeway in some of the private schools. In most schools children worked on their Polish language
skills, learned Polish history, math, sciences, and religion. In some private Jewish schools

30
31
32

Martin, The Jews of Cracow, 1918-1939, 15.
Ibid., 14.
Ibid., 126.
94

children might also learn Hebrew or even Yiddish as a subject. In schools that were taught
primarily in a language other than Polish, the Polish language was an academic subject. Ann
Celnik attended a private Jewish girls’ school and was instructed in Polish and also learned
Hebrew, Jewish history, French and Latin.

33

In Holocaust survivor testimonies, when discussing

school most remember being very busy. School was six days a week, unless they were exempted
from school on Saturdays, and students spent the afternoons doing homework.
Dov Weissberg attended the private St. Ann School for Boys in Lwów, which had Polish
Catholic and Jewish students. Their mandatory religion classes were held twice a week and the
Jewish and Catholic students were separated. The Catholic students went with a Roman-Catholic
priest and the Jewish students were sent with a teacher. The teacher taught them stories from the
Bible and “did not demand anything” so the Jewish students all received very good grades, but
he deduced that the Catholic students must have had to take their religion lessons more seriously
based on the harsh marks they received.

34

While the state-mandated portion of the curriculum at

mixed schools was intended to bring children together as Polish citizens, religion class, which
was also mandated, actively separated the children and pointed out their differences. Some
survivors mention the negative effect of separating the children during religious instruction.
Samuel Grundman, who attended public school in Łódź, said that the Jewish children sat outside
of the classroom during the religious lessons.

35

The period during the day when students were

separated for their religious study was often not the only time when Jewish children felt

33

Videotaped testimony of Ann Celnik, File no. 07750-3, October 19, 1995, Tape 1, The USC
Shoah Foundation Institute Visual History Archives.
34
Weissberg, I Remember, 29.
35

Videotaped testimony of Samuel Grundman, File no. 02855-3, May 24, 1995, Tape 1, The
USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archives.
95

ostracized at school. Sometimes this occurred when a student’s Jewishness was pointed out by a
teacher or another student.
Daniel Bardach moved from the small town of Jeleśnia to Rzeszów and in his new school
felt, for the first time, like a minority.
different.”
invasion.

37

38

36

He remembers that “it was embarrassing to feel

Sven Sonnenberg was born in 1931 and started school the year before the Nazi

He recalls that at the end of the school year, his teacher asked the children what they

had on the wall over their beds. Their variety of their reply “was not great,” and included
“mostly crucifixes and the Virgin Mary.”

39

The teacher then asked Sonnenberg directly and he

replied the Marshal Śmigły-Rydz; his teacher commented, “Look children, a little Jew, and what
a patriot!’

40

At that point, Sonnenberg realized that he was different and no matter what he did

he would be viewed as such. Being viewed as different was often hard for children, and would be
further exacerbated if it invited bullying or ostracization by classmates. They were being told
they were Polish citizens even as they were being shown that they were different from their
Catholic peers and outside the real community.

36

Videotaped testimony of Daniel Jerzy Bardach (Ludwik Kowalczyk), File no. 48875-57,
December 14, 1998, Tape 1, The USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive.
37
Ibid., 6:03.
38

Sven Sonnenberg, “Journey to Hell: Under Fascism,” in The Last Eyewitness: Children of the
Holocaust Speak, Vol 2, ed. Jakub Gutenbaum and Agnieszka Latała (Evanston: Northwestern
University Press, 2005), 235-71.
39
Ibid., 236.
40

Ibid., 236.
96

The schoolyard. The education of children outside of the classroom at school was also of great
importance to them. This was a small window of time in their day when children were able to
socialize with their peers in a less controlled environment. In this space, children were free from
the watchful eyes of their mothers or caregivers, the teachers were distracted, and they were able
to interact with each other as a microcosm of Polish society. On the playground Jewish and
gentile children could interact in a neutral environment, or could choose to limit their interaction
with one another; to a degree they were in control. In the classroom the teacher directed who
worked together but in the schoolyard this was not the case. Many Jewish children played
primarily with other Jewish children for various reasons, or if they did play with them at school
they often would not play with them after school. Plenty of Jewish children played in mixed
groups or sometimes associated almost exclusively with gentile children because they identified
more closely with them or just because those were the children they happened to become friends
with. In schools where there were very few Jewish children, there may have been a stronger need
to make friends with gentile students.
Leisure time and the courtyard
For many middle-class and more affluent children, leisure time included camps, exercise
classes, sports, music lessons, or dance classes. This was another means to teach children skills
that were appropriate for members of their social class and also a time when children were free
from the direct supervision of someone from their household. Structured leisure activities were
an important component of a middle-class upbringing, and children often had little unstructured,
free time between school, homework, and various after school scheduled activities.
Depending on the diligence of the supervising caregiver and the ages of the children,
play-dates and get-togethers were opportunities for youths to be free from their mothers and

97

caregivers. Dov Weissberg remembers spending a majority of his time being supervised by his
nanny but he recalls his exploits with his friends as well. His best friend, Ludwik Tott, was of a
background similar to Weissberg’s. He recalls that Tott and he frequented each other’s homes
and that Tott was a “great expert on sex” and his “primary sex education” was all provided by
the tales his friend told him.

41

In this free time, these boys were able to talk about whatever

interested them, including girls and sex. Children learned all kinds of things from each other,
independent of what their parents wanted them to. These moments with friends were vital in
establishing a child’s autonomy and sense of his or her own identity.
Danka Cyngler was born in 1920 and both she and her older brother attended private
Catholic school in Lwów. Cyngler remembers that they had a big yard growing up and there
were lots of boys in the neighborhood for her older brother to play with. She said their yard had a
few Catholic boys, some Jewish boys, and some Ukrainians, and they were “so nice, really
lovely, like a family.”

42

Her brother loved soccer and played without the knowledge of their

parents. She remembers watching him play frequently and she recalls that sometimes some boys
from the area would want to fight with him because they knew he was Jewish. Cyngler and her
brother had entire aspects of their lives, like all youths, that were separate from their
relationships with their parents. During this time, Cyngler watched her brother play with Jewish
and gentile children and saw how he was accepted by some and rejected or even persecuted by
others based on his Jewishness. When a fight would break out between one of these boys and her
brothers, she would sometimes attempt to join in the brawl as if she would defend her older
sibling. In the neighborhood, these children were free from the supervision and protection of
41

Weissberg, I Remember, 29.

42

Videotaped testimony of Danka Cyngler, File no. 225110-40, November 14, 1996, Tape 1,
The USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive, 5:54.
98

their parents and caregivers and learned to navigate interethnic relations and disputes in their
own ways.
Halina Mitchley, a teen at the outbreak of the war attended a private, mixed, girls’ school
and had both Jewish and Catholic girlfriends. She remembers that her friends would take turns
hosting parties at their homes. When she had everyone over to her family’s home they moved all
the furniture to make a dance floor, played American records, and provided a buffet supper. Both
boys and girls would attend. Her parents put in a “discreet appearance” but would slip out at
some point in the evening.

43

Her parents felt safe having both boys and girls there since there

was a large group and her father thought there was “safety in numbers.”

44

Mitchley also dated

both Polish and Jewish boys. For fun, aside from dance parties, youths took long walks on
Sunday mornings (to see and be seen), attended concerts and the cinema, and went to the theater.
All of these were fairly typical middle-class activities. This was a time when a young person was
able to embrace his or her autonomy and develop his or her own sense of self and decide how to
fit into the world around them.
While Jewish parents often sent their children to public schools or mixed private schools
that did not mean all parents wanted their children playing with gentile children or they did not
have concerns about how they would deal with incidents of antisemtism. Cecile Gertel, born in
1924 in Przemyśl, went to a Polish elementary school that was attended by many Jewish
children. She recalls that most of her girlfriends were Jewish. She did have some gentile friends,
but she was only allowed to play after school with two girls whose parents were close friends

43

Videotaped testimony of Halina Mitchley, File no. 40467-23, February 20, 1998, Tape 3, The
USC Shoah Foundation Institute Visual History Archives, 8:31.
44
Ibid., 10:08.
99

with her mother.

45

As a child she did encounter antisemitism and was unable to join certain

clubs, like the Girl Scouts, because she was Jewish. Elias Kleiner, born in Kraków in 1930, was
the only Jewish child in his Polish public school.

46

He was never allowed to play with the Polish

children after school and was only able to play with Jewish children.

47

Parents likely wanted

their children to benefit from integration, but also sought to protect them from teasing or even
violence.
Whether on the schoolyard, participating in organized activities, or playing in the park
with a friend, this less structured time allowed young people to develop a tacit knowledge of
social reality and to create a sense of autonomy and self-related to that. Middle-class and Polish
culture originated in the domestic realm, but was shaped further in the public realm, sometimes
45

Videotaped testimony of Cecile Gertel, File no. 02287-0, April 25, 1997, Tape 1, The USC
Shoah Foundation Institute Visual History Archives.
46
Videotaped testimony of Elias Kleiner, File no. 00476-2, Tape 1, January 5, 1995, The USC
Shoah Foundation Visual History Archives.
47
Similar sentiments are also echoed in the Videotaped testimony of Irene Barkan, File no.
02039, April 13, 1995, Tape 1, The USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archives, 20:52.
Barkan lived in a mixed neighborhood, but it was mostly Catholics. She did not play with the
neighborhood children but rather played mostly indoors. She was beat up by some other children
once so she was always supervised outside to keep her safe from the Polish kids. Someone
walked her to and from school every day. Cecile Gertel also recalls her parents limiting her
friendships with Polish gentile children. See videotaped testimony of Cecile Gertel, File no.
02287-0, 25 April 1995, Tape 1, USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive. Born 1924, in
Przemysł, Gertel attended Polish public elementary school. She recalls many of the students
were Jews but all the teachers were Christian, with the exception of the religion teacher for the
girls. Most of her friends were Jewish but she was also friends with some non-Jewish students.
However, her mother did not allow her to go play after school other than with two girls whose
parents were friends of her mother’s. She does recall that she experienced some antisemitism
from other children. See also the Videotaped testimony of Milla Tenenbaum, File no. 33627-5,
September 16, 1997, Tape 1, The USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive, 21:31. Milla
Tenenbaum of Będzin also did not play with non-Jews. She felt the parents of the gentile
children would not have allowed that. She also recalls being beaten up by gentile children and
could not attend public school and was instead sent to Beit Yaakov. She says, “The Jews were
not wanted, not accepted, not even in school,” (21:31).

100

with far less input from parents and caregivers. In school and the courtyard, children further
developed their own ideas of what it meant to be Jewish, what it meant to be Polish, and how
they felt they belonged in the world around them. Most of these children were aware that no
matter how they identified themselves, they needed to be wary of the gentile children because
there was always the potential for exclusion, harassment, or violence. It was also here, even in
this often uncertain environment, that children sometimes honed their ability to be perceived as
Polish first, to mask their Jewish identity, and to blend in with their peers.
Encounters with antisemitism
Even though the families discussed here felt themselves to be Polish, or Polish Jews, or
occasionally even Poles of a Mosaic Faith, they still experienced antisemitism. Parents were
eager to shield their children from its sting and many children also actively sought to avoid being
singled out as Jewish to avoid being stigmatized or even physically harmed. Regardless of how
Polish Jews identified themselves, they could still be singled out as Jewish and subject to
harassment. Children often experienced this first hand as the victims or witnesses.

48

Jan Imich

attended a Polish public school in Kraków where there were very few Jewish children.

49

Even

though his family was non-practicing and highly acculturated, he was singled out at school for
being Jewish. Renata Skotnicka-Zajdman came from an affluent home and lived in the
fashionable Warsaw district around Krolewska Street during the week with her mother, while she

48

Many testimonies touch on this. In the videotaped testimony of Marie Lubowski Winkelman,
File no. 18554-2, Tape 1, August 14, 1996, Tape 1, The USC Shoah Foundation Visual History
Archive, Winkelman says she attended Catholic private school and had very little religious
upbringing at home but at school she still felt singled out.
49
Videotaped testimony of Jan Imich, Tape 1.
101

spent the weekends with her father in Sochaczew.

50

Neither of her homes was religious and both

homes were acculturated. She had Catholic nannies in both homes and had Polish Catholic and
Jewish friends. She regularly attended Catholic services with her friend Irena and describes
herself as “moving freely among the Catholics.”
different, had different types of traditions.”

52

51

She felt that Jews were “people who were

Skotnicka-Zajdman attended school six days a

week, while the other Jewish children did not go on Saturdays and she stayed in class during the
religion lessons, reinforcing her feelings of being different from them. Since she was not singled
out as Jewish in school she believes no one probably identified her as Jewish in school but she
did remember some Jewish children who were tormented by their Polish classmates.
Halina Mitchley was also from a very acculturated and affluent family.

54

53

She did not

recall any antisemitism directed towards her in the mixed girls’ school she attended, yet recalled
vividly the experience of dancing with a friend’s cousin at a school sanctioned event and
listening mutely as he commented that, “I think there are Jewish girls here dancing with us.”

55

She later states that she could never forgive herself for not telling him she was Jewish herself,
and “being such a coward” and “ashamed” of her Jewish identity.

56

So while Mitchley was not

harassed for her Jewish identity she knew that being identified as Jewish could be negative in
certain situations and sometimes avoided it. Mitchley reflects upon her identity and situation
50

Videotaped testimony of Renata Skotnicka-Zajdman, File no. 37068-4, October 23, 1997,
Tape 1, USC Shoah Foundation Institute.
51
Ibid., 11:20.
52
53
54
55
56

Ibid., 11:52.
Ibid., 21:02.
Videotaped testimony of Halina Mitchley, Tape 2.
Ibid., 15:09.
Ibid., 15:54.
102

saying that, “we were so-called Poles of mosaic persuasion,” but felt their identity was in a sort
57

of “limbo.”

She explains, “We were so-called patriotic Poles and in a way the Poles didn’t

want us and Jews we weren’t quite.”

58

This state was a form of hybrid identity, one that did not

neatly fit into either community comfortably.

59

Children with backgrounds and upbringing

similar to Zajdman and Mitchley often had a deep affinity for Polish culture, but also the acute
awareness that being labeled a Jew in certain circumstances brought undesired attention.
Even for children who were acculturated and had many gentile friends, antisemitic
incidents were always a risk. For some parents, sending one’s child out into the schoolyard, the
courtyard, or the park where they could potentially experience being teased, harassed, or even
physically harmed was an alarming prospect. Many parents tried to isolate their children from
these events as much as possible for as long as they could. As previously mentioned, some
children were not allowed to play with gentile children. Most interviewees suffered at least
occasional incidents, ranging from the uncomfortable to the alarming. June Feinsilver, born in
Łódź in 1921, had many gentile friends but recalls one particularly painful and traumatic incident
of antisemitism that was directed towards her. She was attacked by a group of children, who
threw tar on her head, while walking home from school one day in the first or second grade.

57
58

60

Videotaped testimony of Halina Mitchley, Tape 3, 13:18-13:41.
Ibid., 13:41.

59

Many highly acculturated Polish Jews would face great difficulty in the ghettos and DP camps
when they were placed in a newly constructed social situation where they would not fit in with
the concentrated population of Jews. This is evident in the testimony of Renata SkotnickaZajdman and the memoir of Isabelle Choco and I will address this at a later point.
60
Videotaped testimony of June Feinsilver, File no. 10031-5, December 13, 1995, Tape 1, USC
Shoah Foundation Institute, 16:39.
103

Jewish children saw other Jewish children singled out and teased or sometimes there were
regular fights between the Jewish boys and their Polish peers.

61

Parents of course wanted to protect their children from being singled out and harassed.
Mitchley’s mother came from Russia, and her parents were very strict about not using Russian in
the household because they did not want to take the chance of her developing a Russian accent in
her Polish speech. Zofia Blitz, born in Warsaw, recalls that her parents attempted to help their
children fit in. Blitz explains that her parents used Polish names, spoke Polish in the house, and
tried to give their children an education like other Polish children because they did not want to be
segregated; they wanted their kids to fit in and be happy.

62

Her parents knew if she and her

siblings were perceived as different they would be subject to being teased and harassed. Blitz
believes that they wanted to protect the children and teach them to be comfortable in the
environment in which they would live

63

Dov Weissberg’s parents only employed gentile maids and nannies because they did not
want their children around Yiddish language speakers for fear it would give them a Yiddish
accent. However, the children were taught French and German and later even Hebrew. Language
learning was a part of the well-rounded education that was thought to be vital for middle-class

61

These fights were evident in the above case of Danka Cyngler’s brother. Also, Karl Bell
remembers being chased by the Polish boys in the neighborhood and having rocks thrown at him
in the videotaped testimony of Karl Bell, File no. 01438-1, March 20, 1994, Tape 1, USC Shoah
Foundation Visual History Archive. Bell came from a poor, religiously observant family and
attended Polish public school in Piotrków up until the Nazi Occupation of Poland. Adam Boren
who grew up in Warsaw comments in the videotaped testimony of Adam Boren, File no. 185753, August 14, 1996, Tape 1, The USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive that he had
many fights with the Polish boys in his neighborhood. Mentions of physical altercations with
Polish gentile children are fairly common in survivor testimonies.
62
Videotaped testimony of Zofia Blitz, File no. 40853-3, March 30, 1998, Tape 1.
63

Ibid., 7:42.
104

children. Weissberg recalls that, “boys from a good Jewish home had to know some Hebrew
although Yiddish was forbidden.”

64

Weissberg’s parents came from traditional households yet

they sought to distance their children from the Yiddish language and ensure that there would be
no trace of Yiddish accent in their speech. Hebrew, however was acceptable, and could be an
indicator of the way the Weissberg family expressed their Jewish identity.

65

The employment of a Polish Catholic domestic servant was one means by which a parent
could further familiarize their children with Polish Catholic culture. In theory this could be
useful when children left the safety of the home and went out into the streets, public schools, the
courtyard, and eventually when they left the home entirely to be on their own as adults. Regina
Hamery was quite close to Jawka, her family’s live-in maid. She recalls that Jawka was the only

64

Weissberg, I Remember, 30.

65

The Hebrew language is often associated with religious use or as an indicator of Zionist
inclinations, however in some cases for acculturated Jewish families it was a means by which
they could have their children learn a Jewish language and connect with their Jewishness but
avoid Yiddish and all the negative connotations that Yiddish sometimes held for them. Hebrew
was seen as prestigious and rooted in long Jewish tradition while Yiddish was seen by many
acculturated and modern Jews as folksy or the language of the traditional shtetl Jew. This is
discussed in Kalman Weiser, Jewish People, Yiddish Nation: Noah Prylucki and the Folkists in
Poland (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2011). On page xv, Weiser explains that in the
battle between Hebraists and Yiddishists, the Yiddishist movement attempted to ask Jews of all
social classes to choose Yiddish as their vernacular over Hebrew as a way of identifying their
Jewish national identity even though Yiddish was “commonly denigrated as a mongrel jargon”
while Hebrew was liturgical and viewed as scholarly. Weiser states that prior to the Second
Republic, for Jews in Congress Poland the first generation of maskilim, viewed polonization as
showing support for the state authorities and access to European culture, and for the second
generation of these Polish maskilim the use of Polish reflected a “much more personal bond”
because they “identified profoundly with Polish culture and the Polish national cause,” 19. In
1815 a small group of self- proclaimed Jewish Poles petitioned to be distinguished by the
authorities as different from their Yiddish speaking counterparts so as to be recognized as
“superior” culturally, (19). So, the idea that Yiddish was an inferior or “mishmash” language had
deep roots with many educated, upper-class, acculturated Polish Jews. Hebrew however, had a
long history as a liturgical and scholarly language; one that was not identified with the religious,
traditional Jews that many middle-class, acculturated Jews sought to separate themselves from or
just did not identify strongly with.
105

real non-Jewish attachment that she had growing up.

66

While many acculturated parents spoke

Polish impeccably and were well versed in Polish literary classics and all of the other markers of
Polish middle-class culture, they could not really impart Polish Catholic customs, traditions, and
norms on their children. Familiarity with these customs was useful when children wanted to
blend in with their peers in public and then for some children later when appearing to be a
Catholic Pole would be a matter of life and death. In addition to the ready supply of inexpensive
labor in the form of Polish Catholic domestic servants, this could have been a potential draw for
some families who wanted to help their children be able to blend in when it would benefit them.
Many survivors mention that the time spent with their former caregiver helped prepare them to
pass as Polish gentiles, especially Polish peasants and working-class persons, under the Nazi
occupation. It is important to note however that even in peace time, Jewish children experienced
intentional and sometimes unintentional benefits of their socialization in Catholic culture by a
Polish Catholic caregiver in their daily lives. Knowledge of Catholic prayers, practices, or
special biblical scriptures could help a Jewish child understand literary allusions that are
common in the Polish classics they read in school, to pick up on references made in classes, or to
simply fit in with their peers
Polish Catholic caregivers were certainly aware of the antisemitism their charges faced
outside of the home. Some parents were more restrictive than others in their attempts to shield
children from potential harassment or harm, which sometimes resulted in not allowing children
to play with gentile children or limiting their ability to roam about the neighborhood. These
directives were often carried out by the family’s gentile caregiver. Some maids themselves had

66

Videotaped testimony of Regina Hamery, File no. 28042-40, February 19, 1997, Tape 1, USC
Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive.
106

been socialized with anti-Jewish beliefs of their own and would have had to square those beliefs
that remained even as these maids came to see their own charges as more than Jews.
Ramifications
For all city dwelling children, time in school and the courtyard or neighborhood is
usually the beginning of their independent foray into the public realm, away from the supervision
and protection of their parents and other caregivers. In the haven of the domestic realm, parents
sought to arm their children with their values, beliefs, and rules of behavior and send them out
into the public realm where their ability to monitor and protect them becomes increasingly
limited as the children grow closer to adulthood. Away from their parents, children experimented
and shaped their own identities and beliefs, building on the basis that they developed in their
homes. The classrooms of state and private, religious and non-religious schools were also places
where the state could access youth in order to develop good Polish citizens and integrate
minority students. This contact with the state and peers furthered the ability of Polish Jewish
children to “straddle two nations,” or even, “move freely among Catholics.”

67

This need or

desire to integrate and sometimes just avoid standing out was sometimes consciously employed,
but it was also natural for many children. They felt themselves to be Polish and Jewish, in their
own ways and behaved according to the situation they were in. This was a result of their desire to
integrate, for that moment at least, the milieu they were a part of, and often regardless of their
parents responses.
They forged identities that incorporated their experiences and upbringing but they also
developed an awareness of the differences between traditional and modern Jews and knew the
ways that they were often perceived among gentile society. Many of these children had parents

67

Referring back to the aforementioned comments of Sean Martin and Renata Zajdman.
107

were less traditional than their grandparents. Their parents for the most part spoke Polish at home
and dressed like the majority culture, forgoing the style of dress that made traditional Jews very
visible. Frequent contact with gentiles would have likely resulted in an awareness of some of the
attitudes towards these traditional Jews by the majority culture as well. This perceptiveness and
understanding of Polish Catholic behavioral norms gave some of these Polish Jewish children the
ability to blend in. They also saw children get treated a certain way because they were identified
as Jewish or sometimes they were the subject of harassing themselves.

68

Many children learned

to blend or emphasize particular parts of their identity when they did not want to be risk
harassment, and many children chose to fight back.

69

The skills to emphasize or mask particular attributes of their own identities that aided in
integrating with Polish gentile peers would later become useful during the Nazi occupation as it
became increasingly dangerous to be identified as Jewish. For children who were able to be
placed in hiding in the open by passing as a Polish Catholic this ability to appear Polish could
mean the difference between life and death. Even the smallest slip could lead to catastrophe so
familiarity with not only Polish culture and social norms was vital, but also being able to play
with a group of gentile children as one of them was advantageous. When passing as the child of
68

Renata Zajdman fit in well in her school but also said, “I’m sure there were problems, I
remember there were some Jewish kids and they were tormented by their Polish schoolmates.”
See videotaped testimony of Renata Skotnicka-Zajdman, 21:02.
69
Videotaped testimony of Adam Boren, File no. 18575-3, August 14, 1996, Tape 1, The USC
Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive. Boren, who grew up in Warsaw recalled, “I myself
was very much Polish” (28:29). His family had lived there there since the 14th century and to
Poles he was “still a Jew” but he articulated “I was a Pole. I spoke only the Polish language, I
loved the literature, I was a sort of a patriot,” (29:01). Regardless of how he felt, he believes
most of the children at Catholic parochial school he attended believed Jews to be “Christ killers”
and Boren says their “antisemitism was almost inbred” (29:23). Boren remembers getting into
much mischief as a boy and found himself in many fights with the Polish (Catholic) boys in his
neighborhood.
108

a Polish Catholic woman from the countryside, the ability to appear natural at mass or during
prayers was important, but some knowledge of rural religious rituals and rural speech was
valuable. The knowledge children picked up in the domestic realm from their parents and gentile
caregivers was incredibly important and built upon by their experiences in the public realm.
Obviously history cannot be written backwards and this subset of Polish Jewry would not have
known that the ability to pass as Polish Catholics would become a means of survival, but they
did understand the benefits of integration into Polish society and the potential usefulness of
accentuating certain aspects of their identity in public.
The hybrid identities and skills of these Polish Jews and their connections with Polish
gentiles became a potential avenue for survival during the Nazi Occupation and persecution,
which is the subject of the next chapter. I will now shift gears to examine how their identities and
the attachments that formed between Polish Jewish employers and their Polish Catholic
household servants influenced decisions and activities at the onset of Nazi occupation and the
creation of the ghettos.

109

CHAPTER FOUR
RESPONSES TO WAR, NAZI OCCUPATION AND GHETTOIZATION
Chaos and Movement: The Nazi Invasion
For Polish and Polish Jewish children from urban areas, summers often meant trips to the
countryside and visits with family and friends as everyone sought to escape the heat of the
bustling cities. During the summer of 1939 however, the threat of war loomed as German
aggression became more prominently reflected in articles in the press and talk on the street, as
1

well as in conversations in the privacy of homes. Even as children wrapped up their summer
holidays and prepared to head back to school, or to enroll in school for the first time, they heard
their parents discussing the political situation and some noticed a change in the atmosphere.
During the later interwar period, antisemitism ran high in Poland and anti-Jewish
measures were ramped up in both the official and unofficial realms. Under Joseph Piłsudski,
Poland had a fairly liberal political stance towards its ethnic minorities, and many Jews felt
positively about his regime. Economic woe and the concern over rise of Nazism in Germany led
to increasing instability. The Treaty of Non-Aggression was signed with German in 1934, but
Russia was still seen as a major threat to Polish sovereignty. After the death of Piłsudski in
1935, his cabinet was unable to maintain power, and the Endeks gained control. With Roman
Dmowski in power, the Polish government took a turn to the abrupt right wing, and government
sanctioned antisemitism was coupled with an increase in violence. In 1936, with the struggle for

1

In many testimonies survivors say they were aware of the political situation even though they
were children and teens. Some recall an atmosphere of uneasiness, their parents talking about the
news, or some reading the news themselves. Evidence can also be found in the Polish language
Jewish daily press, Nasz Przegląd, where news articles frequently chronicled German aggression
and the conditions of Jews in Germany and throughout Europe. Also, videotaped testimony of
Lola Fontak, File no. 09038-2 5, Nov 20 1995, Tape 1, The USC Shoah Foundation Visual
History Archive.
110

power, all parties with the exception of the Polska Partia Socjalistyczna (PPS) used anti-Jewish
2

campaigns to appeal to the masses. The Jewish question had, at this point, become a national
obsession. The attitude of the Polish government became clear, and in 1937 the Jewish policy
was defined by “Polish self-sufficiency,” meaning that it had given its, “official sanction to
3

unbridled economic antisemitism.”

With the government under right wing control after 1935 and, as the economy faltered,
4

the Jews of Poland were increasingly blamed for the ills of the nation. The population in the
cities and small towns struggled as young workers could not find employment, and economic
5

boycott of Jewish businesses in this period was sanctioned by the state. Student riots broke out
at universities in support of the institution of numerous nullus for Jews, with violence directed at
6

Jewish students and professors as well as at liberal Polish professors. In addition to supporting
the economic boycott and the reduction of Jewish students at Polish universities, the state also
pushed for restrictions on ritual slaughter practices that were vital for the maintenance of kashrut
by Jewish butchers. Parties such as the Bund gained immense popularity as they offered
measures to improve the situation of Jews in Poland and were visibly agitating to protect Jews
from violence and discrimination. After this surge of anti-Jewish sentiment, the 1938 Sejm

2
3

Ibid., 70.
Ibid., 71.

4

Emmanuel Ringelblum, Polish-Jewish Relations During the Second World War (Jerusalem:
Yad Vashem, 1974), 13.
5
Ibid.
6

Ibid., 16.
111

elections it appeared the Polish government, “reversed itself somewhat when the democratic
7

opposition, including several Jewish parties, showed substantial gains in local elections.”

With the threat of war looming, the Polish population was growing anxious. However,
Emmanuel Ringelblum noted that in this immediate period before the invasion, amidst the
8

growing concern, it seemed as if “Poland had come to its senses.” The anti-Semitic presses
backed off printing stories meant to whip up animosity towards the Jewish population and the
9

“Jewish question” became less prominent in the political sphere. As German aggression ramped
up it became increasingly apparent that Catholic Poles and Polish Jews had a common enemy in
Germany. According to Ringelblum, “The easing of tension could be felt at every step: in the
streets, trams, and offices…”

10

This moment of potential for Poles and Jews to band together in

the face of Nazi aggression was soon shattered and altered irrevocably by the start of the war.
On September 1, 1939 just as children prepared to head back to school, Germany invaded
Poland. Some children never had their first day of school that year and for others their academic
year was soon cut short or delayed by months. For many this invasion resulted in immediate and
dramatic upheaval when the invasion brought bombing, German soldiers, and mass movement of
Poles and Jews headed to safer territory, and the breakdown of law and order that would become
increasingly dangerous and tragic. The outbreak of the war was a moment of movement, chaos,
anxiety, and violence that Polish Jew and gentile experienced alike. Fathers and brothers who

7

Michael Grynberg, Words to Outlive Us: Eyewitness Accounts from the Warsaw Ghetto (New
York: Metropolitan Books, 2003), 8.
8
Ringelblum, 24.
9

Ibid.

10

Ibid.
112

were members of the Polish army left immediately for wartime duty, reservists were quickly
called up, and families had to decide how to try to stay safe during the crisis.

11

In her diary-memoir, Miriam Wattenberg writes, “When the word came that the Germans
had broken through the Polish front lines and were nearing Łódź, panic seized the whole
population. At eleven o’clock at night crowds began to stream out of the city in different
directions.”

12

Many city dwellers felt they would be safer in the countryside and many in the

western regions believed they would be safer in the east, so people streamed from the cities
taking what they could carry headed to stay with relatives in the countryside or towards the
Soviet lands. The Soviet invasion of Poland on September 17, 1939 would make travel and
movement even more dangerous and cause some to flee Soviet occupation. The roads were filled
with people carrying whatever possessions they could, headed to the destinations they believed
might be the safest. It was thought military aged men would be special targets of aggression by
the German invaders so many families were immediately feminized as the men not in military
service fled east leaving their wives, children, mothers, sisters, and younger brothers. For
families on the move, often without their adult men, there was the very real risk of being
molested on the road or having their empty homes looted. This was a time of chaos and
11

Many of the survivors of the Holocaust whose interviews I accessed mention that their fathers
were in the Polish military and had to leave at the outbreak of the war. For example, Issac
Gordon’s father was an army supplier who bought food for the regiments stationed in Vilna
before the war. Gordon was only ten at the outbreak of the war and remembers that his father had
to go with the army as a part of his work. See videotaped testimony of Issac Gordon, file no.
51445-3, Tape 1, February 28, 2001, The USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive.
Samuel Grundman formerly of Łódź recalls his father was a banker but was also in the Polish
army as a reservist and had to leave at the outbreak of the war. He sent a man to take his wife
and son to his grandparents because he was unable to return to take them himself. See videotaped
testimony of Samuel Grundman, File no. 02855-3, Tape 1, May 24, 1995, The USC Shoah
Foundation Visual History Archive.
12
Alexandra Garbarini, Jewish Responses to Persecution, Volume II, 1938-1940 (Lanham,
Maryland: AltaMira Press, 2011), 120.
113

uncertainty and Jews and gentiles alike were left to make decisions based on the limited
information that they could gather.

13

At the outset of the German invasion, families had to make important decisions as did
their household employees. For domestic workers this was a time of anxiety, great upheaval, and
decision making as well. Leaving their employing family, willingly or unwillingly, meant a loss
of income and housing so they either had to find new employment in the city quickly or return to
their family of origin. Some maids and nannies continued on with their employers, either staying
with them in their residence or traveling with them if they decided to flee. These women had to
weigh their economic realities, their own personal situations, and a myriad of external factors
when deciding how to respond to the chaos and turmoil.
Contributing to the current scholarship exploring Polish-Jewish relations and placing it
on a spectrum from symbiotic to antagonistic, this chapter argues that prewar relationships
between gentile domestic servants and their Jewish employers affected responses during the Nazi
invasion of Poland.

14

It seeks to illustrate that the desire of these employees to stay with the

family after the outset of the war or to even later assist them when they were not able to continue
to live with them as Jews increasingly became targets for German aggression and were separated

13

Where a family was geographically located greatly affected their experience of the Nazi
invasion and early occupation period. For families in the Eastern lands it took longer for the
German invaders to arrive and they experienced German occupation initially, followed by Soviet
occupation after the Red Army invaded Poland on September 16, 1939. In these eastern regions
they experiences the Germans coming in, the vacuum created when they left, followed by Soviet
occupation. See Jan T. Gross, Neighbors: The Destruction of the Jewish Community in
Jedwabne, Poland.
14
See Marci Shore Caviar and Ashes: A Warsaw Generation’s Life and Death in Marxism,
1918-1968; Sean Martin’s Jewish Life in Cracow, 1918-1939; Eva Hoffman’s Shtetl: The Life
and Death of a Small Town and the World of Polish Jews for examples of scholarship that
illustrates the wide range of relations that existed between Poles and Jews in the Second
Republic.
114

from the general population was the result of these prewar relationships. Alternatively, these
prewar relationships or even the lack of their formation could also lend to motivating former
employees to harm their former employers for their own gain or personal satisfaction. In cases
where bonds formed, those bonds encouraged caregivers to aid their Jewish charges during the
invasion, the immediate occupation period, and after they were interned in ghettoes. This aid
provided by the employee was valuable in the survival efforts of persecuted Jews. Aside from
immediate assistance in the ghetto, this aid kept the connections open between these parties. This
connection would become increasingly important -- a valued resource -- once conditions led
many Jews to conclude that survival could only be achieved on the outside and they needed to
flee.
As mentioned above, the outbreak of the war required many men to leave quickly for
military service. Reserves were called up and active duty members were sent to their posts.
Alexander Rozencwajg, a Polish Jew, was a lieutenant in the reserves, and was actually exempt
from being called up because he had a heart condition. But, feeling it was his patriotic duty to
protect his country, he offered his service. As he was departing, his wife Roma Rozencwajg was
understandably fearful and he explained to her, “Look, I feel alright and I have to go, because
they don’t have enough officers.”

15

The couple had a young son, Gabriel, who was four years

old at the outbreak of the war and he was looked after by the family’s nanny, Genia Olczak.
Olczak’s family had worked on the estate of Roma Rozencwajg’s family. After Roma married
and gave birth to her son Gabriel she came back from her home in Łódź to her father’s estate in
Kobyla Łąka to visit and while she was there she asked Olczak to move to Łódź and care for her
new son. Olczak felt a great fondness for her employers, particularly Mrs. Rozencwajg. Olczak
15

Interview of Genowefa Olczak, October 4, 2005, conducted and transcribed by Bianka
Kraszewski, 4.
115

reflects, “My family did not want me to go, but I said yes, because (Roma) was a dear person. I
liked her so much, because she was such a kind person.”

16

During her employment she came to

love young Gabriel and had great respect and warm feelings for Mr. Rozencwajg.
As a result of her attachment to the Rozencwajg family, Olczak elected to stay with them
after the initial invasion. It was decided that Mrs. Rozencwajg and young Gabriel should go stay
with her father, Aleksander Zakrzewski and his third wife in Warsaw during Mr. Rozencwajg’s
absence. Olczak decided to travel with them, stating “when Pani Roma was left alone, I would
never have left her of course.”

17

Olczak felt obligated to stay with the family, as if there was no

other reasonable choice. This was not a totally unusual reaction, especially at the early stages of
the war. The Herzog family maid also did not wish to leave her employers at the outset of the
invasion. Deborah Herzog, a Kraków native who was only seven at the outbreak of the war,
remembers her father and his brothers fleeing to Russia and when Kraków was taken, she and
her mother had to leave their apartment and go live with their aunt and cousin. Her aunt’s
husband had also left the city with Herzog’s father and she was alone with a child as well.

18

These domestic servants decided to travel with their employers because they experienced the
natural reaction of wishing to stay with people familiar to them and that they had attachments to
during a time of crisis. They had no idea what the invasion would bring and made this decision
based on the limited information that they had and their own needs and desires.

16
17

Ibid., 3.
Ibid., 4.

18

Videotaped testimony of Deborah Herzog, File no. 42124-40, Tape 2, March 14, 1998, The
USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive. The Herzog family’s maid, Jazda, who had
worked for the family since Herzog was born, stayed with the family in their living situation as
long as she was legally able.
116

In some cases, war did not compel men to leave their families, but instead prevented their
ability to return to them. Gertruda Babilińska grew up in the small town of Starograd near
Gdańsk. She moved to Warsaw and found employment with the Stolowicki family where she
worked as a nanny for their daughter who later died. Babilińska stayed on to care for the mother,
Lidia Stolowicki, who was not well and then, in 1936, when she had another child, Michael, she
became his nanny. When the Germans invaded Mr. Stolowicki was away in France on business
and he was unable to return to Warsaw. On September 4, 1939 Mr. Stolowicki sent a telegram
saying that he was returning to Poland. Babilińska stated that he was not allowed to cross the
border and instead was forced to return to France. He then tried to go to Switzerland, but again
was returned to France. Babilińska did not want to leave Lidia and Michael to fend for
themselves with Mr. Stolowicki away and stayed with them. She felt she had no other choice.
Babilińska traveled east with Lidia Stolowicki and young Michael to Vilna.

20

19

This reaction of

Babilińska, Olczak, and the other rescuers of this study contributes to the growing body of
21

scholarship on rescue motivations.

Babilińska and Olczak both stayed with their employers

19

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Record Group 50, Oral History, Christian
Rescuers Project, Interview with Gertruda Babilinska, 50.012*0001. Also see Yad Vashem
Archives, RG 0.3/2714 Testimony of Gertruda Babilinska, November 1964.
20
Mr. Stolowicki was eventually deported to Auschwitz under the Vichy regime, where he
perished. In Vilna the boy’s mother became ill and asked Babilinska to promise to protect her
child if she died. Lidia Stolowicki instructed Babilinska that if she could not return him to his
father, to take him to Palestine and raise him. The mother died of this illness and her husband
did not survive the Holocaust so Babilinska and Michael immigrated to the new state of Israel as
soon as they were able after the war ended. Bablinska refused to leave Michael with extended
family there, but instead stayed with him as his mother for the rest of her life.
21
Samuel P. Oliner and Pearl M. Oliner, The Altruistic Personality: The Rescue of Jews in Nazi
Europe; Patrick Henry, We Only Know Men: The Rescue of Jews in France During the
Holocaust; Eva Fogelman, Conscience and Courage: Rescuers of Jews During the Holocaust;
Malka Drucker, Rescuers: Portraits of Moral Courage in the Holocaust; Nechama Tec, When
Light Pierced the Darkness: Christian Rescue of Jews in Nazi-Occupied Poland; Martin Gilbert,
117

because they felt they really had no other choice; they both felt it was the natural decision given
the circumstances rather than a heroic deed. Most of the women of this study aided their prewar
employers because they felt obligated to them in some capacity.
Travel was extremely dangerous during this moment of chaos and instability. The Polish
state was dealing with the invasion and this compromised its ability to maintain order. Many
household servants traveled with their employers during this time of intense upheaval and
uncertainty, and their presence could be advantageous when dealing with soldiers and other
Catholic Poles on the road. Samuel Grundman’s father was a banker and an army reservist. He
left to serve the army and Grundman and his mother traveled from their home in Łódź to his
grandparent’s home with a man sent by Grundman’s father to accompany them in his absence.
The family maid traveled with them, carrying all the money and jewelry on her person because it
was thought she would be less likely to be accosted on the road.

22

Marie Lubowski Winkleman

was an adolescent at the onset of the German invasion. Her family traveled from Włocławek
where she was born to Warsaw and their maid, who had been with the family for many years,
offered to take whatever she could of theirs on the train to Warsaw for the family.

23

This maid

actually stayed with her employers and later would enter the ghetto with them, until forced to
leave. Beno Lowi, born in Kraków, was a young man of nineteen at the outset of the Nazi

The Righteous: The Unsung Heroes of the Holocaust; Mordecai Paldiel, The Path of the
Righteous: Gentile Rescuers of Jews During the Holocaust. While the existing scholarship points
to personality profiles, traits or background as the factors that motivated rescuers to go against
societal norms to aid Jews, my study argues that in the case of prewar domestic employees at
least, rescue was just a natural extension of prewar relationships and behavior. These women did
not see their efforts as heroic, but just as the natural choice.
22
Videotaped testimony of Samuel Grundman, File no. 02855-3, Tape 1.
23

Videotaped testimony of Marie Lubowski Winkelman, File no. 18554-2, Tape 1, August 14,
1996, The USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive.
118

onslaught.

24

Lowi’s family fled Kraków for Lwów and took their maid, Krysia with them as

they headed east. The family was able to leave the city with a horse and carriage for their
belongings, which was a great advantage but also attracted unwanted attention. Lowi recalls that
when they met a Polish soldier on the road he wanted to take their horse and carriage. The maid
begged him and was able to talk “Pole to Pole” with him, convincing the soldier to let them pass
and keep their horse and carriage.

25

During this time of upheaval there was very little protection from bandits and the like and
the Polish authorities were not able to maintain order. Jewish families, especially those traveling
without males, carrying valuables could find themselves a target. Having a Polish Catholic maid
was certainly no guarantee of safety and did not thwart all bandits, and these families were still
susceptible to theft and violence. Sometimes however, the Polish Catholic woman could be more
convincing when she threatened to involve the authorities. This notion that these women could
speak “Pole to Pole” with Polish bandits or even soldiers is key. These families followed in this
project were acculturated and Polish speaking, many felt themselves to be Polish however they
defined that label, or to be Polish Jewish, but they could not control how other perceived them.
To many Polish Catholics, no matter how Polish they felt themselves, they were still considered
Jews therefore not one of the collective Polish “us”.

26

Ethno-religious status was not the sole

advantage these domestic servants held. Often their socioeconomic background made them more
effective in dealing with opportunistic bandits and soldiers looking to requisition or steal items
from travelers. Leaving the city and traveling to the countryside meant that often that travelers
24

Videotaped testimony of Beno Lowi, File no. 35591-4, Tape 1, November 17, 1997, The USC
Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive.
25
Ibid.
26

As in “others” or not “real” Poles.
119

were accosted by men of peasant or working-class background and the family maid would often
be able to speak to them as a member of their own social class. While a person may have no
qualms about taking from someone he viewed as better off, or an “other” these maids could be
viewed as one of “them.”
Even in incidents where the family maid did not travel with the family, sometimes she
would be left behind to prevent the home from being occupied or looted in the family’s absence.
This could be a win-win scenario as the maid continued to have a roof over her head as she
sought to support herself through other means pending the family’s return and kept the family’s
belongings safer than had they been left unattended. Cecile Gertel, born in Przemyśl, was a
teenager when the war began. When the bombing began her employing family decided to leave
its own home and go stay with her uncle so they packed up some valuables and fled.

27

The

family’s maid had worked for them since Gertel was about five and Gertel says this woman
“brought up” her brother and was “almost a member of the family.”

28

As the family was

preparing to leave the maid said to them, “It’s war no? And if people see the house is empty it
will be robbed,” and she offered to stay there.

29

The maid stayed, but the family never returned

to their home. Left unattended many homes were quickly looted and eventually became
occupied.
Household servants could also help in ways other than occupying an employer’s home or
traveling on the road with them. While these women were often of low education and socio-

27

Videotaped testimony of Cecile Gertel, File no. 02287-0, Tape 1, April 25, 1995, The USC
Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive.
28
Videotaped testimony of Cecile Gertel, File no. 02287-0, Tape 2, April 25, 1995, The USC
Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive, 7:08.
29
Ibid.
120

economic status, some of them were extremely resourceful. At the outbreak of the war Rosa
Baruch’s family lived in Łopatyn, a small town outside of Lwów. She was a teen at the time and
her family had to contend first with Russian invaders in 1939 and then later, in 1941, the Nazis.
Because her family was financially comfortable and owned two shops they were targeted by the
Russians and then their status as Jews and their material wealth brought them the attention of the
later German occupiers. The family’s maid was an asset under both occupying regimes. Baruch
remembers that this maid, Marina, who came to work for the family when she was fourteen or
fifteen year old was “loyal” and they “treated her like family.”
attractive, “a blond Marilyn Monroe type.”
“became friends” with them.

32

31

30

Baruch describes her as very

When the Russians came, Marina immediately

Baruch explains, Marina was “a beautiful girl, and when the

Russians came she was immediately tied in with a lot of soldiers.”

33

This domestic servant used

her relationships with the Russian soldiers to arrange for them stay in the family home and for
Baruch’s mother to cook for them. Baruch says life under the Russians was difficult at first
because the Russians seized the businesses but at least they were not hungry because of the
arrangement Marina worked out.
neighbors as a result.

34

The family was able to live better than many of their

35

30

Videotaped testimony of Rose Baruch, File no. 23808-1, Tape 2, May 1, 1997, The USC
Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive, 11:34.
31
Ibid., 12:10.
32
33
34
35

Ibid., 22:20.
Ibid., 12:00.
Ibid., 12:43.
Ibid., 12:03.
121

When the Germans came Marina did the same thing. She made friends with the soldiers
and they moved into their home taking up the whole four rooms upstairs. Baruch says, “Again
Marina came in very helpful, it was the same situation. She brought us flour and potatoes and
bread and arranged for my mother to cook for them (the German soldiers).”

36

Baruch recalls that

Marina was “very worried” about what would happen to the family of which she felt a part.
Baruch and her sister shined the German soldiers’ boots, cleaned their clothes, did their ironing,
and whatever else they asked for. While this young maid’s actions may have been frowned upon
by some as fraternization with the occupier, she was able to provide a measure of security not
only for herself, but also for her former employers for a time as well. While Marina did not have
material wealth or education to aid in her efforts, she was able to use what she had to improve
their situation. A woman of few means, she nonetheless made do.
Certainly not all domestic servants felt obligated to offer assistance to their former
employers at the outset of the war. They had their own concerns such as families, their
livelihoods, and their own personal safety. Some domestics also took advantage of this moment
of chaos to profit. Leah Binstock, of Lwów, left with her father for her mother’s hometown of
Krakowiec while her mother and sister stayed in the family’s home in order to pack up their
belongings before setting out to join them there.

37

The family’s maid, who had worked for them

for a few years prior to the war, offered to help Binstock’s mother pack and take everything
down the stairs while she ran errands that she needed to do before leaving the city. While
Binstock’s mother was away, the maid packed and took the family’s belongings down, but stole
the items so her mother was left with nothing. This was not an unusual occurrence for a family’s
36

Ibid., 25:55.

37

Videotaped testimony of Leah Binstock, File no. 21767-5, Tape 1, October 27, 1996, The
USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Foundation Archive.
122

employee to take advantage of the situation. This was a moment of upheaval and the authorities
had more pressing matters to attend to, so it was far easier to get away with these actions.
The Brutality of Occupation
The Nazi occupation of Poland was ruthless. This endeavor was “underpinned by
racialized notions of space characteristic of the Nazi ideology and radicalized by the massive
application of force.”

38

Germany’s invasion September 1, 1939 was followed by a Soviet

invasion from the east on September 17. On September 28, 1939, after a bombardment, the city
of Warsaw capitulated to the Nazis and the German armies flooded into the city. By October 6,
1939 all of Poland was annexed and the country was carved up. The USSR took the eastern half,
Germany the western, with a tiny piece ceded to Lithuania.

39

The German territory would be

further divided into the Western territories and the Generalgouvernment. The German
administration had very different aims for each of these regions. The western territories were
incorporated into the Reich and used for expansion and war production. This area was designated
to be “cleansed” of “racially inferior stock in favor of Germans.”

40

The Generalgouvernment

was to act as a source of labor and resources as the administration pursued a policy of “unlimited
41

exploitation.”

This region, administered by Hans Frank, would act as a “dumping ground“ for

members of the groups that the Nazi leadership wished removed from Germany proper and the
western territories, including Jews.

38

42

The Generalgouvernment included about a third of the

Alexandra Garbarini, Jewish Responses to Persecution, Volume II, 1938-1940, 109.

39

Jan T. Gross, Polish Society Under German Occupation, 45. The USSR received 50%,
Germany 48.4%, Lithuania 1.6%.
40
Alexandra Garbarini, Jewish Responses to Persecution, Volume II, 1938-1940, 110.
41
42

Gross, Polish Society Under German Occupation, 45.
Alexandra Garbarini, Jewish Responses to Persecution, Volume II, 1938-1940, 110.
123

former Polish lands yet was a home to forty-five percent of the Polish population.

43

In 1941

when hostilities broke out between Germany and the Soviet Union this area expanded and also
came to include Galicia.
The Polish government and almost all voluntary associations were disbanded. Polish law
remained in place to provide stability in cases where it did not directly conflict with the German
aims and ability to take control of its administration. On October 20, 1939, just prior to the
imposition of the Generalgouvernment, a conference was held between Wehrmacht high
command and Adolf Hitler and the bases for German policies towards Poland were laid out here.
It was determined that the Generalgouvernment would not be incorporated into the Reich but
instead would remain a separate entity.

44

The local authorities would be able to take whatever

actions deemed necessary even if it conflicted with Reich regulations because they would
obviously be dealing with “nationality struggles.”

45

In addition, there were two goals laid out.

First, actions were to be taken to ensure that the Polish intelligentsia would be unable to serve in
leadership roles in the future. The second was communication lines were to be preserved in good
condition so the occupied territory could be used for mobilization of armed forces in further
conquests in the future.

46

The Generalgouvernment was also to aid in the project of “cleansing”

the Reich of Poles and Jews.

47

To attain these specified goals it was decided that it would be vital to “prevent the rebirth
of any forms of national life, avoid rebuilding the economy or finances, and make sure the
43
44
45
46
47

Gross, Polish Society Under German Occupation, 45.
Ibid., 46.
Ibid., 46.
Gross, 47.
Ibid.
124

standard of living remained low.”

48

If the population was occupied with feeding itself and

surviving, that would keep the focus off resistance efforts. The result of the harsh German
economic policies was a “pauperization” of the population. Poles were to serve as nothing more
than a source of labor to for the Reich. In order to accomplish this, the occupiers instituted
extremely harsh economic measures. First, the Generalgouvenment was required to cover the
entire cost of its own occupation and it was not a profitable acquisition.

49

Eighty percent of

Polish industry was located in Western Poland and the industry that did remain in the Warsaw
area and Central Industrial Region was cut off from its sources of raw materials.

50

All state

businesses were under control of the Generalgouvernment which enabled them to call in all debts
and void any monies owed to lenders. Many private owned businesses were targeted as well-forced to make compulsory deliveries of goods and foodstuffs to the administration and closed
because the occupiers deemed them “inefficient.”

51

Historian Jan Gross calls the German

economic policy the “suspension of property rights.”

52

In addition, the German mark was overvalued in the Generalgouvernment by thirty-three
percent in its official exchange rate with the Polish złoty.

53

Later, the currency would be

changed in order to stop Polish bank notes from entering the region. The loss for the Polish
54

population as a result of this measure was approximately 800 million zł.

48
49
50
51
52
53
54

Ibid.
Ibid., 45 and 92.
Ibid., 92.
Ibid., 96.
Ibid., 97.
Ibid., 97.
Ibid.
125

By 1942, in the

Generalgouvernment taxes, excises, and monopoly fees were double what they had been in 1939
prior to the Nazi invasion.

55

Inflation shot up prices through the roof. According to Gross, the

Polish Underground estimated that the net income of Poles in 1940 was less than forty percent of
what it had been in 1938.

56

As a result of these repressive economic policies, the majority of the
57

Polish population was immiserated, hungry, and poor.

In addition to economic actions intended to pauperize the population and keep them busy
trying to scratch out a living, the occupiers also sought to divide the population. German
occupiers sought to divide the Poles and Jews through both anti-Jewish propaganda and policies.
While the occupiers first sought to separate Poles and Jews in the mind by destroying their social
bonds, they would soon separate them physically as well. The authorities introduced regulations
to govern the everyday life of the population, including curfews. Food rationing was imposed in
December 1939. Many policies targeted both Jews and gentiles alike but there were also laws
directly aimed at Polish Jews meant to separate them from their Polish co-citizens. Jewish
communities were ordered to form a Council of Elders and in Warsaw on October 28, 1939 they

55
56

Ibid.
Ibid., 98.

57

Gross argues that economic exploitation followed a different map in the countryside. He
asserts that during the first year of the German occupation material conditions of life “improved
markedly” as peasant debts to Jewish creditors were cancelled, other debts reduced due to
inflation, taxes were not being collected, and few quotas for delivery of foodstuffs and goods
were collected (103). Also, the cost of food increased faster than those of non-agricultural
products, so they also benefitted from this economic turn of events (103). Because of high food
prices and skyrocketing inflation, workers in the cities were finding their paychecks worth less
and less and started selling items in order to feed themselves and peasants were able to buy items
that they would not have been able to afford before the occupation (104). Gross states that they
purchased machinery and items like “never before” (194). This actually brought a great
improvement to their standard of living and they were eating better than ever before (103-104).
However, this reprieve did not last. Life in the countryside would feel the negative effects of
occupation, just later than their urban dwelling counterparts.
126

were ordered to compile lists of all of the city’s Jews.

58

This was a first step towards

ghettoization. All Jewish bank accounts and deposit accounts were blocked that month and Jews
were allowed to keep no more than 2,000 złoty in cash.

59

On December 1, 1939 it was ordered

that all Warsaw Jews would wear a white armband displaying a Star of David under threat of
severe punishment. As of November 30, 1939 all Jewish shops were to be marked as Jewish and
by December 18, 1939 all Jewish property was to be registered. In early December Jewish
primary schools were officially closed and by early winter 1940 Jews were no longer legally able
to travel by rail, be employed in cafes and restaurants, or even to enter them.

60

By mid-1940

Jews were banned from sitting on park benches, Jewish doctors could no longer treat gentile
patients, Jewish lawyers could not practice law, and no Jews could use public libraries.

61

The

Nazi occupiers were stripping away the bonds of Polish society as they further removed Jews
from public life, limited contact between Poles and Jews, and pushed Jews out of the community
of moral obligation further and further.
During the early moments of the siege of Warsaw, many Poles and Jews cooperated
against a common enemy but contemporary historian Emmanuel Ringelblum, wrote that “even
before Warsaw fell, the hydra of antisemitism began raising her head again.”

62

As conditions

declined and Nazi policies continually pushed Jews from public spaces, this exacerbated the

58

Barbara Engelking, Holocaust and Memory: The Experience of the Holocaust and Its
Consequences, An Investigation Based on Personal Narratives (London and New York:
Leicester University Press, 2001).
59
Ibid., 21.
60
61

Ibid., 22.
Ibid.

62

Emmanuel Ringelblum, Polish-Jewish Relations During the Second World War (Jerusalem:
Yad Vashem, 1974), 35.
127

already existing cracks in Polish society. In homogenous Polish blocks of apartments Jews were
not allowed into bomb shelters during air raids and conflicts broke out in lines for bakeries and
grocery stores, where foodstuffs were increasingly hard to come by.

63

Jews were attacked by

angry Polish mobs while waiting in soup lines with their hungry co-citizens. Ringelblum argues
that “from the moment the Polish anti-Semites helped the Germans drive the hungry Jews away
from the soup vats, the streets became a link between the Polish anti-Semites and the Nazis.”

64

This separation of Poles and Jews and linkage of Poles and their occupiers would further solidify
over time.
Ringelblum argues that these links based in antisemitism were forged between the Nazi
occupiers and certain elements of Polish society. As Germans sought to target Jews for work and
humiliations they sometimes were unable to distinguish between Catholic Pole and Polish Jew
and he says that the “anti-Semitic scum thus came to their aid and obligingly pointed out the
Jews to the Germans.”

65

Renata Zajdman, who was approximately eleven years of age and living

in Warsaw when the occupation began, says the “first thing they (the Poles) learned to say was
Jude, all of a sudden I became a Jude.”

66

She was from an acculturated family and did not

identify herself as primarily Jewish; she spoke impeccable Polish, and she dressed like her Polish
Catholic peers yet she still had to fear being identified as a Jude out on the streets. Mass
pillaging of Jewish shops and homes began and during the winter of 1939-1940 Jews were

63
64
65

Ibid., 36-37.
Ibid., 42.
Ibid., 38.

66

Videotaped testimony of Renata Skotnicka- Zajdman, File no. 37068-4, Tape 2, The USC
Shoah Foundation Institute, 26:13.
128

attacked all over the streets of Warsaw.

67

The period from October 1939 until November 1940

when the Warsaw ghetto was created was a period of “constant anti-Jewish agitation,” which
continued to increase.

68

The violence started with random attacks on individual Jews on the

streets that ended up with “uncontrollable pillage of Jewish wealth and recurrent pogroms in
different parts of Warsaw.”

69

This whipping up of anti-Jewish sentiment and encouragement of

the blossoming of antisemitism into violence and depravity served German purposes in a twofold manner. In addition to driving an even larger wedge between Polish Catholics and Jews, it
provided useful propaganda for the outside world as it also encouraged a weakening of Polish
society and norms of behavior.
This fostered the environment that allowed German occupiers to portray themselves in
propaganda as the “protectors” needed to keep Jews safe from the “rabidly anti-Semitic Poles”
and to install law and order where they claimed there was none. Photos and films of German
gendarmes stepping in to prevent Polish led violence perpetrated against Jewish victims were
spread to the western world. Concurrently, within Poland, as elsewhere, in film, on posters, and
in text, the image of the Jews as a threat, spreaders of disease and social decay fed the German
propaganda machine. The Nazi overlords would increasingly target Jews, claiming it was for the
good of the Polish population. While Poles were certainly against their occupation, this
propaganda tapped into existing antisemitic undercurrents in existence before the invasion. The
Nazi propaganda mill simultaneously cast the Germans as protectors of both Poles and Jews.

67
68
69

Ringelblum, Polish-Jewish Relations During the Second World War, 47.
Ibid., 52.
Ibid., 53.
129

Emanuel Elbinger, who was about eight years old at the outbreak of the war remembers,
“the Polish population was incessantly under the pressure of anti-Jewish propaganda.”

70

Elbinger was shocked by the posters he saw. He recalls one in particular that read, “Stop and
read, dear onlooker, how Jews beset you. Instead of meat, chopped rats, dirty water added to
milk, and dough with worms, kneaded by foot.”

71

The images on the poster were that of a

“repulsive, unshaven crooked-nose Jewish butcher” holding a rat by the tail as he lowered it into
a meat grinder and beside that a milkman pouring water from the washtub into a can of milk.

72

This communicated the message to Poles that the Germans were in fact aiding them by
attempting to protect them from the harmful Jewish population.
As Poles increasingly witnessed or were subjected to violence, suffered the economic
repercussions of the occupation, they witnessed many of their peers engaging in anti-Semitic
activities that aided the enemy; it caused an ever increasing weakening of the social fabric. Many
Poles spoke out against behavior of their fellow citizens and even those who were not supporters
of the Jewish population prewar did not support the use of violence against them, the
blackmailing, or other deviant behavior that began during the war.

73

Ringelblum, a

70

Wictoria Sliwowska, ed., The Last Eyewitness: Children of the Holocaust Speak (Evanson:
Northwestern University Press, 1993), 31.
71
Ibid.
72

Ibid.

73

This would become an increasing problem that would be addressed by the Polish
Underground and intellectuals alike. By May of 1942 the conservative Catholic writer Zofia
Kossack-Szczucka, who herself harbored antisemitic beliefs, wrote a scathing commentary on
the degradation of Polish Catholic society that was a result of its treatment of Poland’s Jewish
population in her essay “Prophecies Are Being Fulfilled,” in Prawda: Pismo Frontu Odrodzenia
Polski, May of 1942. Her essay was reprinted in Antony Polonsky and Joanna B. Michlic, eds.,
The Neighbors Respond: The Controversy Over the Jedwabne Massacre in Poland (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 2004), 72-74. In her essay Kossack-Szczucka affirms that the fate of
the Jews has brought upon themselves as a result of their own actions writing, “No one has
130

contemporary eyewitness struggling to chronicle the events of the occupation, using his training
as a professional historian, was not completely damning of the Polish population even though the
circumstances might lend to our sympathies if he were. He wrote that “the significant majority of
the nation, its enlightened working class and the working intelligentsia, undoubtedly condemned
these excesses, seeing in them a German instrument for weakening the unity of the Polish
community.”

74

The weakening of social bonds and an increasing tolerance for violence occurred

in Poland but this was not a phenomenon unique to Poland.
would lead to “social disorganization.”

76

75

In the Polish case, the occupation

Increased alcoholism, a “gradual loss of a sense of

private and public property,” and corruption were all “symptoms” of this new disorganization
that would take place in the Generalgouvernment.

77

Violence became endemic and this was not

hindered Christianity in conquering the world as they have, and it is they who are perishing first
as a result of the fact that Europe is not Christian. Driven by Talmudic hate, they accepted no one
outside their race as close to them, and they are now being wiped out because there is a nation
that took their slogans to heart and did not accept them as close” (73). While she does believe
that the Jewish people brought this terrible fate upon themselves, she also points at her fellow
Poles, Christians, who have allowed the Jews to “remain as they are” that they receive “such
terrible punishment” (73). She then states that if there is a Christian who is able to say that the
Jews “got what was coming to them” and that the “Germans murdering them are rendering the
Poles a service, them such a person would be unworthy of the name of Catholic” (73). She
argues that what was occurring then, local Polish populations participating in the massacres of
Jews, would affect Polish society gravely in the future and calls for Poles to “oppose such
disgraceful behavior with all means available” (74). She calls for stigmatizing those who
participate in the underground presses, boycotting the executioners, threatening them, and then
punishing them harshly when the war is over and independence is restored (74). She saw “evil”
“spreading like an epidemic” and crime “turning into an addiction” and these social ills would
plague Poland after the war (74). She saw the effects of the violence and those Poles who acted
to harm Jews as a sickness that would do irreparable damage to the Polish nation.
74
Ringelblum, Polish-Jewish Relations During the Second World War, 53.
75

Jan T. Gross, Polish Society Under German Occupation: The Generalgouvernement, 1939 1944, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979).
76
Ibid, 160.
77

Ibid.
131

only that which was perpetrated by Germans. There was a marked increase in the number of
armed assaults in general and this brutalization would continue as the occupation progressed.

78

The Nazi Occupation of Poland altered the bonds of Polish society as well as the social
structure. As discussed in chapter one, before the war, while domestic servants were very low in
social status due to their lack of education and socioeconomic status, they could sometimes use
their status as Polish Catholics to “other” their Jewish employers before the war if the conditions
were right. The Nazi occupation further altered the power dynamic as race became the new mode
of social order. Poles, classified by German race laws as Slavs, were considered to be subhuman,
but were still higher on the social ladder than the Jews. Laws and policies increasingly targeted
Jews and sometimes this worked in favor of former Polish employees and domestics were
sometimes able to claim status as volksdeutch. This change could be useful for a Polish Catholic
domestic worker to target her Jewish employers or former employers in order to benefit
economically or to seek retribution for perceived maltreatment.
In many cases, domestic servants developed feelings of fondness or loyalty to their
Jewish employers but quite often an employee simply did not. In other cases, just like in any job,
a domestic servant could harbor resentment for her employers for any number of reasons-- the
way they talked to her, feelings of envy, feeling that the gave her too much work for the amount
of pay, and so on. In this case, not only did the employee have little incentive to go out of her
way to aid her employer during the invasion, she also could feel quite justified in using this
moment to get a little satisfaction and economic gain.
Alta Cytrynowski was seventeen and living in Łódź when the Germans invaded. She says
before the war there were many volksdeutsch in the city but their maid, Stasia was a poor

78

Ibid.
132

Catholic Polish woman “from our backyard.”

79

As the Germans occupied the city, the

Cytrynowski family did not flee, but their maid decided to terminate her employment with the
family. Furthermore, she approached Cytrynowski’s mother and said to her, “Tobela, you know
what? I want your drapes and I want your covers, the bed covers,…” and continued to list items
she wanted from the household.

80

She claimed her husband was a volksdeutsch, in order to

compel her former employer to meet her demands. Cytrynowski testified that the maid’s husband
was not in fact a volksdeutsch, and nothing more than a Polish drunk, but this was enough to
scare her mother into compliance. Cytrynowski remembers her mother asking Stasia how she
could do this to her and that this maid “called her mother Tobela” just like her father had which
was disrespectful, saying “we felt already, this grudge from the war.”

81

The occupation brought a change in the atmosphere that emboldened the maid, Stasia, to
use the claim that her husband was a volksdeutsch to not only take from them, but to speak to her
in a way she would not have before the war. It can be inferred that Stasia the maid realized the
tables had turned and she was no longer at the bottom of the social scale even though she was a
Pole from the lower classes. Her husband was or could be passed off as volksdeutsch or she
suspected the mere threat would be enough to make her former employer not want to risk trouble
with the new German occupiers.
Esther Goldstein’s family had a woman who came to the house on Saturday to do the
cooking. After the occupation Goldstein recalls noticing that she became a little distant, and

79

Videotaped testimony of Alta Cytrynowski, File no. 42792-3, Tape 1, June 29, 1998, The
USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive, 26:08.
80
Videotaped testimony of Alta Cytrynowski. File no. 42792-3, Tape 1, 26:50.
81

Ibid., 26:58.
133

relations between this woman and her mother changed.

82

The woman soon stopped coming to

cook for the family. She finally appeared at their home demanding a fur coat, some gold
bracelets, and other belongings of Goldstein’s mother. Her mother asked this woman why she
would do such a thing to the family and this cook replied, “This is life. You had it good enough,
now it’s my time.”

83

The Nazi occupiers created a situation in which goods and resources were limited and
this pitted everyone against each other as they sought to provide for their families and scratch out
a living. Karl Diamond of Tarnów, a teen at the outbreak of the war, remembers their maid who
had worked for the family for years felt compelled to make trouble for the family. Diamond
testifies that after the war started one day the maid brought an SS officer to the home and showed
him where the family was hiding coffee, tea, soap and other goods that were scarce and in
demand. He states, “And my mom was so upset, she told her, for fourteen years, I fed you,
treated you like a child in this house. You did everything you wanted, and this is what you are
84

doing to me?”

He remembers the maid laughing in response. During the occupation material

goods became scarce and there was often a tangible sense of envy amongst those who thought
others had it better than themselves. Diamond’s memory of this incident is one in which the
betrayal by a former household employee seems especially cruel.
Many scenes like this would play out as the occupation solidified, the social structure was
transformed, and the Jewish population was sent to the ghettos. After the initial occupation, as

82

Videotaped testimony of Esther Goldstein, File no. 11341-2, Tape 2, January 22, 1996, The
USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive.
83
Ibid., 1:15.
84

Videotaped testimony of Karl Diamond, File no. 160392-2, Tape 1, June 6, 1996, The USC
Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive, 18:15.
134

the Nazi regime solidified control of the Polish lands, Polish society experienced a significant
reordering. Society was ordered according to Nazi racial ideology which privileged those Polish
citizens that could claim Germen ethnicity and placed all ethnic Poles above Polish Jews,
allowing race and ethnicity to trump economic status. This is evident in the above mentioned
cases of the Cytrynowkis, the Goldsteins, and the Diamonds. Their former employees, however
they justified their actions, felt that they were now able to take advantage of the situation and
demand valuables from their former Jewish employers.
Certainly not all household employees turned on their former Jewish employers. Most
moved on for economic reasons, some used the opportunity to harm them, but yet others
attempted to do what they could to continue caring for their former charges even if their
employment ended. These household servants were not women of means and were in rather
precarious situations themselves but in some cases their particular backgrounds or skills could
prove useful. Betty Dickman, born in Vilna, was a young woman during the initial occupation
period and recalls that before the ghetto her former maid would come to get her and the two
women dressed as Polish peasants and would go out trading for food.

85

The former servant

taught her the Hail Mary in Polish and stayed with them until just shortly before they entered the
ghetto when it would become too dangerous for her to stay.

86

The assistance of a former servant

could be quite useful even in the early occupation period. It would become increasingly
dangerous for these women to continue to associate and aid their Jewish charges and the Nazis
made it increasingly difficult for Poles and Jews even to remain in contact. The formation and

85

Videotaped testimony of Betty Dickman, File no. 28331-2, Tape 2, April 14, 1997, The USC
Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive.
86
Even after the formation of the ghetto, Dickman would sneak out of the ghetto and go to this
former maid who would feed her and give her a little something for the kids.
135

subsequent sealing of the ghettos would sever the ties between many Poles and Jews and prevent
many Jews from seeking the assistance of their former Polish acquaintances, employees, and
friends once they realized how vital this aid would be in their survival.
Restructuring Polish Life: The Ghettos and the So-Called Aryan Side
The formation and sealing of the ghettoes in Poland took place with varied chronology
and the situation inside each ghetto had its own context but for the purpose of this study there is
the need to talk generally. Many of the case studies I examined are from the ghettos of Warsaw
and Kraków but they are not limited to these two. During a September 21, 1939 meeting
Reinhard Heydrich was recorded as saying that the Jews in the cities should be held in ghettos to
permit better control and within a period of three to four weeks he wanted the Jewish population
pushed into cities where possible and the Jews in the Reich transferred into Poland along with
their remaining 30,000 gypsies.

87

A form of ghettos already existed in Poland; Jews had been

living in concentrated neighborhoods in Polish cities, and historically this idea was not new in
Europe, so the idea of a Jewish ghetto was certainly no German creation.

88

Drawing from Phillip

Friedman, Dan Michman argues that since these ghettos were already present on Polish lands the
goal then became to “demarcate the boundaries and force the Jews who had left them to infect
89

the rest of the city, to return to their “natural environment.”

Discussions between various

German officials went on for a period of a few months to plan the implementation of the ghettos
in particular cities and regions but the justifications for their perpetuation and forcing Jews to
87

Guy Miron and Sholomit Shulhani, co-ed., The Yad Vashem Encyclopedia of the Ghettos
During the Holocaust (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 2009), xxi.
88
Dan Michman, “The Jewish Ghettos under the Nazis and their Allies: The Reason Behind
their Emergence,” in Guy Miron, Ed. And Sholomit Shulhani, Co-ed. The Yad Vashem
Encyclopedia of the Ghettos During the Holocaust, xiii-xxxix (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 2009).
89
Ibid., xxiii.
136

move into the German designated ghettos was the supposed danger that Jews posed as carriers of
disease.

90

In Warsaw, near the heavily Jewish populated districts the Nazis posted signs warning

of epidemics.

91

Grynberg argues that they sought to associate the Jewish population with the

often deadly louse-born typhus and quarantined areas in order to further stigmatize and alienate
92

the Jewish population. According to racial ideology, the isolation of the Jews was considered to
be of great moral and political importance.
The ghettos were formed at varied rates and means in Poland. The first official ghetto,
Piotrków Trybunalski, was set up in October of 1939 in the Kielce province. The Jews were
directed to move into an area labeled the “Jewish residential quarter,” but the order was not
strictly enforced.

93

Poles lived and operated businesses in the ghetto until as last as the spring of

1942. Here, it took months for Jews to be resettled and a small number of Jews continued to live
outside the area right up until its liquidation.

94

After the initial formation of the Piotrków ghetto

another ghetto was formed in Radomsko in December 1939, with seven more in other mid-sized
towns created in the first few months of 1940.

95

The first ghetto in a major city was implemented in Łódź in February 1940 and it was not
sealed off until April of that year. It was estimated that the Jewish population of the city was
approximately 320,000 so moving them was less realistic than containing them in a ghetto there.

90
91
92

Ibid., xxiv.
Grynberg, Words to Outlive Us, 15.
Ibid., 15.

93

Dan Michman, “The Jewish Ghettos under the Nazis and their Allies: The Reason Behind
their Emergence,” xxiv.
94
Ibid.
95

Ibid.
137

Michman writes that once the ghetto was functioning successfully it was considered to be
prototype and symbol for the other ghettos, and even a sort of tourist attraction, “that never failed
to excited the most lively interest of visitors from the Old Reich.”

96

Preparations for other

ghettos were being made and carried out throughout Nazi-occupied Poland. The concentration of
the Jews in ghettos was a “practical initiative” taken on the ground as a result of the particular
97

context.

The everyday aspects of the larger initiative and problems were dealt with by local

leaders.
Prior to the Second World War and the Holocaust, Warsaw had the largest Jewish
population of any city aside from New York City. The Warsaw ghetto, which was established on
a small portion of the land of the city, like that of Łódź, would come to be heavily populated and
crowded, which meant that conditions would be especially deadly. The Warsaw Jews were
informed that they would be forced to move into a ghetto in their city on Yom Kippur, October
12, 1940. Most of the area designated as the Warsaw ghetto was comprised of working and
lower-middle class neighborhoods in the Muranów district with a smaller area around the
Mirowski marketplace.

98

The occupiers required that the Warsaw Jewish community build a

wall surrounding the ghetto with Jewish labor and funds.

99

This area also happened to have been

heavily bombed out during the invasion.
In order to construct the Jewish ghetto in Warsaw, some 80,000 Poles living in the newly
designated ghetto areas had to leave their homes and some 140,000 Jews were moved in and replaced

96

Ibid, xxv. Michman is quoting the remarks from an undated chronicle of the Łódź District
Court.
97
Ibid, xxvi.
98
99

Grynberg, Words to Outlive Us, 9-10.
Ibid., 15.
138

them. With much damage to the city as a result of the invasion and a lack of resources, it was often
difficult for both Poles and Jews to relocate. For Jews who lived in the area that was designated as the
ghetto, this usually meant adding more residents to their flat as acquaintances and family members
joined them. For Jews who had to leave their home and move into the district, without any connections
finding housing was especially difficult. Sometimes, a trade could be worked out between a Polish and
Jewish family who were both forced to move.
In the Ringelblum archive there is an account of some of the difficulty one unnamed family
faced in trying to move into the ghetto area.100 The author wrote that the family maid, Emilia
Denkiewicz, accused the husband of the house of possessing “foreign” newspapers shortly after the
occupation. After some maneuvering on the part of the lady of the house the maid’s mother, who
worked for a Jewish doctor, was able to convince her daughter to recant the charges. The family was
forced to continue to employ her, living in fear, until they were ordered into the ghetto. When news of
the order came, the family arranged to trade flats with a Polish gentile family who lived in area
designated to become the Warsaw ghetto. The maid, meanwhile, managed to make a deal with some
local officials that gave her claim to the family’s flat so that when they did move they were unable to
trade flats with a Polish family that needed to move out of the area designated to be the ghetto. This put
the family in an even graver situation as it no longer had means to bargain for housing in the ghetto.
Difficulty finding a place to live in the ghetto was commonplace, especially for Jews without means or
connections.
Max Hilfstein, born in 1920, recalls that when his family had to move into the Kraków ghetto
family members were initially lucky, so to speak, because his father’s business was located inside the

100

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, RG15.079M, Underground Archives of the
Warsaw Ghetto: The Emmanuel Ringelblum Archives, “A Maid, A Spy,” Ring. I/ 442.
139

101

boundaries of what was to be the Jewish ghetto.

While he was not able to retain control of his

business he was able to at least keep working for a period. They also managed to find a Pole who had
to move from the ghetto so they were able to work out a trade. These were all advantages that most
Jews did not have. Employment and housing were at a premium and life depended on the ability to
procure both.
By January of 1941, as Jews were brought in from surrounding areas, the population of
the Warsaw ghetto, which was a mere 1.3 square miles, would reach some 400,000 Jews.

102

This meant extreme overcrowding, unsanitary conditions, and lack of food. The average flat
housed seven residents per room.

103

Refugees were placed in public shelters which were subject

to frequent outbreaks of infectious diseases such as typhus. According to Grynberg, “German
policy thus unleashed the very epidemic that had been invoked as the rationale for sealing off the
Jewish district in the first place.”

104

The Struggle to Adapt to Life in the Ghettos
While Warsaw and Łódź were special cases for their size and situation, in general, the
ghettos were set up to become increasingly deadly. It was initially thought that England and
France would come to the rescue and push the Germans back out of Poland but-- by the spring of
1940 --this hope was dying.

105

By the end of 1940 the war and occupation led most European

101

Videotaped testimony of Max Hilfstein, Interview no. 09989-3, Tape 2, December 12, 1995,
The USC Shoah Visual History Archive.
102
Grynberg, Words to Outlive Us, 10.
103
104
105

Ibid.
Ibid., 11.
Ibid., 20.
140

Jews to believe that “their lives would never be the same.”

106

Most Polish Jews believed by this

point even the end of the German occupation would not return their lives to the way they were
before the war. While many Jews responded in the early period by attempting to flee Poland, to
live as “Aryans” outside of the ghettos, or even committing suicide, they also attempted to
continue or recreate a new form of Jewish life inside the ghettos. Some of these activities and
organizations were official, while others were unsanctioned or even clandestine.

107

Religious

Jews often sought solace and refuge in their practice and families frequently attempted to “carve
out private spaces amid the crammed apartments of the ghettos.”

108

Families sought to educate

their children and attempts to continue Jewish cultural events were sometimes made. Life,
although dramatically altered, lurched on in this alien and brutal environment.
Conditions in the ghettos went from materially hard to deadly in merely a matter of
weeks. For Jews who survived the initial invasion and occupation, “the continually multiplying
hardships led to the emergence of new living patterns and coping strategies.”

109

Jewish

communities responded with efforts to preserve and cultivate Jewish life. As I have previously
stated, Polish Jewry was a large and diverse segment of Polish society. The families of this study
who employed Polish Catholic household servants were often fairly acculturated. Many of them
had been moving rather freely among Catholics in Polish society and the creation of the ghettos
resulted in the formulation of an artificially homogenous and bounded Jewish society. For the
106

Garbarini, Jewish Responses to Persecution, Volume II, 1938-1940, 437. She also states, “the
Third Reich’s assault in Poland, had destroyed the feeble basis on which Jews and Poles and
coexisted for centuries and introduced in its place an ideology-driven system of subjugation in
which Jews were resolutely expelled from common society.”
107
Ibid., 438.
108

Ibid.

109

Nechama Tec, Resilience and Courage: Women, Men, and the Holocaust (New Haven and
London: Yale University Press, 2003).
141

children of this study who heavily identified themselves as Polish Jews and spoke Polish this
new environment was even more disconcerting.

110

One such child, Isabelle Choco, grew up in an acculturated Jewish family that attended
synagogue on occasion. They lit the Sabbath candles every Friday evening and ate traditional
meals for the Jewish holidays but she says, “on the whole, however, we led assimilated lives and
the difference between the Jews and the Catholics completely escaped me.”

111

When her family

was interned in the Łódź ghetto she was sent to school and started to learn Hebrew. She
“encountered contempt” from many of the other Jews imprisoned there because she did not
speak Yiddish.

112

Choco remembers standing in line at the food store and overhearing, “What a

little princess, she only speaks Polish,” to which she would reply that she spoke Hebrew, “the
first language of the Jews.”

113

Bianka Kraszewski who only spoke Polish before the war also

learned some Yiddish in the Warsaw ghetto by playing and singing with other Jewish

110

For further discussion of the effects of war and occupation on children, see Joseph Zieman,
Cigarette Sellers of Three Crosses Square; Patricia Heberer, ed., Children During the Holocaust;
Joanna Beata Michlic, Jewish Children in Nazi-Occupied Poland: Survival and Polish-Jewish
Relations During the Holocaust as Reflected in Early Postwar Recollections.
111
Isabelle Choco, “My First Life,” in Stolen Youth: Five Women’s Survival in the Holocaust,”
1-72, David Silberklang and Danielle Zaidman-Maurer, eds. (New York and Jerusalem: Yad
Vashem and the Holocaust Survivor’s Memoirs Project, 2005), 19.
112
Ibid., 31.
113

Ibid. This was also a problem for highly acculturated Jewish survivors in the DP camps. In
the videotaped testimony of Renata Skotnicka-Zajdman, File no. 37068-4, Tape 6, The USC
Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive, Zajdman notes that after the war when she was living
in the camp she encountered hostility from other Jews because she spoke no Yiddish and was as
she describes herself, assimilated. She was treated with great suspicion and as an outsider.
142

children.

114

For children who had grown up mixing with Polish Catholics and in acculturated

households this newly homogenous environment was very much unfamiliar territory.
Jewish responses to their internment in the ghettos were as varied as the diverse
population. This was a time of fear and uncertainty, material deprivation, and a complete
reordering of society. In the past, Jews had been persecuted, subjected to violence and exile so
there was no reason given their long history in Europe to believe during the early occupation
period that this was situation would be so different or extraordinarily deadly. Families sought to
carry on as best they could under the harsh conditions, anticipating that these conditions had a
limit, and that the war would end at some point. Parents often made attempts to continue to
educate their children, to bring any semblance of normalcy to life that they could, and to
continue cultural life. No one knew how long the war would last and no one could have
suspected that war would turn to genocide. The decisions to comply with orders to enter the
ghettos and to make lives there were made using the information available.
Polish Catholic domestic workers who continued to work for their Jewish employers after
the initial invasion also responded to the conditions based upon the information available. They
also had no idea what was ultimately in store for either themselves or their employers. They were
often concerned about their own economic situation and for their families of origin. When the
Nazi occupiers issued the decree that ordered Jews to move into the ghetto this presented a
problem and a challenge for them as well and yet another clear instance where they were forced
to decide whether to stay with their employer or leave. Most domestic servants did not move into
the ghettos with their former Jewish employers. Some however, remarkably, did. In the above
mentioned case of Genia Olczak and the Rozencwajg family, Olczak not only stayed with the
114

Videotaped testimony of Bianka Kraszewski, File no. 13723-4, Tape 2, USC Shoah Visual
History Archive.
143

family when they traveled to Warsaw, she also moved into the ghetto with them. When Roma
Rozencwajg and her young son Gabriel had to move, Olczak moved into the ghetto with them. Olczak
lived with the Rozencwajg family at the Zamenhof residence inside the Warsaw ghetto and she
took items from friends and acquaintances of the family over to the so-called Aryan side to sell,
exiting and returning with a pass, bringing back much needed food and supplies, until she was no
longer permitted legally to stay in the ghetto.

115

Lola Fontak, born in Będzin, had a maid before the war who had lived with the family for
twelve or thirteen years before the war. Fontak said that this family maid stayed with them after
the invasion and also moved into the ghetto with them when they were ordered to do so. Inside
the ghetto she was “an asset” because she could “go places” and buy items for the family that
they were not allowed to buy.

116

The maid stayed with them even after non-Jews were no longer

allowed to live in the ghetto. She was denounced as a Pole and sent to labor, Fontak believes in
Gdynia. Fontak recalls that the family was “heartbroken,” as she was so loyal and an “asset.”

117

Marie Lubowski Winkelman also had a family maid who followed them into the ghetto after she
traveled from their home in Włocławek to Warsaw with the family.

118

When the ghetto was

closed off in October, 1940, she was forced to leave.

115

The September 19, 1940 Verordnung über die Beschaftigung weiblicher Personen in
judischen Haushalten, “Decree regarding the employment of female persons in Jewish
households,” forbade gentiles from working in Jewish households. The Warsaw ghetto itself was
sealed on November 15, 1940.
116
Videotaped testimony of Lola Fontak, File no. 09038-2, Tape 2, November 20, 1995, The
USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive, 12:58.
117
Ibid., 13:00.
118

Videotape testimony of Marie Lubowski Winkelman, File no. 18554-2, Tape 1, August 14,
1996, The USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive, 14:30.
144

Emunah Nachmany Gafney discusses Jewish families who had Polish live-in nannies that
maintained relations with their former employers even after Jews were forced to move into the
ghetto. She asserts that while this was not common, in some instances nannies moved to the
ghettos together with their employers and continued to care for the children, leaving only over
time as the situation deteriorated. Gafney states that “it was natural that the family and the nanny
would continue their relationship.”

119

In this instance the obvious manner of continuation would

be the nanny taking the child or the child and other members of the family out of the ghetto,
which was in some cases initiated by the former employer and in other cases by the former
employee.

120

This behavior is evident in Olczak’s case as well as the examples of the Fontak

and Winkelman testimonies.
While most maids did not move into the ghetto with their former employers, the cessation
of their cohabitation did not end their feeling of obligation to their former charges. Many of these
maids continued to aid their Jewish families by helping them sell their possessions, smuggling
food in to them, or doing errands for them on the so-called Aryan side. For those domestic
servants that did continue to live with their former employers in the ghettos, the September 19,
1940 Verordnung über die Beschaftigung weiblicher Personen in judischen Haushalten, or
Decree Regarding the Employment of Female Persons in Jewish Households made employment
of gentile servants in Jewish homes illegal. Those maids who did go to the ghettos with their

119

Emunah Nachmany Gafny, Dividing Hearts: The Removal of Jewish Children from Gentile
Families in Poland in the Immediate Post Holocaust Years (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 2009).
120
Ibid.
145

121

employers were then legally compelled to separate with them.

This decree stated that a Jewish

household was any home in which the head of the home was Jewish, so it included any mixed
marriages as well. Once Jewish families were no longer allowed legally to employ Polish gentile
maids and they were no longer able to stay in the ghettos without employment, this drove a
further wedge between these Poles and Polish Jews, and was another means of separating these
individuals, and others like them. The final blow came when non-Jews were no longer allowed to
pass freely into the ghettos or reside there at all. In many instances the internment of the Jews in
ghettos or the restrictions of non-Jews passing freely in and out of the ghetto were not enough to
sever the ties between these domestic servants and their former charges as the occupiers would
have wished; but these final laws hindered maintaining these ties by separating the parties and
making communication difficult.
New Relations: Domestic Servants’ Responses to the New Social Order
When Jews initially moved into the ghettos and they were subsequently sealed, it was
still unknown what the Nazi aims for the Jewish population was. However, based on the levels of
terror, deprivation, and squalor inside the ghettos, it was soon apparent that the conditions were
potentially deadly at best. Contact with Polish gentiles on the outside of the ghetto was vital in
obtaining food, medicine, information, and goods necessary to survival. Nazi occupiers sought to
separate the Jews from the outside world and to end the contact with the outside world that was
needed for survival. For families who had a Polish gentile contact on the outside that was willing
to help them out, this could tip the scales slightly more in their favor than those without. A

121

Karol Marian Pospieszalski, Hitlerowski “Prawo” Okupacyjne w Polsce: Csęsć II
Generalna Gubernia, Wybór Dokumentów i Proba Syntezy (Poznan: Instytut Zachodni, 1958),
579.
146

former maid on the outside could sell items for the family, help them communicate with the
outside world, and sometimes prove invaluable.
Emmanuel Ringelblum called the formation of the Warsaw ghetto the “crowning
achievement, the completion of the process of segregation.” It was intended that, “Jews would be
able to communicate with the Aryan world only with the approval of the authorities, who would
control and supervise all economic contacts.”

122

Smuggling both for profit and aid was a

continued point of contact between Jew and gentile that was a constant problem to the occupiers
who sought to separate Poles and Jews and to keep goods and foodstuffs out of the ghettos.
In the Warsaw ghetto, Jews were allowed food rations of 184 calories per day.

123

The

smuggling in of additional food was the only means that Jews could avoid starvation. Adam
Czernikow, head of the Judenrat in the Warsaw ghetto, estimated that eighty percent of the food
entering the ghetto was the result of this illegal activity.

124

For many Poles, smuggling was an

economic endeavor more than a humanitarian effort, but not only did it provide an important
sustained means of contact between Poles and Jews in spite of Nazi efforts to separate these
groups, it also provided means for a former household servant to help her former employers.
Some former domestic workers relied on smuggling to replace their lost income as servants and
some of these women used a portion of their smuggling income to help support their former
employers who were interned in the ghetto.

122

Ringelblum, Polish-Jewish Relations During the Second World War, 59.

123

Abraham Lewin, A Cup of Tears: A Warsaw Ghetto Diary, Ed. Antony Polonsky, (Oxford:
Basil Blackwell, 1989), 21.
124
Ibid. Polonsky cites the diary of S. Szymkowicz, (90) in the Yad Vashem Archives for this
assertion.
147

Former domestic servants engaged in smuggling both to support themselves and to aid
their former charges who were trapped inside the ghetto. Servants who lost their employment as
a result of the war had limited opportunities for employment. Some turned to smuggling for
income. Renata Zajdman’s former maid, Janina Wojcicka, became a smuggler and supported
herself that way, along with Zajdman and her half-brother Aleksander and her half-sister Ana.
During the occupation she became their “sole supporter.”

125

Zajdman became separated from

her half-siblings in Baiłystok and the former maid came to get her from the ghetto there and
return her to her siblings in the Warsaw ghetto where she could provide aid to them. Wojcicka
found Zajdman working in a labor battalion and was already equipped with documents from a
relative’s child who was the same age as Zajdman. She had some money and helped her walk
away from the work battalion. They walked some two hundred kilometers back to Warsaw
passing as two smugglers and she helped Zajdman sneak into the ghetto there.
In Warsaw Wojcicka smuggled Jewish goods out of the ghetto and sold them on the socalled Aryan side for the Jews who gave them to her. Zajdman recalls, “Janka was not afraid of
anybody. She would come by and bring food, not every day, whenever she could, whatever she
could buy or sell, otherwise we would have gone down completely if it wasn’t for her.”

126

Wojcicka also used her connections with friends of her former employers to help get medicine
and information. Wojcicka was killed trying to sneak into the ghetto to get to Zajdman’s brother
Aleksander. Smuggling was dangerous for Jew and gentile alike. Jack Kliman’s former maid

125

Videotaped testimony of Renata Skotnicka-Zajdman, File no. 37068-4, Tape 3, The USC
Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive, 3:54.
126
Videotaped testimony of Renata Skotnicka-Zajdman, File no. 37068-4, Tape 5, The USC
Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive, 2:29.
148

also smuggled food into the ghetto for his family.

127

She used to come to the wall at night and

throw food over the wall to Kliman’s mother until a German guard saw her and killed her on the
spot.
Despite the danger, smuggling was the only way to get the necessary additional food into
the ghettos and provided money for the Jews who had items to sell so that they could purchase
food to eat on the black market. Genia Olczak, the Rozencwajg’s former domestic servant found
employment at a pen factory and office supply as the result of a Rozencwajg family
connection.

128

She lived with the family and helped support them in the ghetto until she was

required to move out. After that her employment allowed her to get an apartment on the so-called
Aryan side. In addition, Olczak sold items for friends and acquaintances of her former
employers. She remarked that people gave her all sorts of things to sell for them because there
was not much money. She would take them out of the ghetto and sell them on Kercelak (flea
market). She explained that friends used to come to Roma Zamenhof, the best friend of Roma
Rozencwajg, whom the family lived with and ask her if she could sell things for them, buy them
food, and bring it back into the ghetto. Olczak said, “I was so sorry for them and their children-It is impossible to say what was happening there--and right away I exchanged the things for
food, because there was no delivery to ghetto.”

129

She explained, “Although some (food) was

thrown over the wall, not many people could get it. So I did my best. Sometimes twice a day I
would go and bring basketfuls, whatever was needed, because there was such a need, I would

127

Videotaped testimony of Jack Kliman, File no. 11879-1, Tape 2, February 23, 1996, The
USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archives, 11:49.
128
Oral interview of Genowefa Olczak.
129

Ibid., 5.
149

bring potatoes, bread, and other things.”

130

This middle-man activity provided important money

and supplies for the residents of the ghettos.
Max Hilfstein’s former domestic servant, Bronia, also continued to care for her former
charge by providing him with food while he was in the Kraków ghetto and when he was sent to
work at Plaszów, a camp in Kraków.

131

He says he was “watching the wires every day” and

whenever she saw him, she made contact. She would always have food in her hands when she
came and she would throw it over to him. When he would walk from the ghetto to Plaszów she
would appear and start walking next to him, handing him some kielbasa. He explains, “You have
to remember, this was life she gave me. She could be very easily killed.”

132

The Dickman

family, mentioned above, also received aid from their former laundress while they were interned
in the ghetto.

133

Their maid did not do laundry, so they had a woman who came in to do the

washing. Once the family moved into the ghetto, Dickman, who was in her late teens, would
sneak out of the ghetto and go to this laundress who would feed her and give her a little
something for the other kids. She recalls it was very difficult to bring anything in but she tried.
Many child survivors remember being aided in the form of food and goods smuggled into the
ghettos by former caregivers.

130

134

Ibid.

131

Videotaped testimony of Max Hilfstein, File no. 09989-3, Tape 2, December 12, 1995, The
USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive.
132
Ibid., 27:11.
133

Videotaped testimony of Betty Dickman, Interview no. 28331-2, Tape 2, April 14, 1997,
The USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive, 11:40.
134
Videotaped testimony of Yaacov Halperin, File no. 08789-2, Tape 1, November 15, 1995,
The USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive. Yaacov Halperin was a teen living in
Kraków at the onset of the war. His family maid left their service when gentiles were no longer
permitted to work for Jews and she married a lieutenant in the Polish Army. She was able to
150

Conclusions
While the Nazi invasion and occupation brought the end of employment and extended
daily contact between these domestic servants and their charges, in those many cases where
contact and aid continued it was of great value to Jewish families interred in the ghettos. This
contact and aid would become increasingly important as conditions became more and more
deadly. Residents of the ghettos were subjected to starvation, exposure to the elements, disease,
and murder. As it became apparent that remaining in the ghetto would likely result in death many
families started to consider action, including attempting to leave the ghettos and live
clandestinely on the so-called Aryan side. Or, in many cases, to send their children out of the
ghettos because they were targeted for death since they were not considered productive or useful
to German aims. In many cases, as former domestic servants who remained in contact with their
former charges saw or heard about ghetto conditions they also became progressively more
fearful for the children and adults they had grown attached to. The deportation period brought
increased impetus to the need to make a decision for how to best attempt to survive the Nazi
onslaught. For families who had a former domestic employee willing to help them, this could

bring food from his farm and for a year and a half and ensure that they were fed while they were
living in the ghetto. Once she could no longer get into the ghetto the family had to manage to
purchase food themselves on the black market. Videotaped testimony of Debora Herzog, File no.
42124-40, Tape 2, March 14, 1998, The USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive. The
Herzog’s family and their maid Jazdka all found themselves living in the Bochnia ghetto. After
she could no longer live in the ghetto with the family she would sneak in and spend a few hours
with the family. She helped the family pack as they left Kraków and Kalwarnia and then when
they were being deported from Bochnia she came to help them pack up again. This time they
were being sent to Bergen Belson. As they packed she told them, “You can’t go any further
because I won’t be able to pack you.” In the videotaped testimony of Frederyka Cassidy, File no.
34645-40, Tape 2, July 29, 1997, The USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archives, Cassidy
recalls that the family fled their hometown of Jezierna to Lwów at the outbreak of the war. She
remembers their former maid traveling 200 km with four “big loaves of bread” in order to get the
family from Lwów and bring them back with her, which she did.
151

sometimes involve the decision to send their child away with this woman where he or she may at
least have a chance of surviving.

152

CHAPTER FIVE
DECISIONS
Introduction
Often we consider Jews the recipients of gentile aid and rescue efforts. Upon examining
life under increasingly deadly conditions and delving into how decisions to leave the ghettos
were made, it becomes increasingly clear that aid and rescue, at least by former domestic
servants, were often collaborative Jewish-gentile efforts. We know that in urban environments, it
generally took multiple people to hide or protect one person on the so-called Aryan side, but
even to provide aid inside the ghettos it often took multiple gentile helpers to meet the needs of a
ghetto internee. Typically we look at the actions of the rescuer to protect the rescued and do not
focus on Jewish self-help as a part of these efforts; nor do we contemplate the ways that Jews
aided one another or worked in collaboration with their gentile helpers. There is the assumption
that family members were morally obligated to aid each other, or that members of a
“community” should do what they could for each other. To illustrate this point, Yad Vashem has
created the designation of Righteous Among the Nations for gentiles who provided aid to Jews
during the Holocaust. In the description of this program, Yad Vashem declares that, “In a world
of total moral collapse there was a small minority who mustered extraordinary courage to uphold
1

human values.” Yad Vashem gives members of this minority the honor of the status of
Righteous Among the Nations arguing that these gentiles stood, “in stark contrast to the
2

mainstream indifference and hostility that prevailed during the Holocaust.” In addition Yad
Vashem declares that, “Contrary to the general trend, these rescuers regarded the Jews as fellow
1

The Righteous Among the Nations: About the Righteous Among the Nations, Yad Vashem,
http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/righteous/about.asp.
2
Ibid.
153

human beings who came within the bounds of their universe of obligation.”

3

There is no

equivalent designation for Jews who assisted Jews. While it is accurate that gentiles who aided
Jews, particularly in Nazi occupied states were risking essentially everything to help, Jews who
took additional risks to aid other Jews were often lessening their own chances for survival.

4

This assumption that Jews were obligated to aid each other is problematic and leads to a
devaluation of Jewish aid and the risks some Jews took to provide relief and assistance to other
Jews. Nechama Tec argues, “the more deprived people are, the more their lives depend on
5

cooperative efforts.” She posits that the ability and willingness of people to help one another
was dependent on the deprivation they themselves were enduring and “how their past
6

conditioned them for compassion and cooperation.” Every Jewish person living in Nazioccupied Poland was struggling to survive. To help another meant additional risk and sharing of
resources, sacrifices that should not be overlooked. In many cases, a gentile helper could not
have successfully acted to protect his or her Jewish charge without the aid received from the
Jewish charge or the charge’s family.
This chapter looks at survival efforts inside the ghettos during the period leading up to
and during the deportations. It examines the ways prewar relationships influenced decisions to

3

Ibid.

4

For further discussion of Jewish rescue see Holocaust Rescuers, Jewish, Virtual Jewish
Library: A Division of the American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise,
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0009_0_09149.html; The
Holocaust: Rescue by Jews, Yad Vashem,
http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/holocaust/about/08/jewish_rescue.asp; Chana Arnon, “Jews
Rescuing Jews During the Holocaust,” Yad Vashem,
http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/education/conference/2004/39.pdf.
5
Nechama Tec, Resilience and Courage: Women, Men, and the Holocaust (New Haven and
London: Yale University Press, 2003), 50.
6
Ibid.
154

seek or provide shelter outside of the ghettos. While the literature generally points to the Nazi
occupation and internment of the Jews to the ghettos as a sharp break from prewar life, the aid
and rescue sometimes provided by former household domestic servants offers one continuity
with prewar life. This chapter argues that the offer to take a child or the request to take one’s
child from the ghetto was a continuation of the prewar relationships that developed in the
domestic realm between the employers and their servant and was a natural extension of this role.
These domestic servants were trusted to care for their charges before the war, so they were a
logical choice when a gentile was needed to keep a Jewish child on the so-called Aryan side.
This chapter also seeks to place Jewish survival efforts, including self-help and flight, in the
realm of resistance.
Conditions varied by ghetto, but in general, children were consistently viewed by the
Nazi occupiers not as a potential source of labor like some of their able-bodied adult
counterparts, but rather as a drain on resources, therefore not worthy of life. Children, the
elderly, and anyone who did not appear able to provide labor or was unable to procure
employment were targets. In addition, disease and starvation raged through the ghettos
threatening all of the residents. For the purpose of this chapter, I will give a brief comparison of
the Łódź, Warsaw, and Kraków ghettos to provide context for the decisions and actions of the
subjects of this study. However, all of the cases discussed within this chapter do not come from
these ghettos. The purpose of comparing these ghettos is to enhance the readers understanding of
the spectrum of conditions within the ghettos. This activity also allows us to consider the
variance in the levels of permeability of the boundaries keeping information, goods, and people
in and out, the speed of the deterioration of the living conditions, and the active organizations

155

able to help rescuers and potential escapees. This is intended to provide some of the context in
which the decision to leave the ghettos were made.
Escalating Danger
The Warsaw and Łódź ghettos were the largest in occupied Poland, however the Łódź
ghetto was as close to hermetically sealed as the occupiers could manage. While smuggling was
a means of obtaining vital food for Jews interned in most of the ghettos, this was not possible in
7

the Łódź ghetto because its perimeters were much less porous. Workers did not pass in and out
of the ghetto to perform labor and special currency was used. As a result the inhabitants had to
rely on the food that was made available by the official agencies. This relative isolation from
Aryan influences also meant a lack of information regarding what was happening in the other
ghettos for the average inhabitants.
The frequency of aktions and deportations increased and Jews were dying at alarming
rates from disease and starvation in addition to being killed on site during 1941-42. As a result,
it became apparent at varied rates in the ghettos that something must be done if there was to be
any surviving remnant. An understanding of the Nazi aims for the Jewish population was
dependent on the ghetto and also what the human mind was capable of accepting. Israel Gutman
has argued that it was “clear that information did not reach the Łódź ghetto in the way and time it
8

reached the other ghettos.” While reports detailing mass murder in the German-occupied
territories from June of 1941 were printed in clandestine presses and reached many of the
ghettos, he maintains that Łódź was hermetically sealed and therefore this information was not

7

Israel Gutman, “Introduction: The Distinctiveness of the Łódź Ghetto” in Łódź Ghetto: A
History, xxix-lvii, Isaiah Trunk, ed. (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press,
2008), xxxii.
8
Ibid., xlvii.
156

9

widely available. On the other hand, in the Warsaw ghetto Jews knew “fairly early,” in January
or February 1942 about Chełmno and what took place there.

10

Gutman says that while the Jews

of the Łódź ghetto “did not deduce that total and methodical murder was being perpetrated
against Jews,” the September 1942 deportations of children did push many towards believing
murder was being committed.

11

While the contexts of what encouraged Jews to consider the risk of fleeing the ghettos
differed greatly depending on where they were interned, as conditions deteriorated and more
Jews were deported Jews began to believe that survival inside the ghetto was impossible. For
families, this decision was particularly painful. Parents were ever fearful for their children inside
the ghettos, but moving from the ghettos was extremely dangerous. Finding a hiding place on the
so-called Aryan side was a monumental task and hiding an entire family together, even more so.
For Jews caught outside of the ghetto walls, the punishment was death for them as well as for
their aid provider. There were many incentives for the local populations to inform or threaten to
inform on Jews attempting to live clandestinely. The choice to leave the ghetto was one made
under duress and offered no certainty. Ghetto inhabitants knew conditions were deadly in the
ghettos but leaving the ghetto could just as easily result in death.
Sometimes this decision to leave the ghetto was made in an instant, when a moment
suddenly presented itself and one had to make a fast choice to take a chance or remain.

9

12

Ibid.

10
11

Ibid., l.
Ibid., iii.

12

See Second Generation of Long Island Collection Interview of Helen Foxman, One Tape, July
6, 1983, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, RG 50.205*0028; Videotaped testimony of
Milla Tenenbaum, File no. 33627-4, September 16, 1997, Tape 1, The USC Shoah Foundation
Visual History Archive.
157

Oftentimes, this decision was one that required much planning and resources.

13

A gentile contact

person willing to aid was an invaluable asset. The specific challenges for escape from the ghetto
were dependent on when a Jew decided to take flight.

14

During the initial ghettoization period, the majority of Jews complied with the order and
moved into the ghetto.

15

Those who did not were either highly acculturated, converts who

wanted to remain with the Polish majority, and those who were having difficulty finding housing
inside the designated ghetto area.

16

Paulsson points out that the Warsaw ghetto area, unlike the

hermetically sealed Łódź ghetto, was not easily isolated from the rest of the city and that the wall
dividing the ghetto and the so-called Aryan side was actually rather porous. Smuggling and other
contacts with gentiles continued through shared tram lines, sneaking aboard other vehicles such
as fire or garbage trucks allowed to enter the ghetto, or through the use of legally obtained
passes. In addition, places where the ghetto boundary was formed by internal walls in adjacent
13

Interview of Genia Olczak; “Karolina Sapetowa,” Maria Hochberg-Marianska and Noe Gruss,
eds., in The Children Accuse, (London and Portland: Vallentine Mitchell, 1996), 277-79. Also
see videotaped testimony of Elizabeth Grotch, File no. 26284, Tape 2, The USC Shoah
Foundation Visual History Archive. Elizabeth Grotch’s nanny tried to come into the Warsaw
ghetto three times but could not get in. Grotch’s mother sent postcards asking the nanny to come.
The nanny finally entered the ghetto as a laundry woman. She stayed a few days and slept there.
Grotch’s aunt “begged her to take daughter too and she said she couldn’t take one sister’s child
and not the other’s” (Tape 2, 8:24). Grotch’s mother also asked the nanny to take her out of the
ghetto but said she could not hide a grown up. The nanny smuggled Grotch out of the ghetto in a
bundle and her cousin Lillian Trilling was sent out in a cart.
14
Gunnar S. Paulsson, Secret City: The Hidden Jews of Warsaw 1940-1945 (New Haven and
London: Yale University Press), 2002. There are some problematic issues with this book, in
particular the author’s calculation of number of Jews in hiding and also his argument that more
Jews could have possibly survived had they reached out to Poles for assistance is inflammatory
but this is the most comprehensive study of rescue and hiding in Nazi-occupied Poland to date
and is valuable for many reasons.
15
This period can be defined as the closing of the ghetto from the October 12, 1940 decree
ordering ghettoization through the November 15, 1940 deadline for resettlement. See Paulsson,
The Secret City, 55-56.
16
Ibid., 57-58.
158

buildings such as the courthouse or municipal offices on Długa street, or in various mety,
(hideouts) allowed goods, people and information to pass in and out of the ghetto.

17

In these

spaces holes could be knocked out through the walls and items or messages passed through or
people could jump rooftop to rooftop to enter and exit the ghetto. The Gęsia street market, which
remained open until the first deportations in July 1942, was a space where Jews and gentiles
traded openly. Gentiles were allowed to enter this market to purchase used clothing and goods
sold by the Jewish ghetto residents.
Goods, messages, and people also passed “over, under and through the wall” of the
ghetto.

18

Abraham Lewin’s May 18, 1942 Warsaw Ghetto Diary entry notes that smuggling

continued on all day through a gap in the wall that divided the Warsaw ghetto and Przejazd
Street. He wrote, “Flour, potatoes, milk, butter, meat and other produce are brought into the
ghetto. And out of the ghetto pours a continual stream of Jewish possessions to the Aryan
19

side.”

He continued writing, “Lately a certain distinct type of smuggler has come to my

attention. These are Christian women, young and older.” The women appeared at dusk loaded
down with household goods, kitchen items in particular, they acquired from Jewish families in
the ghetto that they took out through this hole in the wall.

20

Lewin noted that this was a new

development and that the Christian women had become “specialists in this area: they are buying
21

out the Jewish kitchen.”

17
18

Jews, of course, were selling off their possessions in order to survive.

Ibid., 62-63.
Ibid., 63.

19

Abraham Lewin, A Cup of Tears: A Warsaw Ghetto Diary (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1989),
78.
20
Ibid.
21

Ibid.
159

They started with clothing, “furniture, then linen, covers, next pillows, and now it is the turn of
the pot and wash-tub.” In the end, he projected; this trend would soon leave the poor with
nothing to “cook a meal with” or “wash his last remaining shirt.”

22

While this was certainly

exploitation of the ghetto population, the black market allowed Jews to obtain food and supplies
from the outside and maintain contacts with the outside world.
Christian women entered through holes in the ghetto walls, leaving at nightfall.
Throughout the day Jewish children did the opposite, creeping out through holes in the walls to
trade on the Aryan side. Children were notoriously adept at using gaps in the ghetto walls,
cramming their small figures to the Aryan side, often unnoticed by the Gestapo. At the ghetto
gates policemen could be compelled through bribery or far less often, out of the kindness of their
hearts, to let people and goods in and out through the gate.

23

Finally, work parties, sewers and

tunnels were used to carry on smuggling of goods and people in and out of the ghetto. While all
of these avenues provided contact with the outside world and allowed for vital goods to reach the
ghetto, they were all fraught with danger. The ability to enter and exit the ghettos through all of
these means would imperative for former domestic servants to both bring food and goods in to
their former employers and later when they brought children out of the ghetto to shelter them.
Smuggling was vital to the inhabitants of most of the ghettos. Milla Tenenbaum’s former
servant, Cecelia Krzeminska would enter the Będzin ghetto wearing a heavy shawl to conceal
her smuggling activities. Rather than bringing goods into the ghetto to sell, she smuggled in

22
23

Ibid.
Paulsson, Secret City: The Hidden Jews of Warsaw 1940-1945, 63.
160

bread, candies, flour, potatoes, anything she could get her hands on.

24

The Nazis tried to thwart

smugglers through a number of means. In the Warsaw ghetto they changed ghetto boundaries,
eliminated certain types of passes and reduced the number of gates. Nazi occupiers also
increased the number of raids on known smuggling points, eliminated most phone lines, and then
forced all non-Jews to move out from the ghetto unless they were running German businesses.

25

On October 15, 1941 Hans Frank issued the decree stating that Jews leaving their designated
districts without authorization would be subject to the death penalty, as would any non-Jew who
gave such Jews a place to hide.

26

This decree also dictated that any instigators or accomplices

would be punished in the same way as the perpetrator and that any attempted act would be
punished as if it was accomplished.

27

This decree was followed by an order from Dr. Ludwig

Fischer, Governor of the Warsaw District, stating that this applied to anyone who provided help
28

to Jew who left the ghetto without authorization.

According to Fischer’s order, this aid

included activities such as, “making available a night’s lodging, food, offering transportation of
any kind.”

29

This decree, according to Paulsson thus “extends the death penalty to various minor

24

Videotaped testimony of Milla Tenenbaum, File no. 33627-4, Tape 2, September 16, 1997,
The USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive, 5:59-6:35. Tenenbaum was living on ration
cards and cleaning houses to support herself. When she cleaned houses she would be paid in part
with food which she would divide up, eating some herself and brining the rest to the ghetto for
Milla, “her little girl.”
25
Paulsson, Secret City: The Hidden Jews of Warsaw 1940-1945, 66-67.
26

Ibid., 67.

27

Ibid., 67.

28

Ibid.

29

Ibid. Paulsson is quoting from Fischer’s decree reproduced in Wladysław Bartoszewski and
Zofia Lewin, Ten jest z ojczyzny mojej (Krakow: Znak, 1969), 892.
161

acts,” and had a two-fold effect on flight from the ghetto.

30

In addition to making flight even

more dangerous, it also meant putting the aid provider directly in harm’s way, which many Jews
were not comfortable doing as long as they believed life in the ghetto was still possible.

31

In comparison, less than two hundred miles to the south of Warsaw, the Kraków ghetto
was much more separated from the Aryan parts of the city.

32

There were five entrances and a

tram ran through but did not stop inside the Kraków ghetto. In the early period Jews were able to
enter and exit the ghetto fairly freely, but within a matter of weeks after the March opening of
the ghetto, its gates were closed and permits required for entrance and exit.

33

Roughly sixty

percent of the population worked outside of the ghetto and these workers needed permits.

34

While these workers needed permits, the routine traffic they established into and out of the
ghetto gates allowed a prime opportunity to pass goods and communication between the ghetto
and the outside world. Household domestics played a key role in supplying goods to ghetto
inhabitants. Max Hilfstein’s former domestic servant, Bronia, provided him with food while he
was in the Kraków ghetto and was able to gain access to him when he went back and forth to
35

work at Plaszów.

30
31

Bronia would appear and start walking next to him, handing him some

Ibid., 67.
Ibid.

32

The Kraków ghetto was formed on March 3, 1941 in the suburb or Podgórze. Jews were given
two weeks to relocate, which was then later extended until the end of April.
33
Martin Dean, ed., The Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, 1933-1945, Volume II, Ghettos in
German-Occupied Eastern Europe, Part A (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University
Press, 2012), 528.
34
Ibid., 529.
35

Videotaped testimony of Max Hilfstein, File no 09989-3, Tape 2, December 12, 1995, The
USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive.
162

kielbasa.

36

He explains, “You have to remember, this was life she gave me. She could be very

easily killed.”

37

This “commute” to the work camp and other assigned workplaces was an

important moment of possible contact. This type of contact was important in the Warsaw ghetto
as well. Renata Zajdman recalls that every day her former maid Janina Wojcicka took the tram
that went through the Warsaw ghetto and jumped off to bring her charges food, money, and
medicine.

38

Then she had to smuggle herself back out again.

In October and November 1941, 5,000 Jews from surrounding cities were forced to move
into the Kraków ghetto in Podgorze, exacerbating the overcrowding.

39

By December that year it

was decreed that packages could no longer be sent from or received in the ghetto and in January
furs had to be surrendered or destroyed.

40

From 1941 through the first half of 1942 Jews were

frequently arrested and rounded-up, often killed or deported to the Lublin district.

41

The first

major deportation occurred in early June 1942, as ghetto inhabitants were sent to Bełżec. Jews
were registered and those with trades were permitted to stay while those who were unemployed

36

This kielbasa would have contained pork. I do not know if Hilfstein adhered to dietary laws
before the war but if so he would have had to break with dietary custom to consume the kielbasa.
37
Ibid., 27:11.
38

As mentioned in the previous chapter, Renata Zajdman’s helper and former maid, Janina
Wojcicka, supported herself and aided Zajdman and her siblings through her smuggling activity.
See Zadman’s testimony in Irene Tomaszewski and Tecia Werbowski, Code Name: Żegota:
Rescuing Jews in Occupied Poland, 1942-1945, The Most Dangerous Conspiracy in Wartime
Europe, 111-13 or videotaped testimony of Renata Skotnicka- Zajdman, File no. 37068-4, Tape
2, The USC Shoah Foundation Institute.
39
Martin Dean, ed., The Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, 1933-1945, Volume II, Ghettos in
German-Occupied Eastern Europe, Part A, 529.
40
Ibid.
41

Ibid.
163

or white-collar professionals were deported to Bełżec.

42

After the final June aktion the Gestapo

ordered the Kraków ghettos reduced in size. The second major deportation aktion occurred in
October 1942, when 600 Jews were killed during the round-up and 6,000 were deported. This
left a remnant that was divided into two camps, the able-bodied, and the unable to work with the
able-bodied sent to work in Plaszów and the rest murdered. These deportations were particularly
dangerous for children and often acted as an impetus for the decision to send a child away.
Like the Warsaw ghetto, and in contrast to the situation in Łódź, the Kraków ghetto was
rather permeable and allowed for smuggling and a strong black-market economy. The ability to
use the black market to contain to obtain food and medical supplies was an important resource
for inhabitants of the ghettos. Those ghettos with more permeable borders such as Kraków and
Warsaw were able to both generate and receive clandestine reports and presses that helped
inform residents of what was happening throughout the ghetto and outside. Both Kraków and
Warsaw had organized resistance movements, which were able to varying degrees to help with
the process of obtaining illegal papers and movement of people and supplies. No comprehensive
comparison of the rate of escape from the ghettos is currently available and numbers are subject
to much interpretation and speculation.
Jewish Survival Efforts Inside the Ghettos
While decisions to flee the ghetto were less likely during the early ghetto formation
period they increased as survival came to feel impossible. Most ghetto residents initially just
tried to hang on and survive within the confines of the ghettos. Many Jewish prewar members of
the middle and upper-classes resisted leaving until they were running out of resources and goods
to sell. As long as it seemed possible to survive in the ghetto, there was less motivation to leave

42

Ibid.
164

it for the unknown. Organizations, both official and unofficial attempted to aid in Jewish survival
efforts inside the ghetto and in efforts to maintain some level of normalcy, if that was possible.
Indeed, in the Warsaw ghetto, social welfare “fulfilled many functions, sometimes going
far beyond the classic forms of this type of activity.”

43

While the Judenrat pushed for control of

social welfare in the ghetto, grass roots groups and housing based committees continued to
operate and maintain autonomy. These charitable organizations were supported by money and
food from the Joint Distribution Committee through 1941, by institutions with concessions from
the occupiers, and by the independent community self-help movement.

44

These community self-

help organizations were powered by volunteers and required the activity of thousands in their
attempts to offset some of the suffering of the ghettos. In addition to organizations, both official
and grass-roots, that strove to alleviate some of the suffering of the ghetto residents; education in
clandestine schools and other institutions was continued also.

43

Barbara Engelking and Jacek Leociak, ed., The Warsaw Ghetto: A Guide to the Perished City
(New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2009), 294-96. In addition to standard welfare
services, Jewish community self-help groups also provided cultural and educational activities,
including clandestine teaching. In the Warsaw ghetto alone there were 1,108 house committees
in the sealed district where thousands of volunteers provided aid to their fellow internees.
Economic, entertainment, welfare allowances, child care, and clothing commissions were under
the umbrella of these committees. These committees operated women’s circles, youth circles,
refugee and deportee centers, orphanages and soup kitchens. While the Judenrat pushed for
control of social welfare on the ghetto, grass roots groups and housing based committees
continued to operate and maintain autonomy.
44
Ibid., 301. Because the bank accounts of prewar welfare agencies were frozen at the outset of
the Nazi occupation, the Joint became the most important financial base for these programs. The
Joint was operating legally until the end of December 1941. The Joint was able to operate legally
until the United States officially entered the war in December 1941 and after this they continued
efforts clandestinely via channels within the community self-help organization not affiliated with
the Warsaw Judenrat.
165

In the Łódź ghetto, the Judenrat was given control of the Jewish elementary schools and
given the power to collect taxes on the Jewish population to fund them.

45

The ghetto had thirty-

five elementary schools, two religious schools, a secondary school and a vocational school as of
May, 1940.

46

Additional food was offered for children attending school initially but the

constantly changing ghetto conditions made it difficult to run the schools. Initially schools used
the Polish model of curriculum, but by the 1940-1941 school year Rumkowski initiated a switch
and “a rich program of Jewish studies (Yiddish, Hebrew, Bible, Jewish history) was introduced,
with Yiddish as the language of instruction.”

47

Within the ghettos, Jews were still attempting to care for children and preserve (or
sometimes even create a new) Jewish identity. Isabelle Choco grew up in Łódź and she was
about ten years old when the war broke out. Her family was acculturated and economically
comfortable. Polish was the primary language spoken in their home. During her confinement in
the ghetto she felt alienated from other Jewish ghetto residents because she did not speak any
Yiddish.

48

When she was sent to school she learned Hebrew, which she said “strengthened her

defenses against the contempt.”

49

The ghettos forced Jews from all stratum of Polish society as

well as foreign Jews into a concentrated and alien social space. This was an entirely new

45

Isaiah Trunk, Lodz Ghetto: A History (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University
Press, 2006), 54.
46
Ibid.
47

Ibid., 55. Since many of the teachers were formerly employed in the Polish state schools they
were not prepared to teach in Yiddish and for that first year had to continue to teach in Polish as
they themselves learned Yiddish.
48
Isabelle Choco, “My First Life” in Stolen Youth: Five Women’s Survival in the Holocaust, 172, David Silberklang and Danielle Zaidman-Maurer, eds. (New York and Jerusalem: Yad
Vashem and the Holocaust Survivors Memoirs Project, 2005), 31.
49
Ibid.
166

configuration of Jewish life that was faced with upheaval, deadly conditions, and total
uncertainty about the future. In the case of Choco, attendance at a clandestine school aided her in
continuing her education but also helped her feel in some way a part of this new hyper-Jewish
community and gave her a sense of purpose and future. The continuation of education in the
ghettos even under increasingly deadly conditions testifies to the commitment of the Jewish
community to not only survive, but to maintain their culture and ensure their future through
continuing to educate children.
In addition to clandestine schools, soup kitchens, orphanages, hospitals and myriad other
resources were operated in ghettos across Nazi-occupied Poland. Aside from community efforts
to educate children and help the poorest of the poor, the starving, elderly, and the children, there
were also efforts to maintain Jewish cultural pursuits. This is evident in the curriculum change of
the Łódź ghetto but also in the cultural productions held in the Warsaw ghetto. Jews fought to
carve out life in the hostile ghettos and to defy the occupiers by continuing to provide for as
many people as they could. The maintenance of Jewish self-help not only provided valuable
services, they provided hope. To educate children is an activity that presumes a future for these
children, even if it was unclear what that future would look like. But even with these efforts to
maintain life, Jewish culture, and efforts to prepare young Jews for the future, it became
increasingly evident that these efforts were not enough to offset the deadly conditions, violence,
death, and subsequently, deportations that were or also became a part of daily life in the ghettos.
Fighting for Survival
While social welfare programs, cultural activities, and clandestine education were some
way that Jews resisted the deadly conditions placed upon them by the Nazi occupiers, they were
by no means the only forms. Active, more militant resistance within the ghettos and the act of

167

leaving the ghettos and taking a chance on the so-called Aryan side were more radical measures
taken to thwart German aims. Some Jews responded to this growing awareness of the
diminishing chances for survival by joining resistance groups. This was a particularly attractive
choice for youths and people whose families had perished leaving them with few social ties and
little to lose. Others determined that based on their own personal situation and the ghetto
conditions they, or their loved ones, would be better off to try to survive outside of the ghetto.
Resistance movements, including armed resistance, varied according to ghetto based on
the conditions specific to each. Underground groups organized in the Kraków ghettos as early as
1941, made primarily of Jewish youth movement and political group members.

50

At the end of

May 1942 a mass deportation took place in the ghettos sending some 5,000 Jews to Bełżec which
lasted over a week.

51

After this mass deportation, the majority of the underground groups came

together and attempted to obtain arms from the Polish underground organizations that were
functioning on the Aryan side.

52

The Warsaw ghetto had a well-documented, militant resistance movement that arose as a
response to Nazi persecution. Many Jews fled Poland for the Soviet Union at the outbreak of the
war and by the spring of 1940 a group of youth leaders decided to send representatives back to
Warsaw to assess the situation and to continue clandestinely with some of their prewar
50

Guy Miron and Shlomit Shulhani, The Yad Vashem Encyclopedia of the Ghettos During the
Holocaust, Vol I A-M (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 2009), 127.
51
Ibid., 126.
52

Ibid., 127-28. Members of both the Jewish and Polish underground engaged in acts of
sabotage until the mass killing operation of October 1942 and arrest of many Jewish
underground members by the Jewish police. At this point, the Jewish underground left the
ghettos and engaged in activities on the Aryan side, including attacks on German soldiers and
police on December 22, 1942. Hashomir Hatzair did not join and continued to operate on its
own. Most members of the Jewish underground were eventually captured after the attack but the
remaining members continued to carry out partisan activity.
168

activities.

53

They began to “reconstruct and strengthen the organizational structures and to set up

a network of contacts between the ghettos throughout occupied Poland,” effectively making
Warsaw the center for these organizations, Dror and Haszomer Hacair, for all of occupied54

Poland.

These youth organizations offered a sense of community to young people in the ghetto

who tended to become more radical than the older generation of activists living within the
confines of the ghetto and charged with the responsibilities of adults.
In the spring of 1942, information about Operation Reinhard started to trickle into
Warsaw. Engelking asserts that, “scattered information about mass murders did not yet add up to
awareness of the approaching Holocaust. It was not easy to believe the news and still more
difficult to understand what it meant.”

55

As news of liquidation of Jewish communities

continued to reach the Warsaw ghetto some began to consider new forms of resistance, going
beyond clandestine organizations and self-help. Over the night of April 17-18, 1942 Germans
picked up some fifty individuals and murdered them outright, increasing the level of fear and
foreboding within the ghetto. Sporadic acts of terror targeting small groups and individuals
occurred regularly. The three month period between this night and the beginning of mass
deportation saw a dramatic increase in activity in the underground presses, leaders of
underground activity stopped holding regular meetings and changed residences, and these
organizations ceased their semi-legal cultural activities as they changed focus.

53

56

Barbara Engelking and Jacek Leociak, The Warsaw Ghetto: A Guide to the Perished City,
674.
54
Ibid.
55
56

Ibid., 680.
Ibid., 685.
169

The mass deportation of the Warsaw ghetto’s inhabitants to Treblinka began on July 22,
1942 and lasted approximately two months. Over this summer Latvian and Ukrainian auxiliary
forces, along with the Jewish Police aided the Germans in sectioning off the ghetto and area by
area subjecting the residents to selections.57 During the early deportation period employment
exempted residents from deportation. Early on in the summer people struggled to find placement
in one of the “shops” because employment there was the only legal means to avoid deportation.
Even placement in a shop was no guarantee against deportation later. Within weeks, the
workshops inside the ghetto were targeted for round ups.58 By early September the population of
the Warsaw ghetto was a mere ten percent of its original size and the area was reduced to only a
few blocks.59At this point it became painfully obvious for many that they needed to get out of the
ghetto. A job in a shop was not an option for elderly and children who had managed to survive
this long and families who had the means to go into hiding on the so-called Aryan side or to send
a child who had no hope of being saved by employment in the shops often became motivated to
send their children out at this time.
This was the impetus for the Rozencwajg family, who has been mentioned in previous
chapters. Several members of the family were interned in the Warsaw ghetto and had been in
contact with the former nanny, Genia Olczak, who continued to smuggle goods in to them
whenever she could. Olczak was employed by Roma and Aleksander Rozencwajg before the war
to care for their young boy, Gabryś and she loved him as her own child. Olczak helped several
members of the family, including Gabryś’s older cousin Bianka. Bianka recalls, “One day in late

57

Michał Grynberg, Who Will Write Our History: Eyewitness Accounts from the Warsaw Ghetto
(New York: Picador, 1988), 101.
58
Grynberg, Words to Outlive Us, 101.
59
Ibid.
170

July or August 1942 the Germans took us all away from the shop”.

60

My mother put my hair up

so I would look older, rouged my cheeks to look healthy, but Roma and Gabryś had to stay
behind, because he was a young child.”

61

The only option was to hide Gabryś so they used some

bricks from the “shop” wall and made a niche and put them (Roma and Gabryś, as he was too
small to stay alone) there with some food and water, and bricked them in. Bianka continues, “We
did not know if we would come back!”

62

She says they were taken to another street, kept there

overnight with other shop workers, and then after they separated the older people and children to
send them to their death, they marched Bianka, her mother, and other workers back to the shop.
When they returned they removed the bricks to free Roma and Gabryś and discovered one little
child had been left behind in a stroller and she had a gunshot through her head. Bianka states,
“So then Genia took Gabryś away to the Aryan side.”

63

The details of Gabryś escape from the

ghetto with his caretaker Genia will be addressed later in this chapter, but it is very clear from
this testimony that this family believed the best chance for survival, at least for a child, was not
in the ghetto. Many families who had resisted sending their children away or they stayed in the
ghetto started reconsider if they had the resources available to try to live clandestinely on the
outside.
A series of deportations in the Łódź ghetto also led many of the residents to believe life
in the ghetto was not sustainable. The first deportation phase would last from January 16 to May

60

According to the testimony of Genia Olczak, the Germans had a “shop,” Schultz’s “shop” at
Ogrodowa Street #50 [This was the Aryan entrance] where they were repairing German uniforms
coming from the front.
61
Testimony of Genowefa Olczak, October 4, 2005, conducted and transcribed, with
commentary by Bianka Kraszewski.
62
Ibid.
63

Interview of Genowefa Olczak.
171

15, 1942. On January 5, 1942 the Outsettlement Commission began operation and set about the
task of designating 10,000 persons for deportation. According to Trunk those selected were,
“with few exceptions, the very poorest and socially weakest part of the ghetto population.”64
Transports of 1,000 people were supposed to be dispatched from the ghetto daily.65 When
residents received their summons, “turmoil broke out in the ghetto.”66 It was decreed that Jews
caught hiding those designated for deportation would be punished with deportation themselves to
prevent those who were selected from finding refuge. Trunk notes that, “the desperation that
caught up the ghettos inhabitants was beyond measure,” as the delivery of supplies were minimal
leaving frequent periods of extreme hunger coupled with “intense frosts” that made conditions
even worse.67 On January 29, 1942 the situation settled down for a short time as this wave of
deportations seemed to come to an end, but on February 22, 1942 they would resume.68 This
wave would continue until the first day of Passover, April 2, 1942, claiming 34,073 Jews.69 After
this round, Jews from Western Europe were specifically targeted for deportation in May. Each
round of deportations made it increasingly clear that life inside the ghetto was impossible.
Around the same time of the deportation in the Kraków ghetto that led the Rozencwajg
family to seek shelter outside of the ghetto, the Łódź ghetto residents were struck with a
catastrophe that was utterly unbearable. A month after the May deportation, rumors started to
circulate that children up to ten years of age were to be deported.70 These rumors were reported

64

Isaiah Trunk, Lodz Ghetto: A History, 230.
Ibid.
66
Ibid.
67
Ibid., 231.
68
Ibid., 232.
69
Ibid.
70
Ibid., 238.
65

172

on in the June 23 and 24, 1942 issues of the Chronicle.71 This publication assured the public that
these rumors were “unfounded” and reported that high ranking ghetto officials denied them
“categorically.”72 However, in September 1942 children would in fact be targeted, along with the
elderly and others. It began on September 1, 1942 when Germans seized the patients from the
ghetto hospitals causing a great deal of panic among the inhabitants of the ghetto. The following
day the order was issued by ghetto authorities to the Judenrat that they were to prepare 20,000
residents of the ghetto, the elderly, sick, and the children, for deportation. On September 4, 1942,
head of the Judenrat, Mordechai Chaim Rumkowski made his now infamous speech asking Jews
to give up their children to save the rest of the ghetto. Rumkowski stood before the crowd and
said, “They are asking us to give the best we possess—the children and old people.”73 Framing
this action as a way to save the majority, he continued, telling residents that he, “had the
premonition that something was descending upon us,” and that he had “stood constantly on alert
like a guard in order to avoid that ‘something.”74 The next day a general curfew was ordered that
kept Jews confined to their houses for a period of eight days during which the Germans assisted
by the Jewish Police and axillaries went door to door in search of the elderly, sick, and children
under the age of ten. People tried to hide themselves and their loved ones. Over five hundred
Jews were shot during the course of these searches that captured some 15,000 people, including
6,000 children.75 This was a heavy blow to the psyche of the residents of the ghetto and radically
changed the social make-up of ghetto society.

71

Ibid.
Ibid.
73
Ibid., 272.
74
Ibid.
75
Ibid.
72

173

After the Deportations
Those who did to stay in the Warsaw ghetto because they avoided deportation and either
lacked the means to leave or chose not to, occupied a very different space than the predeportation period ghetto. As of October 1942 the ghetto became “more like a labor camp than a
76

housing district.” Many flats were left empty, a vast difference from the severe overcrowding
that had been the norm. “After the action, a sense of guilt and loneliness developed in the ghetto.
The inhabitants felt abandoned, despairing and desperate. It was not obvious that the deportation
meant death and that the break in the deportations was only temporary,” according to
Engelking.

77

Under these conditions, many felt they had nothing left to lose and armed

resistance and escape, which would have been much less appealing when there seemed to be
more alternatives, now likely seemed much more appealing. Self-help, armed resistance, and
escape from the ghettos to hide on the Aryan side varied according to the contexts of each ghetto.
The above discussion focused first on Kraków and then on Warsaw, and while these activities
occurred within the specific context of each ghetto, we can draw some conclusions about these
activities in general. When these activities occurred, regardless of the scale or the timing, they
are evidence that the Jewish communities within the confines of the ghettos were attempting to
maintain some degree of agency and control over their lives in spite of the extreme persecution
and brutality they faced.
Just as the scope of self-help and resistance movements varied by ghetto so did the
awareness of some individual ghetto residents that perhaps leaving the ghetto presented the only
or best possibility for survival. Escape is arguably an alternative form of physical resistance or
76

Barbara Engelking and Jacek Leociak, The Warsaw Ghetto: A Guide to the Perished City,,
749.
77
Ibid., 751.
174

evasion. For many the decision to take a chance at escape and hiding was the result of a loss of
ties to the ghetto. Sometimes this came in the form of the death or deportation of one’s parents, a
spouse, or children. Milla Tenenbaum’s mother was deported right away when her family was
imprisoned in the Będzin ghetto.

78

She continued living in the ghetto with her father, paternal

grandparents and her sister Sala and brother Edek. The family maid, Cecelia Krzeminska, did not
want to be separated from Milla, asking to move into the ghetto with the family. Tenenbaum’s
father refused the offer because she was more help to the family if she remained outside. She
also repeatedly asked to take Tenenbaum out of the ghetto, and again was refused by
Tenenbaum’s father. The child’s older siblings also wanted her to leave with the former
caretaker as well.

79

Tenenbaum’s father became very angry at the suggestion replying that, “if

it’s the ghetto or the concentration camp, we all go together.”

80

Tenenbaum’s father knew it was

especially dangerous for those considered unable to work and knew his daughter and elderly
parents fell into this category and he was gravely worried for them. To protect the three of them
he built a small basement with a secret closet for them to hide in while he and the older children
were away at work. He did not want to separate the family and “did not believe it would come to
81

that.”

Tenenbaum’s father was taken from work and deported so the elder siblings decided to

send the young girl to Krzeminska. Tenenbaum remembers her grandfather crying, saying “this
is against my son’s wishes,” while her grandmother was obviously unhappy but said nothing.

78

82

Videotaped testimony of Milla Tenenbaum, File no. 33627-4, Tape 2, September 16, 1997,
The USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive.
79
Tenenbaum was born in 1932, so he was too young to be considered useful for work.
80
81
82

Ibid., 8:51.
Ibid., 10:55.
Ibid., 15:12.
175

The elder siblings saw the deteriorating conditions of the ghetto and made the decision that they
had to take this risk in order to save their little sister, even if it meant going against their father’s
wishes. As people came to feel they had less and less to leave behind in the ghetto, the idea of
escaping seemed more and more appealing. Some who had experienced great loss and felt they
had nothing to lose anymore chose to join resistance movements while other chose to resist
murder by escape.
Life Outside the Ghetto?
Conditions for hiding outside the ghettos were not favorable for Jews. The costs of living
(rent, food) were exorbitant due to inflation and the additional costs of paying off blackmailers
and extra high rents due to the risk the person providing the housing was taking, and the ever
present threat of denunciation by the non-Jewish population. One or more gentile contacts were
generally needed to aid in escape, placement, and other activities on the ground. Ghetto
conditions were absolutely deplorable and deadly, but some impetus was necessary to compel a
resident of the ghetto to attempt escape from one hostile environment and take a chance on life in
hiding in an environment that was hostile for other reasons.
The options for life outside the ghetto depended on a great many factors. If one had
“good looks” meaning he or she could pass for an ethnic Pole, could speak Polish without an
accent, and was socialized in some Polish Catholic customs life in hiding passing as a Pole was a
possibility. For Jews who did not “look Polish,” and did not have impeccable Polish, passing was
too great a risk and the person needed a clandestine hiding place, or melina, that also required
total reliance on a gentile because they could not move freely at all. They would need to rely on
someone for absolutely everything. This would involve being hidden inside someone’s home or
out in a barn, a cellar, or an outdoor bunker. A forest bunker was another option for someone

176

who could not pass as a Pole and did not have a gentile to rely on, but this still required some
gentile assistance or a remote location that would allow one to sneak into a village or farms
under the cover of darkness to steal food and supplies which came with incredible risks. In
addition to blackmailers, informants, and various authorities, these Jews were often hated by the
local population because of the theft. While some rural dwellers would give food and supplies to
these Jews hiding out in bunkers, many saw them as thieves.
Sometimes Jews would flee the ghetto when an opportunity arose but they had no plan in
place so needed to improvise. Often this meant finding a gentile contact from prewar life that
they thought may be willing or able to aid them. For adults the natural choice would be a prewar
colleague, friend, former schoolmate, or anyone who they had some sort of positive social
connection with that may warrant that gentile feeling compelled to taking a risk to help. For
children who were cared for by a domestic servant that they developed feelings for, this was a
natural choice. In many instances these domestic household employees in many ways acted as
surrogate mothers for these children before the war, showing them love and affection, and
treating them as their own children or as a sibling. In cases where this bond existed, it made
sense for children to seek these women out when they were in danger and needed aid and
comfort. In times of extreme duress, it is a natural reaction to seek safety with someone who is
familiar.
On the Fly
Most families did not stay in touch with their former domestic servants during their
internment in the ghetto. When the situation became such that Jews decided flight was the best
chance for survival but did not have a regular contact to make arrangements with or found
themselves with an unexpected opportunity to escape the ghetto, decisions had to be made on the

177

fly. Once on the so-called Aryan side of the wall, an escapee would need to find shelter
immediately. Often this meant contacting gentile acquaintances and asking for assistance, which
was met with varying responses.
Having a Jew show up at one’s door, even someone who one cared about could be rather
alarming for a gentile living under Nazi occupation as it put them in immediate danger. Sabrina
Hersch was fifteen when she escaped the ghetto near Kopyczynce with her family and headed
towards Husiatyn where they had lived before the war. Hirsch had a nanny growing up and she
decided to go to her for help. She remembers that before the war, “I loved her. She loved me.
She used to play with me, she took me places…..so I thought I am going to go to her and she’s
going to take me in.”

83

Hirsch found her and said after she knocked on the door and this woman

answered she immediately exclaimed, “You dirty Jewess! What are you doing here? Get the hell
out of here! If you’re not going to leave I am going to go immediately to the Gestapo and they
are going to shoot you. Get out!” as she kicked Hirsch.

84

Hirsch remembers a loving prewar

relationship with her nanny so we cannot ever know what actually caused the caregiver’s hurtful
reaction. She may have been fearful or perhaps Hirsch overestimated their prewar bonds, but in
any event this relationship did not compel this woman to aid her former charge.
Sometimes seeking out a former domestic had a better result. Adam Landesberg left the
ghetto at Żółkiew when he was twelve to hide out in a bunker with his father. After being
separated from his father, Adam sought out the family’s former maid, in Lwów, a Polish woman,
whom he said loved him like a little brother. She took him in and hid him. The woman’s own
brother-in-law began to blackmail her but she continued to hide him for another two months.
83

Videotaped testimony of Sabrina Hirsch, File no 27272-4, Tape 3, March 19, 1997, The USC
Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive, 19:24.
84
Ibid.
178

Finally, when she could no longer keep him, young Landesburg then turned to the Polish maid
who had been employed by his uncle before the Nazi Occupation, who was already hiding his
85

cousin. Adam was then sheltered by this Polish woman.

In his time of need, Landesberg

needed an adult to protect him and in lieu of his parents, he went to this former caretaker.
Irene Faitlowicz was older than Hirsch or Landesberg, a young woman at the outbreak of
the war; she was born in Warsaw in 1915. Without advance discussion, Faitlowicz’s mother
pushed her to walk out of the ghetto with some workers and she said she was not sure where to
go once she got out. Her first instinct was to go to the woman who came and stayed with the
family to do their laundry. When she came she stayed for three days at a time because it was an
extensive process of soaking, boiling, and then hanging it up on the fifth floor of their apartment
building. She went to this woman, who took her in and hid her in her small apartment. After a
few days passed, Faitlowicz’s aunt and uncle showed up and soon this old washerwoman had
three Jews to hide in her small flat. After a short time a blackmailers appeared so this hiding
place was “burned” so she took to the streets until she found a new place.
Sometimes contacting a former domestic employee was successful, and sometimes not.
In cases where the family had remained in contact with the former employee during their
imprisonment in the ghetto these household servants were often much more involved in the
decision and planning of a ghetto escape and for hiding on the outside. The act of showing up on
the doorstep of a former domestic was incredibly risky but for many seeking to escape, any
possible resource had to be explored.

85

Testimony of Adam Landesberg, RG 301/ 199, Archives of the Jewish Historical Institute
(ZIH), May 19, 1945.
179

The Most Difficult Decision
Whole families were in an especially difficult position because finding a hiding place for
a single person was hard enough, but for an entire group was even more problematic. As in the
case of Rozencwajg family, it was not until the danger could no longer be mitigated that the
family decided to try to send members into hiding on the Aryan side. The incident in the shop
was the tipping point that convinced Roma Rozencwajg to send her young son out of the ghetto.
Genia Olczak had been helping the family during their imprisonment already and been in close
contact with them so it was only natural that Gabryś should be taken by her. Olczak recalls, as
his mother said goodbye to her son she turned to Olczak and said, “Genia, I give you my greatest
treasure.”

86

87

To this Olczak replied, “You know that I love him like my own.”

Little Gabryś

was used to walking with Olczak even before she took him from the Warsaw ghetto, because his
mother Roma was forced to wear an armband indicating she was a Jew and therefore did not
want to take the child out with her because she felt it was unsafe. Olczak states, “it was
frightening, because the gendarmes were watching the Jews who were going to work outside, but
88

sometimes you could slip out,” so she took a chance and the child walked out with her.

Genia Olczak did not stop with just hiding this child. Roma Rozencwajg did not have any
money, but her brother Karol and his wife Estka were living in Lwów and Olczak made a few
trips there to get jewelry from them to sell to support Roma and the rest of the family in the
ghetto.

89

Olczak found employment through a Rozencwajg family connection. Frank Puncuh, a

Yugoslavian consul was married to Roma’s cousin and he found her a job at a pen factory and
86
87
88
89

Testimony of Genowefa Olczak, 6.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Karol and Estka Zakrzewski would then leave Lwów and join the family.
180

office supply at 21 Plocka Street and this employment also enabled her to have a formerly Jewish
owned apartment on 3 Ciepla Street where she would keep Gabryś, who passed as her
illegitimate son. She would also hide Roma and Estka there. Inside the apartment Olczak says
there was a niche behind an armoire. She remembers that there was a door behind the armoire
and Roma and Estka would go through that door and lock it from their side. Olczak speculates
that before the war, there must have been an entrance to another apartment and only the niche
remained after they made two apartments out of one. Olczak says of this hiding spot, “they could
90

look for them all day and they would not have found them.”

Little Gabryś was there at the

apartment seemingly alone all day while Olczak was at work and the two women were hiding.
He did not hide when they were hiding. Olczak also coordinated efforts for hiding and assisting
other members of the family that will be elaborated upon in the next chapter.
The decision to send Gabryś out of the ghetto with Olczak and for Roma and Estka to
hide with her were a result of the prewar relations these individuals had with one another. Olczak
grew up on the farm owned by Roma’s father and knew Estka because she was a member of
Roma’s family. She cared for Gabryś the majority of his young life and loved him as if he was
her own child, just as she loved Roma just like a sister.

91

Olczak became a part of this family

before the war and so when they needed gentile assistance she was the obvious choice.
When Janina Brandwajn decided it was necessary for her and her family to flee the
Warsaw ghetto she chose to seek aid from Leokadia Krzeminska because she had known her for

90
91

Testimony of Genowefa Olczak, 7.
Ibid., 4.
181

years. Krzeminska worked as a nanny for her relatives, including her cousin Krysia.

92

Of

Brandwajn’s few Christian acquaintances this woman seemed the most suitable because she had
known her since she was a child and was connected with her family. Krzeminska secured shelter
for Brandwajn and other family members and helped smuggle Krysia, who had been her prewar
charge along with Brandwajn’s younger sister Ola. Smuggling these girls out was especially
dangerous because they both had features associated with being Jewish. Krzeminska aided
members of this family throughout the occupation, even while facing threats from a blackmailer
and took no money in return for her efforts. This woman had prewar connections with many
members of Brandwajn’s family before the war that were strong enough to motivate her to take
great risks to aid them and to make her seem like the natural choice for Brandwajn to approach
during her time of need.93
After outbreak of the war Elizabeth Grotch’s father was deported, leaving her with her
mother and the nanny – Janina Zillow. The family fled Białystok for Lwów and stayed a year
and a half, before they finally traveled to Warsaw. Grotch’s mother and the nanny supported
themselves by knitting in Lwów and then they parted when Grotch and her mother entered the
Warsaw ghetto.

94

Zilow has been with the family since Elizabeth came home from the hospital.

Grotch recalls, “She was literally the mother I knew. My mother was, well before the war she
never took care of the children. I was just taken to say hello and goodnight.….My mother was

92

Testimony of Janina Brandwajn, Jewish Historical Institute, ZIH RG 301/ 5150, September
11, 1947, and testimony of Janina Branwajn, Yad Vashem, YVA RG 0.3/ 2359, December 1963.
This case is discussed in Joanna Michlic, Jewish Children in Nazi-Occupied Poland (Jerusalem:
Yad Vashem, 2008), 30-31.
93
Leokadia Krzeminska was declared Righteous Among the Nations in 1978.
94
Videotaped testimony of Elizabeth Grotch, File no. 26284, Tape 1, DATE, The USC Shoah
Foundation Visual History Archive.
182

like her oldest child.”

95

Grotch’s mother was having a very difficult time dealing with the loss of

her husband and her new living conditions. Grotch was not used to spending so much time with
her mother without the nanny’s presence and the ghetto was a “very bad place to start bonding
with one’s mother.”

96

In the ghetto Grotch says she was constantly waiting to see her nanny.

When conditions declined Grotch’s mother decided they must try to escape. As
mentioned above, some ghettos were more permeable than others and that had an important
effect on the ability of Jews to escape. Elizabeth Grotch’s mother sent postcards asking Zillow to
come and she tried to enter the ghetto three times but could not get in. Zillow finally managed to
enter the ghetto disguised as a laundry woman. Zillow stayed a few days. Grotch’s aunt “begged
her to take her daughter too and she said she couldn’t take one sister’s child and not the
other’s.”

97

Grotch’s mother asked Janina to take her as well but the nanny said she could not

hide an adult. Grotch was smuggled out in a bundle and her cousin in a cart and Zillow kept the
girls.
Zillow entered the ghetto intending only to take Grotch but could not refuse to take her
young cousin. It was already a real hardship to hide two girls and she was simply not able to take
an adult woman from the ghetto and protect her as well. Grotch noted earlier in her testimony
that Zillow treated Grotch’s mother like her own child so this must have been an extremely
painful decision for her to make. Grotch’s mother was already distressed at the loss of her
husband and to send her only child away would have likely compounded her state of despair.

95
96

Ibid., 9:14.
Ibid., 17:19.

97

Videotaped testimony of Elizabeth Grotch, File no. 26284, Tape 2, The USC Shoah
Foundation Visual History Archive, 8:24.
183

Irene Frisch’s family contacted their own former domestic servant to ask for her
assistance. Frisch was eight when the Soviets invaded her prewar home of Drohobycz, near
Lwów, and her family had been quite well off up until that time. The family had a housemaid,
Frania, who came to work for them as a young girl when her mother hired her right off the
98

street. After the 1941 Nazi invasion, the family fled their home and headed to Borysław. They
stayed with a Ukrainian woman for a time and then ended up in the ghetto. Frisch says that her
parents escaped the deportation aktions but were especially worried about her safety because she
was young and for her grandmother who was quite elderly. They could not get papers for Frisch
and in desperation sent for Frania to ask her to take Irene from the ghetto. Frania had married in
1939 but her husband had been drafted to the army and never returned so she was very poor.
Nevertheless, she came to the family on Christmas night because they thought that the soldiers
would be drunk so it would be easier to get out of the ghetto with a child. Frisch recalls her
mother saying to Frania, “If we don’t make it through the war, take care of her,” to which Frania
replied, “Don’t worry, I will convert her, she will be like my own child,” then bundled her up
and walked her out of the ghetto and to her home.

99

Frania found employment at the same brick

factory that Frisch’s father was employed and she was gone all day long, leaving Frisch to hide
silently in the apartment at the edge of Drohobycz. Frania smuggled letters back and forth
between the family and their daughter and sometimes Frania would go get Frisch’s mother from

98

Videotaped testimony of Irene Frisch, File no. 21824-3, Tape 2, October 28, 1996, The USC
Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive, 28:10. Frisch’s mother was pushing her brother in his
carriage to the park when a, “young country girl” stopped her commented on how beautiful he
was, and started making silly faces to entertain him. Frisch’s mother liked the girl right away and
asked her about herself to find that she had come from the country looking for work so she
brought her home. Frisch says after Frania came home with her mother she became, “the most
important person in our lives” (2:13).
99
Ibid., 5:39.
184

the ghetto to come and see her child. Frisch’s sister was still in the ghetto so her mother and
father could not leave.
During the liquidation of the ghetto Frisch’s mother, father, and sister escaped and made
their way to Frania’s apartment. Her home was not big enough to hide a family of four. In
addition, Frisch’s father had been a heavy smoker and his cough put them all at risk since the
apartment had to be silent as if it was empty all day while Frania was at work. Frisch’s father left
voluntarily to avoid compromising their safety and found shelter elsewhere. Frania hid Irene for
a total of two years and the mother and sister for approximately one year. To only send one child
out of the ghetto must have been a difficult decision for this family. Frania was described by
Frisch as a “staunch Catholic,” who never missed mass.

100

Frisch described her family as being

“traditional but not orthodox,” before the war so they also were aware that their daughter would
be raised as a Catholic if they did not survive, which was a real possibility. Frisch’s parents
desire to give her a chance at life outweighed any factors that might have caused them to keep
her with them in the ghetto.
Jula Jurek also took her Jewish prewar charge out of the ghetto and sheltered her, but not
without a preliminary false start. Until the outbreak of the war in 1939, Sheindel Charlotte
Kohn’s family owned a household goods store on Serbska Street in Lwów.

100

101

Kohn wrote, “Our

Ibid., 4:24. While Frisch says her family was “traditional” she also notes that she probably
“knew more about the Catholic religion than her own,” since she went to mass with Frania
regularly so she would not have to attend alone (4:24).
101
Nava Ruda, “One Day This Will Be a Film: Childhood Memories of a Girl from the Lvov
Ghetto,” United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Accession Number 2004.615, 8. Kohn was
four years old when the Germans invaded Poland and she describes her family as very religious,
although not strictly observant. In her memoir the author recalls that when she was two, Jula
Jurek came to work at their home as a nursemaid. Jurek was single, Polish, Catholic, illiterate,
and a native of Brody. Jurek was nine years older than Kohn’s parents and “was devoted” loving
185

Holocaust began on June 30, 1941,” when the Germans took Lwów and they were then forced to
move into the ghetto while Jurek remained in their home.

102

Jurek remained in contact with the

family and visited them inside the Lwów ghetto. Prior to the 1941 Passover action, Kohn and her
cousin Lusia, were told to go to the city center to avoid the danger and they fled to the family’s
former home that was occupied by Jurek.

103

Jurek was not home but her niece, Stasza was there

and she let the girls in and kept them overnight. They returned to the ghetto when the situation
settled down.
The family prepared a hiding place in their ghetto home down in the basement and Jurek
aided by smuggling food to the family while they attempted to scratch out a living in the ghetto.
During a February 1943 aktion this hiding place was discovered and the family was sent to a
detention house overnight.

104

They were sent from the detention house to the knitwear shop at

which her father worked at the next day. Kohn recalls that her parents were continuously looking
for ways to get her out of the ghetto. In spite of the risk, it was decided that Kohn and her mother
should try to escape by joining one of the groups that walk out of the ghetto to their work detail,
and successfully made it through the gate.

105

By the time of Kohn and her mother’s escape, Jula Jurek was no longer living in the
family’s flat. She had moved in with her brother-in-law while her sister was living in a mental

Kohn and “practically raising” her like she was her mother (8). Jurek even learned Yiddish and
how to keep kosher.
102
Ibid., 10.
103
104
105

Kohn and her family lived with her cousin’s family in the ghetto.
Ibid., 15.
Ibid., 19.
186

hospital. Kohn writes, “Her brother-in-law, named Szczepanowski, was a terrifying man.”

106

Jurek was working as a laundress so Kohn and her mother asked the janitor, a Polish woman, if
they could wait for her and she let them wait in her apartment. When Jurek returned from work
she was surprised to see them but took them in. When her brother-in-law returned home Kohn
wrote, “He firmly objected to our presences and shouted, ‘Why do you bring Jewish women into
our house? Do you want to put all of us in danger?’”

107

He yelled for them to get out and Kohn

and her mother went back to the ghetto. Kohn’s father did not give up and remained in contact
with Jurek who saw him at his place of work.
Her father planned another escape and this time he got Kohn out of the ghetto before
Passover in 1943. Kohn met Jurek at the fence and since she was a small girl of eight years, she
squeezed through the ghetto wall where a board was missing.

108

Three months later the ghetto

was liquidated and Kohn’s parents were sent to Janowska. This time, Jurek managed to keep
Kohn for the duration of the war. Kohn’s parents persisted in their efforts to get their daughter
out of the ghetto and place her with Jurek and Jurek finally was able to accommodate their
wishes.
The desire to take a child was obviously not the only factor in whether a former employee
would take a child from the ghetto. This is evident in the case of Jula Jurek and Sheindel
Charlotte. Without a proper hiding place, Jurek could not accommodate the child. In addition, it
was a great financial burden to take on for women who had very little means. It put them in
grave danger, and often meant the caregiver had to relocate or avoid the people in their lives that
106
107

Ibid.
Ibid.

108

Ibid., 19-20. Again, this points to the importance of the permeability of the ghetto in escape
and smuggling efforts.
187

might notice a change in her behavior or situation. Carmela Finkel, was born in Radziechów and
grew up with a maid in the home. The maid stayed with the family until it was decreed by the
Germans that Jewish families could no longer keep gentile household employees. The maid went
back home to her family and when the situation declined in the ghetto; they contacted her and
asked her to take their two daughters. Finkel remembers, “We dressed as farmer’s daughters and
we would go out in the field with the maid and just stay there watching the cattle graze.”

109

After about two weeks, Finkel’s father somehow heard there was gossip about these two girls
that suddenly appeared with this maid’s family.

110

He became afraid they would be denounced

so he asked the maid to return the girls, which she did.

111

Her father took the girls to a new

hiding place after this. Finkel speculates that this maid probably loved them as she would have
her own sisters since she had raised them. She was willing to risk her own well-being as well as
that of her own family to protect these girls but it was too dangerous for Finkel’s father to trust
that they all could be safe there.
An Offer of Aid
Sometimes efforts to hide a child were initiated by parents as illustrated above but in
other instances the offer was made by a former employee who was aware of what was happening
in the ghetto. It was not unusual that these women wanted to take a child or another member of
the family they cared for out of the ghetto because they feared for them. Hanna Gotfryd, born in
Brzeziny, lived with her parents at her maternal grandparents. Her maternal aunt and cousin
Leonek also lived in the family home, along with his nanny Hela. Gotfryd was ten when the
109

Videotaped testimony of Carmela Finkel, File no. 12543-4, Tape One, February 25, 1996,
The USC Shoah Visual History Archives, 12:58.
110
Videotaped testimony of Carmela Finkel, File no. 12543-4, Tape One.
111

Ibid.
188

Nazis invaded Poland and her family was sent into the ghetto at Brzeziny. Leonek’s nanny did
not leave them until she was no longer allowed to stay in the ghetto with them.

112

Gotfryd

recalled that the nanny loved little Leonek. Gotfryd was told after the war that the pregnant
nanny came to Leonek’s mother and grandparents in the ghetto and said she wished to take him
out of the ghetto, but that she would have to move to another town where they would not be
recognized.

113

She promised that if his mother survived she would return the child. Gotfryd

explains, “Ida (Leonek’s mother) could not make up her mind and she didn’t give him away and
then he was taken away with the other little kids.”

114

This was a monumental decision and asked

parents to place their precious children in someone else’s care, trusting them to keep them alive.
The nanny was willing to take this risk that would put her and her unborn child in grave danger
but Leonek’s mother just could not make a decision like this on the spot.
Chana Hemd was an adolescent at the outbreak of the war. Her family had a maid who
came and did work and minded the children but she was not live-in. This woman, Mikotajowa,
lost her husband early in the war as soon as the Germans made it to Częstochowa. Hemd
remembers Mikotajowa was a “lonely woman.”

115

She says, “She wanted even to save us from

the little ghetto and my mother would never give up her children because she used to say they’re
not going to raise them like goyim.”

116

Sending a child with a gentile caregiver might allow the

112

Videotaped testimony of Hanna Gotfryd, File no. 24543-99, Tape Two, January 7, 1997, The
USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive.
113
Ibid.
114

Ibid., 19:49. Gotfryd’s cousin survived and in 1988 returned to Brzeziny and found his
former nanny and took her to Israel to visit.
115
Videotaped testimony of Chana Hemd, File no. 38978-1, Tape 1, March 4, 1998, The USC
Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive, 21:16.
116
Ibid., 21:40.
189

child to survive, but there were also concerns about what this would mean. The child would be
raised as a Polish Catholic and lose their Jewish identity which was a grave concern for some
religious families.
Deborah Herzog’s mother also was unable to come to terms with sending her child away.
The family had a much beloved maid, Jazdka, discussed in previous chapters, who was Herzog’s
wet-nurse initially and then stayed on as the maid when the child was too old to need a wetnurse. This maid came to the family in the Bochnia ghetto and brought them what she could.
When the family found they were going to be deported Herzog’s mother contacted Jazdka and
asked her to take her daughter. Herzog remembers, “she took me with her…it must have been
very hard for her because first of all if she would have been caught with me both of us would
have been shot.”

117

Herzog also says that while Jazdka looked very Polish, she herself looked

very Jewish which made traveling with the child exceptionally dangerous.
The former employee had a difficult time finding a safe refuge for herself and the child.
Finally, Herzog took her to Kraków to stay with some friends. The maid left her charge with her
friends there and went back to Bochnia to check on the family. The family was supposed to
report to be deported but did not. They were then denounced for failing to report and the police
took them along with Herzog’s aunt and uncle. They escaped but at that point Herzog says,
“Mother then decided what happened to them should happen to me because a child shouldn’t be
left without parents.”

118

So Herzog returned to her parents and never left with her former

117

Videotaped testimony of Deborah Herzog, File no. 42124-40, Tape 3, March 14, 1998, The
USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive, 6:40.
118
Ibid., 13:03.
190

caregiver again.
together.

119

Some families decided that whatever their fate, they should remain

120

The Foxman family, Helen, Joseph and Abraham, all survived the war. Joseph Foxman
attributes the efforts of Abraham’s nanny, Bronisława Kurpi, for their survival. Helen Foxman
was born in Warsaw in 1910.

121

She was married and pregnant when the war broke out and her

husband was away working in Baronowice. She joined him there and gave birth to their son,
Abraham. Conditions were very poor in Baronowice so she and her family traveled to Vilna
where she started to work at a book-binding factory and hired a Polish Catholic maid,
Bronisława Kurpi, to care for the baby while she was working. Foxman says that while she was
away the girl took care of everything, the cleaning, and caring for the baby. When it was ordered
that Jews move into the ghetto the maid approached them and asked what they would do with the
baby and Foxman replied that the baby would go with them. Kurpi proposed that the family
allow her to take little Abraham instead. The couple then gave Kurpi all their possessions so she
could sell them to support herself and the child and Mr. Foxman assured her he would continue
to support them from the ghetto. This woman did not have a long-standing relationship with the

119

Herzog and her parents survived and were reunited with Jazdka in Poland after the war.
Herzog described seeing Jazdka again as “unbelievable” and they spent some days together.
While in Poland Herzog’s mother had a heart attack (1947) and died. At the funeral it was just
Deborah, her father, and Jazdka, Herzog remembers Jazdka saying, “Now my lady’s gone, I have
nobody left,” pointing to the depth of affection that she felt for her former employer. Deborah
was fifteen years of age at this time. Her father would remarry a year later and they would leave
for Australia. See Videotaped testimony of Deborah Herzog, File no. 42124-40, Tape 7, March
14, 1998, The USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive, 6:05.
120
This is also evident in the above mentioned case of Milla Tenenbaum. She was only sent
with her prewar caregiver after her father was deported and unable to dissent. He did not want
the family to be separated.
121
Second Generation of Long Island Collection Interview of Helen Foxman, One Tape, July 6,
1983, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, RG 50.205*0028.
191

family and would later come to have a very complicated relationship with the couple,
particularly Helen Foxman.

122

However, she sheltered the baby and for his mother Helen

Foxman for an extended period of time. This allowed them a measure of protection and allowed
Joseph Foxman to focus on his own survival.

123

Sometimes a family went to a former employee and asked them to take a member of the
family or the entire family, and sometimes the maid initiated the action. This was a complicated
decision for everyone involved and came with some dire consequences even when it was
successful. A child may survive but could lose their Jewish identity or their parents, if they
survived, could become like strangers to them. Being separated from one another caused an
addition layer of distress under already unthinkable conditions. And these are the cases when a
maid takes a child and does as promised.
Refusals, Misgivings, and Deceit
A prior relationship was certainly no guarantee that a former maid would be receptive to
aiding her former employers during the war. This is evident above in the case of Sabrina
Hersch’s escape from the ghetto. She was met with harsh words and a kick when she showed up
unannounced on the doorstep of her former caregiver. Some former caregivers made attempts to
protect their former charges and gave up when it was too difficult. Jula Jurek tried multiple times
to help the Kohn family before meeting with success but many aid givers were not so persistent.
Jan Klapper-Karpinski’s caregiver and the former maid for the Kryszak family both illustrate
cases in which the former caregiver had good intentions and wanted to protect their former
charges, but just were not in the position to do so.

122
123

This case will be discussed in more detail in chapter six.
This case is discussed further in the following chapter.
192

Klapper-Karpińksi was born in Kraków and was around nine years old at the outbreak of
the war.

124

When the Germans came, the family, with the exception of his father who had to stay

at his post, fled to Lwów and stayed there until the outbreak of the German-Soviet war. In July
1941 his mother and one of his older brothers disappeared during a round-up, leaving him and
his oldest brother alone.

125

When the ghetto was formed they moved to Janowska Street, within

its borders until Christmas 1941 when Klapper-Karpiński’s brother decided to send him back to
Kraków to his father. Once he returned to Kraków he was placed on the so-called Aryan side
with his prewar nanny, Katarzyna Żołna, where he stayed until September 1942. KlapperKarpiński’s father was caught in an aktion in May 1942 and his older brother in an aktion in the
Lwów ghetto. Żołna was supporting herself and the child with her pension and the situation
became increasingly dangerous as the people renting them their room were afraid to have a Jew
in their home. Żołna was no longer able to keep him with her and Klapper-Karpiński was sent
back into the ghetto until its liquidation. During the chaos he was able to escape and ran to Żołna
for help but she had no place to keep the child. He left for Warsaw in search of other family
members survived the war moving from place to place. His former nanny wanted to shelter the
boy but lacked the resources to do so.
Sabina Kryszak made arrangements to place her son Staś with her sister’s former
household employee, Genia. Kryszak’s sister took the child out of the ghetto and brought him to
Genia who had kind feelings towards the child. When her boyfriend arrived later and realized the
child was Jewish he was angry and told her that she must get rid of the “Jewish bastard” or he

124

Jan Klapper-Karpiński, “My Nanny,”, The Last Eyewitness: Children of the Holocaust
Speak, Volume 2, Jakub Gutenbaum and Agnieszka Latała, ed. (Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern
University Press, 2005), 107-109
125
Ibid.
193

126

would.

Unable to keep the child, Genia provided him with some money when she left him.

Sometimes these women did not feel it was possible to keep these children. There was a great
amount of stigma and danger surrounding providing aid to Jews and it created much tension
when a Jewish child was brought into the home because everyone assumed the risk and potential
consequences.

127

Neighbors and other Poles were the most tangible threat to a Polish helper and

denunciation could come from former friends, family members, or acquaintances one had known
for years.
Sometimes a former domestic servant was motivated to take a former charge not out of
love or feelings of obligation, but instead for financial benefit.

128

Cases of rescue that involve

the exchange of money have been under discussed in the scholarship on rescue. Some of these
cases were purely for financial reasons and sometimes for other reasons combined with financial
motivators. Alfred Mazo was placed with a prewar domestic servant and all of their possessions
were given to this maid in return for his safe-keeping. According to the testimony of Jadwiga
Borkowska, after a few months this former domestic servant left the boy alone, without any
money, in the streets in Warsaw and told him to go to a shop owned by a relative of Borkowska’s
as they had been in contact with his parents who were interned in the ghetto.

129

At first, Mazo

desperately searched for the maid who left him but he finally gave up and went to the shop as she
126

Testimony of Sabina Kryszek and Staś Kryszek, Jewish Historical Institute, RG 301/ 1424,
2. This case is also discussed in Joanna Michlic, Jewish Children in Nazi-Occupied Poland,
(Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 2008).
127
See also Joanna Michlic, “The Stigmatization of Dedicated Polish Women Rescuers During
the Second World War and Its Aftermath,” East European Memory Studies, no. 13 (2013): 1-6
for further discussion.
128
See also Jan Grabowski, Rescue for Money: Paid Helpers in Poland, 1939-1945 (Jerusalem:
Yad Vashem, 2008) for further discussion.
129
Testimony of Jadwiga Borkowska, Jewish Historical Institute, RG 301/ 5115, August 6,
1946. This case is also discussed in Joanna Michlic, Jewish Children in Nazi-Occupied Poland.
194

instructed him. Borkowska and her husband happened to be at the shop when Mazo arrived and
she and her husband took him out of pity. This maid would also later denounce this family who
owned the shop for their aid to the Mazo family. This maid not only took the all of the Mazo’s
parents remaining possessions and betrayed them, she actively sought to harm Borkowska’s
family that she knew through her connections with her prewar employers. In other cases money
was exchanged but the rescuer had additional reasons for taking a child as well. This is evident in
the above mentioned case of the Foxman family and their helper Bronisława Kurpi, that is
explored further in the following chapter.
Leaving the Ghetto
Motivation to leave the ghetto or send a child from a ghetto often came when a family or
individual felt that this was the only or best option for survival. This was only a viable option for
those who had someone who they thought to be a reliable connection of the so-called Aryan side.
It was extremely useful to have a gentile who could make arrangements, convey information, and
act as proxy in the outside world for someone who was inside the ghetto. A former household
employee was often someone who was often intimately familiar with a family and already had
served in the capacity as caretaker so she was often a natural choice. These were however
women of little financial means who had to find new housing and employment as a result of
losing their position with the family as a result of the war. This meant that even if the desire to
aid was felt, the ability was dependent to a large degree on her resources.
A family who could give an aid provider something she could sell to raise funds for them
or had connections with other gentiles or Jews that were in the position to help with their
survival efforts was in a better position than a family without. In the case of Genia Olczak, she
used her former employer’s connections to gain employment and housing in addition to her own

195

connections with a member of Żegota to get papers for Gabryś which in turn made it possible for
her to help out several members of Rozencwag/ Zakrzewski family. Alternatively, Jula Jurek
wanted to aid her former employers but it took a couple of false starts before she could help them
stay out of the ghetto because she did not have the resources herself and the family did not have
an abundance of connections for her to use. This was important not only in aiding a family
inside the ghetto and with their escape, it was also of great importance once a care giver was
aiding a former charge who was living clandestinely outside of the ghetto. Any resources and
connections the Jewish family needing assistance had could make a rescuer or aid provider’s
efforts more successful. This will become more evident in the following chapter which addresses
how rescue played out on the ground for caregivers and their charges but it is also abundantly
clear in examining the aid they provided while the families were interned in the ghettos and in
getting individuals out and placed in hiding on the so-called Aryan side.

196

CHAPTER SIX
LIFE IN HIDING ON THE ARYAN SIDE
Elizabeth Grotch, born in 1938, referred to her nanny Janina Zillow as the mother “she
1

knew” before the war. Zillow was present in the home providing the daily, hands-on childrearing tasks, making sure she was dressed, bathed, and looked after. After Janina Zillow
removed Grotch, along with her cousin Lillian Trilling, from the Warsaw ghetto, the trio went to
the former nanny’s sister’s home but they could only stay a few days because Zillow’s sister, a
laundress, was afraid to keep them any longer. The nanny told people the girls were her nieces
and that she was caring for them because her brother had been killed. The girls called her aunt in
public but sometimes mixed up details, adding to the danger. Zillow obtained papers for Grotch
2

and Trilling and the three of them traveled by train to Lwów, where Zillow had been living. To
avoid scrutiny, Zillow kept the girls inside the apartment all day while she worked, but they were
denounced by the landlord. During her encounter with the Germans, Zillow was thrown against
the wall and feared that she would be sent to work in Germany so she and the two girls had to
leave the area. The three of them parted ways; Trilling was provided with papers to work in
Warsaw, and Grotch and Zillow went to stay with the nanny’s family in Lublin.

1

Videotaped testimony of Elizabeth Grotch, File no. 26284, Tape 1, The USC Shoah Foundation
Visual History Archive, 9:14. Her own mother was very involved outside of the household so
she spent a great deal of her time with her nanny. Grotch would get to know her own mother
better once they were confined in the ghetto and she became her primary caregiver, which was
also difficult due to the stress of the situation.
2
Lwów was invaded by the Soviets in 1939 under the terms of the Nazi-Soviet pact. The
Germans would invade the Soviet Union and take Lwów in June 1941.
197

Life with Zillow’s family, who she described as “pro-Nazi” was difficult for both Grotch
3

and her caregiver. While the rest of Zillow’s family treated her well, the mother was openly
hostile towards her. Upon their arrival, the mother said to Zillow, “Well when you were a child
4

you used to bring stray cats, now you bring stray Jews.” Grotch lived in a formerly Jewish
owned apartment with her caregiver, her caregiver’s mother, brother, and sister. The family was
also running a formerly Jewish-owned business and hiding a Jewish child in this home leading to
a great deal of conflict. Grotch was generally kept concealed because the family was afraid
people would see her and recognize her typically Jewish features. Zillow’s family denounced
people, looted their belongings, and directly benefitted from the persecution of the Jewish
population by receiving both an apartment and a business. Grotch describes the mother as
fiercely anti-Semitic. Yet, this family was willing to risk its members’ lives to hide a Jewish
child in their home which seems contradictory in the face of their other behavior. Grotch
suggests that Zillow’s mother was desperate to have Zillow there and the former maid wanted a
5

child of her own. Zillow had kept a Jewish baby in her Lwów apartment while she was hiding
Trilling and Grotch but when they were denounced the baby had to be sent away and Grotch
6

recalls she would frequently comment that it was a shame about that other baby. So while
Zillow’s mother may have had ambivalent or negative feelings about Grotch, Zillow was, “her
daughter, her youngest child, so it was better to have her even if she had to put up with that (a

3

Videotaped testimony of Elizabeth Grotch, File no. 26284, Tape 2, The USC Shoah Foundation
Visual History Archive.
4
Ibid., 25:12.
5

Videotaped testimony of Elizabeth Grotch, File no. 26284, Tape 3, The USC Shoah
Foundation Visual History Archive, 2:17.
6
The testimony does not indicate where the baby is sent to.
198

7

Jewish child in their home).” And for Zillow, the desire to have a child and her feelings of
attachment to her prewar charge were enough to motivate Zillow to take an enormous risk and
suffer her mother’s displeasure.

8

Despite the animosity of the mother, Grotch was in many ways treated as part of this
family. They celebrated the holidays together and she was even taken to church sometimes even
though that was quite risky. Grotch believes she stayed with the family in Lublin at least one and
a half years and she stayed with Zillow until she left Poland in 1946. This was a very
uncomfortable and sometimes hostile environment for the child, and yet she was with the one
person she felt safest with, Janina Zillow. Her maid was willing to deal with her mother’s
disapproval and risk not only her own life, but the lives of all of her immediate family to keep
this child.
Zillow’s age, the nanny’s role as the child’s primary caregiver before the war, and this
time they spent together in hiding allowed their bond to become even stronger during the Nazi
occupation while staying briefly in Lwów and then in Lublin. When Grotch was approximately
four or five years old, Zillow told her that her mother had been killed. She replied to her, “Thank
God it wasn’t you,” and her caregiver replied by yelling at her for saying such a thing and asking

7

Ibid., 2:52.

8

Complicated relations between Catholic Poles and Polish Jews such as this contribute to our
current understanding of Polish-Jewish relations during times of conflict and is in conversation
with the current body of scholarship on the subject. For further discussion, see Joanna Beata
Michlic, Poland’s Threatening Other: The Image of the Jew from 1880 to Present; Magdalena
Opalski and Israel Bartal, Poles and Jews: A Failed Brotherhood; Jan T. Gross, Neighbors: The
Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne, Poland; Yisreal Gutman and Shmuel
Krakowski, Unequal Victims: Poles and Jews During WWII; Jan Grabowski, Hunt for Jews;
Emmanuel Ringelblum, Polish-Jewish Relations during the Second World War.
199

9

her if she was ashamed of herself. Grotch cried into her soup after this conversation. Zillow was
quite attached to Grotch’s mother, acting very nurturing and protectively towards her employer
before the war and was likely upset at the news of her death. Jarring as it may have been to hear
the child express her lack of attachment to her mother, her reaction perhaps was not completely
unexpected. Grotch was so young at the outbreak of the war and says that by the end of the war
she thought this woman was her mother. The memory her own mother was so vague by then that
she did not even want to think about her or about being Jewish.

10

Her age, the time spent with

the caregiver and the need to pretend and live as if she was Zillow’s child certainly reinforced
this forgetting.
Grotch survived the war with Zillow and was claimed by her extended family whose
members were living in the United States. Zillow traveled with the child to Sweden and Cuba for
two years until they finally reached the family in the United States.

11

This woman left her

family and home in Poland rather than be separated from her charge. Many of these women who
protected Jewish children loved their charges even before the war but the time spent together
living in fear as part of a conspiracy formed a new and deeper bond. Some of these women
risked everything to keep these children, not just discovery by the authorities which could result
in death, but loss of their family of origin, loved ones, acquaintances, and friends. The children
themselves sometimes were old enough to be aware of the situation or sometimes were so young,
as in the case of Grotch, that the identity they took while passing became their primary identity.

9

Videotaped testimony of Elizabeth Grotch, File no. 26284, Tape 2, 27:48. The death of
Grotch’s mother was likely quite upsetting for Zillow as she had assumed a mothering role
towards her employer before the war.
10
Videotaped testimony of Elizabeth Grotch, File no. 26284, Tape 3, 3:25.
11

Further discussion of this case can be found in the conclusion.
200

They did not always realize how abnormal the situation was. The moving, the tension in the
home, the adoption of an entirely new identity-- for some children this was the only childhood
they would remember. Thus it was not until later that they would understand exactly what was
happening. Even for older children, the lines were also not so clear. They may have had very
clear memories of their parents and missed them very much but they also became increasingly
attached to their caregivers and to their new identity. As we can see in the case of Elizabeth
Grotch and her nanny Janina Zillow, while caring for a prewar charge or being cared for by a
prewar maid or nanny was in fact an extension of prewar life and provided a degree of normalcy,
the situation also distorted and complicated every aspect of life for those involved in these
conspiracies.
Contributing to the current scholarship of the effects of passing and hiding on Jewish
children and their protectors, this chapter argues that the conditions of the Nazi occupation
changed the relationships between the caregiver and the child she rescued, her former employers,
and often her own acquaintances, family, and friends.

12

The rescue dynamic led to both a

greater intimacy between the caregiver and charge as they became partners in conspiracy even
while their clandestine activity greatly narrowed their universe and altered the prewar pattern of

12

See also Maria Hochberg-Mariańska and Noe Gruss, eds., The Children Accuse; Wiktoria
Śliwowska, ed., The Last Eyewitnesses: Children of the Holocaust Speak, Vol. 1; Jakub
Gutenbaum and Agnieszka Latała, eds., The Last Eyewitness: Children of the Holocaust Speak,
Vol. 2; Elaine Saphier Fox, ed., Out of Chaos: Hidden Children Remember the Holocaust; Kerry
Blueglass, ed., Hidden From the Holocaust: Stories of Resiliant Children who Survived and
Thrived ; Emunah Nachmany Gafny, Dividing Hearts: The Removal of Jewish Children from
Gentile Families in Poland in the Immediate Postwar Years; Nahum Bogner, At the Mercy of
Strangers: The Rescue of Jewish Children with Assumed Identities in Poland; Joanna Michlic,
“Rebuilding Shattered Lives: Some Vignettes of Jewish Children’s Lives in Early Postwar
Poland; Joanna B. Michlic, “Who Am I? Jewish Children Search for Identity in Post-War
Poland,” and her, Jewish Children in Nazi-Occupied Poland: Survival and Polish-Jewish
Relations During the Holocaust as Reflected in Early Postwar Recollections.
201

authority between the former employers and employees. The new dynamic also changed the
character of the relationship between the child and caregiver, complicating it, and adding new
tensions as the level of intimacy increased. Finally, I seek to demonstrate how this new situation
led to an alteration in the inter ethno-religious ties and relationships that existed during the
interwar period.
An Ever Shrinking Universe
Nazi policy was intended to sever ties between Polish Jews and gentiles and in many
cases this policy was overwhelmingly effective. However, in many cases where rescue by a
former household servant occurred, Nazi policy had exactly the opposite effect. Rather than
cutting ties and ignoring the fate of their Jewish employers these women who engaged in
clandestine rescue and aid activities bound their own fate to that of the Jews they were aiding.
Aid provider and recipient became linked in these illegal activities and in many cases the aid
providers were even forced to sever ties from their own families, friends, and acquaintances in
order to protect their charges. So, in essence, sometimes these gentile women would chose to cut
themselves off from their former world with the exception of their Jewish attachments, doing
exactly the opposite of what was intended by the occupying regime. Sometimes these women
relied on the assistance of their own families and friends in their aim to protect a child. In these
cases the entire group was able to share the burdens of the clandestine activity but this activity
cut them off from their own friends and family members outside of the circle of secrecy.
In order to protect a Jewish child, it was necessary to either pass that child off as a gentile
or to conceal his or her existence completely. As these women had ties to these children from
before the war, even in urban areas, they ran the risk that the child would be recognized as their
prewar Jewish charge. As a result, when a former caregiver took a child from the ghetto they

202

either had to conceal the child completely from anyone who may recognize them, or to relocate
them to where they would not be recognized. To relocate was no small feat under Nazi
occupation and required finding new housing and employment in a city where they could
become anonymous. It also required taking the risk of traveling there with a Jewish child. When
This often meant travel by train which was incredibly risky. Milla Tenenbaum remembers
traveling by train with her protector, Cecelia Krzeminska from her hiding place in Będzin to a
temporary hiding place in the countryside the woman tried to keep the little girl covered with a
blanket the entire time to keep the other passengers from seeing her face.

13

These caregivers

were typically members of the peasant or working class and economic times were difficult so
they typically had few resources. Not relocating and opting to conceal the child was also
challenging. Any change in behavioral patterns, such as increased grocery purchases or spending
less time with friends could signal that something was amiss. A surprise visit from a neighbor or
landlord or the child making noise in the apartment while the caregiver was away could have
disastrous consequences. These women generally had to work to support themselves and the
Jewish child so often this required young children to stay home unsupervised and often hidden.
In the case of Zillow and Grotch, Zillow could not stay in the city and needed to take the
child someplace else, so she returned to her family of origin in Lubin. This created conflict in the
family but also required a cover story for the appearance of this child. In a small town or village
people were familiar with one another and the appearance of someone who had been away with a
child they had never heard about before and no husband roused suspicion and demanded a cover
story. Some women passed their charges off as their own offspring. It was of course much easier
to explain the presence of a child without a husband to strangers than to one’s own family and
13

Videotaped testimony of Milla Tenenbaum, File no. 33627-4, Tape 3, September 16, 1997,
The USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive.
203

friends requiring women to either relocate to someplace that would provide them anonymity or
have an alternative cover story. As mentioned in the introduction, former nanny, Wictoria
Rodziewiecz, removed Sarah Wall from the Vilna ghetto and initially stayed in the city so the
child could continue to have contact with her mother.

14

In June 1941, after Wall and

Rodziewiecz were recognized by a former neighbor, Rodziewiecz was called in for questioning
by the Gestapo. She was released but this incident made it apparent that they would have to leave
the city so she took Wall, then twenty months old, to see her mother one last time before they
15

fled.

In preparation, Rodziewiecz went to her priest to ask for papers for her charge but since

she told the clergy that the child was Jewish he would not oblige her request and suggested she
ask another priest she did not know. She took his advice, told another priest that Wall was her
illegitimate child and had her baptized as Irena to obtain legal documents.
Rodziewiecz then returned to her family of origin in Grauzyszki with a baby, unmarried.
In the beginning, Wall says her caretaker did not know who she could trust so she did not
initially tell her family this secret. Wall says, “You can well imagine this devout Catholic
women….” had to bear this shame.

16

Soon it was apparent her family could be trusted and even

after the child’s identity was revealed the family continued to treat her well. Just to be safe,
however, anytime people came around they would start admonishing the child, yelling at her,
“you bastard,” for good measure.

17

Genia Olczak also passed off her charge, Gabriel as her

illegitimate child as did Franceszka Ziemiańska who has been mentioned in previous chapters
14

Videotaped Interview of Sarah Wall, File no. 42189-1, June 14, 1998, Tape 1, The USC
Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive.
15
Ibid. Rodziewiecz offered to take the child’s mother with her but her mother believed that the
more people Rodziewiecz had to hide the greater the danger so she declined this offer.
16
Ibid., 18:30.
17

Videotaped Interview of Sarah Wall, File no. 42189-1, June 14, 1998, Tape 1.
204

and will be mentioned again shortly. This was a common means of concealing the identity of a
Jewish child even though it was certainly not without its problems and there was a stigma
attached to this mode of deception for the caretaker.
Increased Intimacy
The conspiracy that Wall and Rodziewiecz participated in, just like in the above
mentioned case of Zillow and Grotch, firmly cemented the relationship between caregiver and
charge as one of mother and child. Like Grotch, Wall was very young when she was placed in
Rodziewiecz’s care and eventually this woman would be the only mother she remembered. Wall
slept with Rodziewiecz every night. She remembers these wartime years as hard for everyone but
she recalls feeling fairly secure and being treated with love.
most important person in Rodziewiecz’s life.

19

18

She always felt like she was the

The nanny would bleach Wall’s hair blond to

ensure she looked Polish (Wall would not realize until later that this was not a normal action),
they celebrated all the Catholic holidays, and she describes herself as just like all the other
(gentile) children, meaning anti-Semitic.

20

One night Rodziewiecz and Wall had to leave in the

middle of the night because people seemed to be suspicious and she made it into a game, “like
everyone just leaves in the middle of the night.”

21

These abnormal activities that were necessary

to conceal the true identity of a child often did not even seem abnormal to the children at the
time. Depending on their age or the situation, they did not know the difference or they became

18

Ibid., 22:49.

19

Ibid., 27:40. She actually says, “never was there a time when I felt like I wasn’t treated like I
was the most important person both in my nanny’s life and my mother’s life” when recollecting
her childhood and the bonds she would feel all her life with both of these women.
20
Ibid., 27:58. She clarifies, she did not learn these ideas from the family or her caregiver, but
rather the neighborhood kids she played with.
21
Videotaped Interview of Sarah Wall, File no. 42189-1, June 14, 1998, Tape 2, 26:10.
205

accustomed to this. Wall for example, did not have any idea at the end of the war that this
woman who had raised her was not her biological mother. After she was reunited with her own
mother, who survived the war, she continued to miss her caregiver all the time but she did not
ever share this sadness with her mother because she knew it would be hurtful to her to hear.

22

Rodziewiecz and Wall developed this strong mother-daughter relationship that was
strengthened by the absence of the child’s mother and by the conspiracy in which they engaged.
The family treated Wall as if she was a member and behaved as if Rodziewiecz was the child’s
mother. While these familial feelings were rooted in real affection and attachment, their public
performance were also essential to survival. Everyone’s lives depended on this conspiracy.
Acting as a family and everyone treating the child as if this was her identity was part of the
conspiracy but also in turn further cemented the bond between the former household employee
and her charge and reinforced the identity. Furthermore, Wall did not know any of this was
abnormal. She did not realize that having her hair bleached regularly was to conceal her Jewish
identity; it was just something she did. The family closed ranks and all became responsible for
this secret and all bore the risks. They pretended that the child was a “bastard” and it stands to
reason that this would have been the cause of gossip and shame for the family as a whole but
especially for Rodziewiecz. So while Rodziewiecz was able to maintain her connections with her
family of origin she did have to leave her home and acquaintances in Vilna and bear the shame
of having a child out of wedlock, thus restricting her social life and connections. Rather than her
universe shrinking, this conspiracy restricted the universe of the entire family unit.
Most caregivers were not fortunate enough to have the support of their families in their
rescue activities and even when they did have some assistance from their own family or friends
22

Ibid. The reunification of Wall and her mother and resolution with her protector will be
further discussed in the conclusion.
206

they still had to conceal their activities from everyone else. This included neighbors, landlords,
co-workers, shopkeepers, and even priests. Nothing could appear out of the ordinary. Karolina
Sapetowa was employed as a nanny for the Hochweiser children, Samuś, Salusia, and Iziu before
the war and after they were confined in the Kraków ghetto with their parents she continued to
have contact with the family taking food and needed items to them. The youngest child came to
stay with her at her home in Witanowice and she would take the older children from the ghetto
temporarily whenever the situation became especially unstable. She worried and missed the
children when they were confined and thought of them as her own.

23

In March, 1943 when the

ghetto was liquidated Sapetowa and her aunt went to the ghetto and caught sight of the older
children, Iziu and Salusia, with their mother and the as soon as their mother caught sight of
Sapetowa, she urged the children to “Go to Karolcia.”

24

Salusia “slipped like a mouse between

the heavy boots of the Ukrainians” who did not notice the child.
with her “hands stretched out imploringly.”

26

25

The little girl ran to Sapetowa

Iziu stayed with his mother and they were both

loaded aboard a transport and Sapetowa never saw them again.
Sapetowa took Salusia back home to Witanowice where she was already keeping her
little brother Samuś. At first, the children were able to play outdoors and her neighbors did not
harass her much but this did not last long. When relations grew difficult with the other villagers
she began keeping the children indoors but the threats from her neighbors increased rapidly. Her
neighbors implored and threatened her to turn the children in to the Gestapo before they all were

23

“Karolina Sapetowa,” Maria Hochberg-Marianska and Noe Gruss, eds., in The Children
Accuse (London and Portland: Vallentine Mitchell, 1996), 277-79.
24
Ibid.
25
26

Ibid., 278.
Ibid.
207

punished for harboring Jewish children. The village administrator was friendly to Sapetowa but
there was only so much he could do to mitigate the situation. She responded to their demands by
“telling them off” or bribing them until one day in 1944 shortly before the Soviets liberated
Witanowice the local farmers came to her and told her that they must “get rid of the children.”

27

Their plan to do so involved taking the children to the barn and cutting their heads off while they
slept.

28

Sapetowa lived with her elderly father and he was of course alarmed at this turn of events
and the children were aware of what was happening. She remembers, “The poor children knew
everything and before they went to bed they would say to us, ‘Karolcia, do not kill us just
today!’”

29

These children knew that their caretaker who loved them as her own was being

pressured not just to send them away but to take them into the barn and let the neighbors execute
them. Sapetowa at that point felt herself “go numb” and resolved that she would “not hand over
the children at any price.”

30

Instead, she put the children on a cart and paraded them around the

village telling everyone she was taking them outside of the village to drown them. She then took
them out into the surrounding countryside and hid them until she could smuggle them back into
town that evening and hide them in a neighbor’s attic. The children suffered there, concealed
from the other neighbors in a hot, filthy attic while Sapetowa worked to earn enough money to
pay for food and to pay the neighbor for this hiding place until she could not make the payments
and they were in turn evicted from this hiding place. Sapetowa then, with no other choices
available, brought the children back to her home and hid them in a shed with the cattle until they
27
28
29
30

Ibid., 278.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
208

were liberated by the Red Army. The children remained with Sapetowa after the war; she
became their sole guardian. She wrote, “I shall never part from them again, and even if they were
to go to the ends of the earth, I would go with them. They are like my children; I love them more
than anything in the world, and I would do anything for them.”

31

Sapetowa never re-married

(she was a widow) and she stayed with the children, leaving Poland with the children for
Denmark and later in life she cared for Salusia’s children.

32

While Sapetowa had the support of her family, her father at least, she was surrounded by
hostile neighbors who believed she was putting all of them in danger. She was threatened and
harassed regularly until she concealed the children completely to appease them. Neighbors and
other residents she had likely known for years became openly hostile towards her demanding she
murder or at least consent to the murder of the children that she loved as her own. She also must
have been cognizant of the danger she was placing upon her elderly father. In addition, the
children’s world shrank as they were protected by Sapetowa. “Normal” changed from
confinement in the ghetto to staying for short periods with Sapetowa where they “felt at home,”
to then staying full-time and being allowed to play outdoors. Soon however, the children realized
that every single person living in that town did not want them there, and some of those people
wanted to harm them physically.

33

They went from playing outside to total concealment. Their

father was shot, their mother and older brother disappeared on a transport, and they became
fearful that the one person they loved and who cared for them might take them into the barn and

31

Ibid.

32

Joanna Beata Michlic, Jewish Children in Nazi Occupied Poland: Survival and Polish-Jewish
Relations During the Holocaust as Reflected in Early Postwar Recollection, 89-91. Sepetowa
was declared Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem.
33
“Karolina Sapetowa,” 277.
209

cut off their heads. For these children, and others living in hiding, the outside world not only
became smaller, it became unimaginably hostile.
Fear was ever present for caregivers and children who were old enough to know what
was going on. Born in 1932, Milla Tenenbaum spent the war protected by her nanny, Cecelia
Krzeminska, and felt loved by this woman.

34

Despite this, Tenenbaum was constantly afraid.

She lived with “such anxiety and fear that it was almost impossible.”

35

Two neighbor women

were suspicious and would always knock on the door to their flat in the evening so the young girl
would have to hide under the bed or in the closet.

36

The nanny had to work at night, leaving

Tenenbaum home alone listening to the noises on the streets. Tenenbaum and her caregiver lived
in an attic apartment that shared space with several pickle barrels. One evening the SS came
upstairs, conducting random searches and the little girl had to hide in an empty pickle barrel. The
officers searched several barrels and just happened to skip over the barrel containing the child.
The officers asked Krzeminska if she had anything else in her apartment and she replied, “Why
would I risk my life to save a Jewish person?”

37

The officer reminder the nanny of the death

penalty for aiding a Jew and she replied that she would never do such a thing. Shortly after this
incident Krzeminska moved the child to the countryside, placing her with a peasant family who
abused her. Her caregiver would come and check on her every Sunday. The husband of the
peasant family was very cruel to Tenenbaum, making her work very hard and sometimes at night
when he was intoxicated he would come to the barn where she slept and beat her and threaten
34

Videotaped testimony of Milla Tenebaum, File no. 33627-4, Tape 2, September 16, 1997, The
USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive.
35
Ibid., 28:29.
36

Ibid., 26:00.

37

Videotaped testimony of Milla Tenebaum, File no. 33627-4, Tape 3, September 16, 1997, The
USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive, 3:47.
210

her.

38

The man’s wife did not intervene on her behalf and when the situation was too much for

the girl to stand she ran away, back to her caregiver in Będzin. She hid her in her home, in a
pickle barrel again until Krzeminska transferred Tenenbaum to the care of a friend of
Tenenbaum’s father in Czeladz. He kept her concealed from his entire family for a few days
before bringing her back to Krzeminska’s home.
When Tenenbaum was again hiding in her caregiver’s apartment it was late 1944 and
Będzin was being bombarded. When the sirens would go off Krzeminska had to go down to the
bomb shelter but could not take her charge with her. There was too great a risk that the neighbors
would recognize the little girl who used to run after her nanny when she left to go to mass.

39

It

was hard for the caregiver to leave the child alone in the apartment during the bombings, but to
not take shelter herself would have been dangerous and would have aroused suspicion. Being left
alone during the bombardment was frightening for Tenenbaum, who would hide, scared, under
the bed.
Tenebaum and her caregiver became incredibly close during their time together.
Tenebaum knew that their fates were linked as a result of Krzeminska’s decision to hide her
saying, “I didn’t worry about her (caregiver).”
I could depend on her.”

41

40

She continued, “Since I was little, I trusted her.

She also explained that it was not easy and sometimes she wanted to

be with her family or wished she was not there. She was constantly afraid, even after the war.
For years she cried at night, had stomach issues, and nightmares. The intimacy between

38
39
40
41

Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid., 4:50.
Ibid., 4:55.
211

caregiver and charge by no means inoculated children to the very real fear of hiding and passing
that was at times debilitating.
Altered Caregiver-Charge Relationships
While rescue brought increased intimacy to the relationship between caregiver and
charge, further cementing familial bonds and emotional attachment, the situation also brought
new anxieties and pressures to the relationship. As mentioned above, Salusia and Samuś
Hochwieser started to fear that their beloved caregiver, Karolina Sapetowa would succumb to the
pressure of her neighbors and actually murder them. Elizabeth Grotch also acknowledges the
love that she felt for her caregiver and she felt very much loved by Zillow, but recalls that there
were also tense moments that made her fearful. At one point Janina Zillow’s mother threw her
and the child out of her home. Zillow went to a convent seeking shelter and aid for her and the
child but they were refused help. Zillow was upset and did not know where to turn so she told
Grotch they would go to the church and stand in front of the Holy Virgin and “if she nods her
head that I should give you away I will have to. Is she doesn’t I’ll stay with you.”

42

Grotch

remembers feeling terrified standing there, an unwilling player in a game of Christian roulette.
Mary, of course, did not nod. It was not uncommon for caregivers, who were under extreme
stress to lash out at the children they cared for or exhibit abnormal behavior during these periods
of extreme pressure.
As mentioned in previous chapters, Bernhard Kempler and his sister Anita spent the war
passing as the daughters of their former caregiver, Franciszka Ziemiańska.

42

43

Bernhard had to

Videotaped testimony of Elizabeth Grotch, File no. 26284, Tape 3, The USC Shoah
Foundation Visual History Archives, 7:14.
43
Videotaped testimony of Bernhard Kempler, File no. 33193, September 12, 1997, USC Shoah
Foundation Visual History Archives.
212

act, convincingly, like a little girl, Bernadette, as it was especially dangerous for male Jews
because their circumcision could easily confirm their Jewish identities. Kempler was very young
during the war, born in May 1936, but he recalls he had to make his voice sound like that of a
girl, he remembers having his hair braided and he recalls wearing a dress. He passed as a little
girl for at least four years. He also became Catholic; learning all the prayers, attending mass, and
performing the rituals very naturally with his caregiver. His whole identity, gender, as well as
religion and ethnicity had to be given up to pass as his nanny’s child.
Separated from his parents and living a new identity as a Catholic girl was an extreme
hardship for the young boy and the relationship between Kempler, his sister and his caregiver
whom he relied on for stability and protection was also fraught with tension yet he recalls
kindness and he felt that she loved the children. Kempler explained:
“Of course we had been with her before the war as well so it wasn’t that
big a change, but there were times when she was frightened, she had
terrible headaches and sometimes if we didn’t do something exactly the
way she wanted she would be very upset. She would threaten to leave us,
asking ‘What did she need this for?’ It was dangerous for her to be taking
care of us and hiding us like that. And I remember that it was frightening
44
to me that she would leave us.
In order to please his caregiver, who was a devout Catholic, Kempler acted “very religious as a
Catholic” and would get her water and headache powders when she was not feeling well.

45

He

explains that felt close to her but was also aware that she did not have to keep him and his sister
so he behaved as good, obedient and as helpful as possible.

44

46

This child, before the war, was

Videotaped testimony of Bernhard Kempler, File no. 33193, Tape 2, September 12, 1997,
USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archives, 8:32-9:00.
45
Ibid., 9:09. Kempler’s caregiver was actually suffering from cancer at this time.
46

Ibid., 9:39.
213

looked after by his nanny but this relationship became distorted under Nazi occupation policy.
Now, under this new circumstance he faced insecurity and fear that the woman who loved him
might leave him at any moment. This compelled him to constantly attempt to please her as he
concealed his entire identity.
The relationship between Ziemiańska and Kempler’s sister was also newly complicated
by this precarious situation. His sister was “temperamental” and “more of a problem” for their
caregiver, so Kempler felt a need to compensate for her behavior by being especially obedient
47

and doing everything precisely the way he thought Ziemiańska wanted him to do.

This created,

according to Kempler, conflict between the three of them, placing them in a situation where he
always wanted his sister to behave better, but she did not. So, he would behave better as he was
afraid they would be abandoned. This created what he describes as a sort of psychological
triangle among them.

48

In her biography, Kempler’s older sister, Anita Lobel, writes that when

the nanny’s mother became ill she resented that she was unable to leave the children to go and be
with her before she died and sometimes she had to miss mass because of the children.

49

The

constant threat of discovery altered the dynamic between caregiver and charge, and in this case
also between the siblings. Unimaginable stress and resentment are often left out of the narrative
of rescue because it does not fit the image of a heroic rescuer who is usually portrayed as selfless
and brave. This understanding of rescuers as more human and less heroic is in conversation with

47
48

Ibid., 9:55-10:00.
Ibid., 10:07-10:28.

49

Anita Lobel, No Pretty Pictures: A Child of War (New York: Harper Collins Publishers,
1998).
214

the current scholarship on Holocaust rescuers.

50

In reality, we know that caregivers were

humans, with human emotions who sometimes snapped at their charges, threatened to leave
them, and at times resented the burden of their commitment to them.
Even with the continuity of a prewar caretaker, life for these children was forever altered;
often more than children even necessarily understood while it was happening. Relationships
between caregivers and children were distorted and complicated under the pressure and
circumstances of the Nazi occupation. Sarah Wall recalls that after the war when she realized
what had really happened, “nothing was the same.”

51

Her whole life was, in her words,

fractured. Elizabeth Grotch became a part of her caretaker’s family and was socialized in antiSemitic attitudes and accustomed to living with a woman who openly disliked her presence and
believed that the Jews were “getting what they deserved.”

52

Bernhard Kempler went from just

being a little boy living in a middle-class home being cared for by his nanny to the keeper of the
peace between his sister and their nanny as he also took on the identity of Catholic girl. For
children who were not completely concealed and had to assume a new identity, this meant that
one’s life depended on convincingly taking on the role of Catholic, working class child and often
50

This work contributes to the existing scholarship on Holocaust rescuers by not only shedding
light on motivations, but also by depicting these rescuers in a much more human and less heroic
fashion. For further reading on rescuers also see Martin Gilbert, The Righteous: The Unsung
Heroes of the Holocaust; Mordecai Paldiel, The Path of the Righteous: Gentile Rescuers of Jews
During the Holocaust; Carol Rittner and Sandra Myers, eds., The Courage to Care: Rescuers of
Jews During the Holocaust; Mark Klempner, The Heart Has Reasons: Holocaust Rescuers and
Their Stories of Courage ; Ellen Land-Weber, To Save a Life: Stories of Holocaust Rescue;
Nechama Tec, When Light Pierced the Darkness: Christian Rescue of Jews in Nazi-Occupied
Poland; Samuel P. Oliner and Pearl M. Oliner, The Altruistic Personality: The Rescue of Jews in
Nazi Europe; Patrick Henry, We Only Know Men: The Rescue of Jews in France During the
Holocaust; Eva Fogelman, Conscience and Courage: Rescuers of Jews During the Holocaust;
and Malka Drucker, Rescuers : Portraits of Moral Courage in the Holocaust.
51
Videotaped Interview of Sarah Wall, File no. 42189-1, June 14, 1998, Tape 2.
52

Videotaped testimony of Elizabeth Grotch, File no. 26284, Tape 3, 3:51.
215

this meant losing parts of their own prewar self in the process. Kempler hid with his nanny as a
little girl but also went through the camp system as a girl to stay with his sister.

53

While a prewar

caregiver did most certainly provide a measure of comfort and continuity, there was only so
much protection from the damage inflicted upon these children that she could provide. The stress
of the situation, changed relationships, and the act of masking one’s identity was extremely
taxing even on the most resilient of these children.
New Patterns of Authority
It seems natural to consider the ways that rescue would alter the relationship between the
caregiver and charge but this new activity also dramatically altered the relationship between the
former employer and employee. In their prewar lives, household domestic servants were
vulnerable to abuse and poor working conditions but often they did have a fair degree of
autonomy to make decisions as to how they would carry out the orders of their employers.
Households relied on these female employees. They were often given a large degree of leeway to
raise the children and sometimes to run the household with limited supervision because the
parents were busy outside the home. Maids and nannies spent many hours with their charges and
the parents were not always aware of how they spent all of their time together. For example,
when Catholic household servants were required to work on Sundays they sometimes took their
charges to mass with them because it was the only way they could attend and still care for the
children. Sometimes parents knew of this activity and other times it remained a secret between
the child and caregiver.
Anita Lobel recalls that her parents were unhappy with their nanny’s attempts to
inculcate their children with Catholicism. She recalls that her parents argued with her nanny
53

The children were first imprisoned in Montelupich and then sent to Plaszów where they were
protected by their aunt and uncle and later were transported to Ravenbruck and then Auschwitz.
216

about “Christian things.”

54

The nanny was fired and replaced but Lobel recounts that she

screamed and cried until her parents brought her nanny back, saying “My parents had to let
Niana have her way.”

55

After she returned she was allowed to take certain liberties. She hung a

picture of an angel in the children’s bedroom, baked cookies for St. Nicholas Day, showed the
children how to make garlands, and hung chocolates for Christmas morning.

56

Certainly this was

a greater degree of power than most household servants wielded within the home, but in most
cases at a minimum it was a serious inconvenience to replace a domestic employee.

57

These

maids were sometimes able to get away with performing their duties with less care than they
should, not following instructions exactly, or taking children to mass without the permission of
their parents because they were performing a service the family valued.
In many of the cases previously discussed it is apparent that household servants often
earned the trust or even affections of their employers. The importance of their role was
understood by household members and they were sometimes treated as if they were a member of
the family. Many child survivors of the Holocaust recall the central role in their lives played by
their maids and nannies and the mutual affections between themselves and their caregivers.
However, at the end of the day, even when these women were trusted and treated in a familial
manner, they were employees and there was a power dynamic associated with that employer/
employee relationship. If a maid was no longer able to perform her duties or a nanny was no

54

Anita Lobel, No Pretty Pictures, 8-9.

55

Ibid. In videotaped testimony of Bernhard Kempler, File no. 33193, Tape 2, September 12,
1997, USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archives, 11:10, he also recounts that the nanny
was fired although he does not state the reason for her dismissal. He recalls that his sister had
such a tantrum that their parents asked her to come back.
56
Ibid.
57

See chapter one.
217

longer needed due to the age of children she would be let go. The family might have remained in
contact with her, but the primary purpose of their relationship was based ultimately on an
economic arrangement and this shaped the basic power dynamic.
Under the Nazi occupation this power dynamic shifted.

58

Gentile household employees

found themselves higher on the social ladder than their former employers based on their status as
59

non-Jews.

While under the Nazi racial hierarchy Slavic peoples were still considered inferior

they were above Jews who were considered the lowest of the low and unworthy of life. Not only
did the power dynamic between lower-class Poles and middle-class or affluent Jews change in
the public realm, it also changed dramatically in the intimate realm in cases where former
domestic employees protected their former charges. Their role changed from servant to potential
savior. These women were entrusted to become the primary decision makers by their former
employers in a new role in which their decisions ultimately had life or death consequences.
These former employers were completely at the mercy of their former employee. A domestic
servant had the power to attempt to protect their child, to refuse, and to betray the family at any
moment once she became a part of their conspiracy. Sometimes a former domestic servant was
the natural choice for this role based on the prewar relationship she had with her former
employers and sometimes she was just the only choice.
In the case of Abraham Foxman’s protection by his former nanny, Bronisława Kurpi, this

58
59

See Chapter One.
See Chapter Four.
218

household employee did not begin working for the family until after the outbreak of the war.

60

When it was ordered that Jews move into the Vilna ghetto the maid approached the couple and
asked what they would do with the baby. His mother, Helen Foxman, replied that the baby, then
thirteen months old, would go with them into the ghetto and what happened to them would
happen to the child. Kurpi proposed that the family allow her to take little Abraham instead.
Helen Foxman said that when Kurpi offered there was no time to think about it, or discuss it with
her husband.

61

With no time for discussion, Mrs. Foxman looked to her husband, who replied,

“okay, take him,” and she accepted under the assumption that he knew better than her and the
decision was for the best.

62

The couple gave Kurpi all their possessions with the exception of

180 rubles so she could sell them to support herself and the child and promised that Abraham’s
father, Joseph Foxman, would continue to support them from the ghetto.

63

At Kurpi’s request,

the couple gave her a statement saying that they were giving her the child as her own and Kurpi
had the child baptized as Czesław Henryk Kurpi, registering him as her own offspring.

64

Both

parents continued to earn money while confined in the ghetto and continued to pass funds along
to Kurpi to care for their child. Once a week Helen Foxman would slip away from the ghetto to
go check on the child in Kurpi’s home in Vilna and Kurpi would continually pressure Mr.

60

Second Generation of Long Island Collection Interview of Helen Foxman, One Tape, July 6,
1983, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, RG 50.205*0028. See Chapter 5.
61
“Helen Foxman,” Mothers, Sisters, Resisters: Oral Histories of Women Who Survived the
Holocaust, ed., Brana Gurewitsch (Tuscaloosa and London: University of Alabama Press, 1998),
35.
62
Ibid.
63

Second Generation of Long Island Collection Interview of Helen Foxman, One Tape, July 6,
1983, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, RG 50.205*0028.
64
Joseph Foxman, In the Shadow of Death (New York and Jerusalem: Yad Vashem and the
Holocaust Survivor’s Project, 2011), 17.
219

Foxman for money. The child recognized Mrs. Foxman but thought she was his aunt. The baby
knew Kurpi as his mother and Mrs. Foxman was not allowed to hold or kiss him when she
65

visited.

Kurpi, when employed by the Foxmans, acted as the child’s caregiver on their directives
but now in this new situation, she held all the power and dictated the terms of when they couple
could see their child, how they were to behave around him, and how the child should understand
who they were. When Kurpi requested that they sign the document stating they gave her their
child, they complied. The Foxmans were a religious family before the war and now under this
new social situation and time of need they felt they had to comply with Kurpi. This meant
allowing their child to be baptized and raised as a Catholic; giving up control of their child’s
spiritual life along with all other decisions about his upbringing and health to their former
employee.

66

This is a powerful example of how the power dynamic changed under this new

situation. This maid, marginalized through her sex and class status, now dictated the new terms
of this relationship with her former employers.
In testimony given to the Jewish Historical Institute, Mrs. Foxman stated that Kurpi
threatened her husband telling him if he refused to pay she would go to the Gestapo and turn in
the circumcised child.

67

Given her attachment to the child this may have been merely an attempt

to secure more money from the couple. The couple at one time also demanded the child be
65

Ibid., 18-19.

66

Many wartime protectors obtained baptismal certificates for their charges because it was
necessary. This allowed the children to pass as Polish Catholics. Sometimes these hidden
children were raised Catholic but knew of their Jewish identity but often with younger children
they came to identify with the Catholic religion, which was ultimately often safer for them.
67
Translation of Testimony of Helen and Joseph Foxman, RG 301/ File no. 3605, March 17,
1947, Jewish Historical Institute (Yiddish) in Joseph Foxman, In the Shadow of Death (New
York and Jerusalem: Yad Vashem and the Holocaust Survivor’s Project, 2011), 72.
220

returned but Kurpi refused. Joseph Foxman testified that he realized then that the nanny who was
raising their baby was, in fact, blackmailing them.

68

This former employee, rather than acting as

a conduit of the parents’ values, became responsible for all the decisions regarding the
upbringing of the child and controlled all access to the child. The parents had no say in these
matters anymore and the child’s survival was left in the hands of this woman. Furthermore, the
parents’ own health and well-being were at the mercy of the caregiver who also dictated the
terms of their relationship with their own child.
When the couple felt they must leave the ghetto in order to survive Mr. Foxman went to
stay with a Polish family and Mrs. Foxman stayed with Kurpi. She was initially, “afraid to go to
the goya,” since she was already sheltering the child and she did not want to upset the situation
there and was not even sure if Kurpi would agree to take her.

69

According to Mrs. Foxman, the

two women got along fairly well while Mr. Foxman was away before the war but once he
returned there was conflict in the household.

70

Kurpi agreed to shelter Mrs. Foxman and helped

her obtain papers so she could work and Mrs. Foxman in turn passed as a gentile working to pay
for her upkeep. Kurpi found a place for the two women and the child to live in on the outskirts of
Vilna. Mrs. Foxman states that Kurpi held ill feelings of some sort towards Mr. Foxman so while
she initially gave Helen Foxman food to take to him and was washing his clothes, she later
started to refuse.

71

To defuse the situation Helen told Kurpi that Mr. Foxman went away. Joseph

Foxman wrote, “Even while Helen stayed with Bronia she suffered from her outbursts,” and
68

Ibid.

69

Second Generation of Long Island Collection Interview of Helen Foxman, One Tape, July 6,
1983, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, RG 50.205*0028.
70
The source of this conflict is not readily apparent in any of the sources but Mrs. Foxman
attributes it to Kurpi being a lesbian in her testimony.
71
Second Generation of Long Island Collection Interview of Helen Foxman.
221

every so often Kurpi would force Mrs. Foxman to leave, occasionally along with the baby.

72

Mr.

Foxman states that “On the whole, Bronia treated the child well. She fed him and kept him clean,
but if he made any sign of even leaning toward Helen, Bronia would spank him.”

73

Despite this,

the child was very close to his caregiver and displayed his affection towards her with hugs and
kisses.
The relationships between the Foxmans and Kurpi were complicated. Both Helen and
Joseph Foxman recognize that without her efforts their child would have not survived and likely
neither would they as her care for the child freed them to focus on their own survival initially.
Kurpi also sheltered Helen Foxman when she left the ghetto herself and this relationship was
extremely tenuous. Helen Foxman stated that Kurpi did “plenty of harm” to her during the time
she sheltered her.

74

She described Kurpi as “a sick, vicious woman.”

75

Helen had to work at

6:00am and Kurpi would keep her awake at night, would not allow her to so much as touch her
own child even though he slept in the bed with Kurpi right next to her own bed, and frequently
threw her out of the house. Helen Foxman had to deal with being relegated to her own child’s
aunt and lived in constant fear that their protector would betray them. We do not have access to
Kurpi’s version of events or her motivations for her actions. After the war she did not want to
surrender Abraham to Helen and Joseph Foxman. This is evident in her attempts to obtain legal
custody of the child and her attempted kidnapping of the child when legal means failed her.
Kurpi wanted to continue in her role as the boy’s mother after the war so it can be assumed that

72
73

Joseph Foxman, In the Shadow of Death, 20.
Ibid.

74

“Helen Foxman,” Mothers, Sisters, Resisters: Oral Histories of Women Who Survived the
Holocaust, ed., Brana Gurewitsch, 41.
75
Ibid.
222

this conflict over her desires to be Abraham’s mother complicated her feelings towards Helen
Foxman. However, she also did extend aid to this woman even if her behavior was sometimes
erratic and cruel.

76

It is apparent that the relationship with between the Foxmans and Kurpi was incredibly
complex. Helen Foxman lived with her for a period of time and her testimony focuses a lot on
Kurpi’s animosity towards Mr. Foxman and she attributes that to Kurpi being a lesbian.

77

Helen

Foxman states that her husband told her this after the war and this was why Kurpi disliked
Joseph Foxman so much; she disliked men.

78

Mrs. Foxman speaks in much more negative terms

about Kurpi than Joseph Foxman does, but she also was living with her for over a year and had
to deal with her in a much more frequent and intimate way that her husband did. She was
essentially, at the mercy of Kurpi, for much of the war. She relied on her to keep her child and to
later shelter her.
This case is illustrative of the extreme shift in power that took place when a former
household employee took on the role of rescuer, even when it is not as pronounced as it was in
this particular case. In the interwar period domestic employees were clearly subordinated to their

76

There was very little housing available so when Joseph found an apartment the entire family
lived there with Kurpi. Joseph wrote in his memoir, “After having saved the child, she was
regarded as a part of the family” (21). See Joseph Foxman, In the Shadow of Death (New York
and Jerusalem: Yad Vashem and the Holocaust Survivors’ Memoir Project, 2011). While they
were all living under one roof, Kurpi was actively seeking legal custody of the child in the
courts. The parents ultimately won and Kurpi responded by kidnapping the child and keeping
him until his parents acquaintances kidnapped the boy back. Kurpi would continue to use means
necessary to harass the family, usually filing claims of various illegal activity with the authorities
until the family immigrated to the United States. The family would, even after all that, continued
to send her packages and letters until she died in 1958.
77
“Helen Foxman,” Mothers, Sisters, Resisters: Oral Histories of Women Who Survived the
Holocaust, ed., Brana Gurewitsch, 41.
78
I find this argument to be questionable but have no evidence to refute the explanation.
223

employers but in the new social order of the Nazi era and in this new role of rescuer, these
women had an unprecedented level of power over their former employers. Many caregivers took
the children because they felt an attached to them, but some did take the children for other
reasons such as financial gain. Relationships between parents and domestics/ rescuers were as
diverse as relationships between caregivers and charges. Sometimes the former employee had
fond or even familial feelings towards the parents of the charges they took but this was not
always the case as we see evidenced in the Foxman/ Kurpi case. Even when relations between
the parents and caregiver were strained, their collaboration was nevertheless often vital for the
success of the rescue. Kurpi received financial support from the Foxmans easing the financial
burden of caring for a small child during extremely difficult economic times. This collaboration
between Kurpi and the Foxmans was strained but it did nonetheless have them all laboring
towards a common cause-- to keep this young child alive and safe during a time when his very
existence was outlawed by the ruling regime.
Polish-Jewish Cooperation
The universe became increasingly constricted for the prewar caregiver because
clandestine rescue and aid activities often required Polish gentile helpers to sever ties with their
family and friends in order to conceal their charge and activities. While this cut rescuers off from
many former acquaintances and loved ones sometimes a rescuer might actually come to rely
more heavily upon the connections of her Jewish charges to protect her charge.
While the most basic of cooperative efforts involved financial support as we saw with the
case of the Foxmans/ Kurpi, some Polish-Jewish cooperation involved much more than financial
aid. Over the course of the last several chapters, the case of Genia Olczak and the Zakzrewski/

224

Rozencwajg family has been referenced numerous times.

79

In this case the former nanny loved

the child she cared for before the war, Gabriel, and felt a deep attachment towards the couple she
worked for and their extended family members. As discussed in the previous two chapters,
Olczak aided many other family members while they were interned in the Warsaw ghetto and
she then assisted them in their efforts to escape and survive outside the ghetto walls. She took
Gabriel, passing him off as her illegitimate child. She also hid several of Roma Rozencwajg’s
extended family members in her flat and aided Bianka, Rozencwajg’s niece, who was hidden
elsewhere. Olczak secured a job through a man named Frank Puncuh.

80

He was a Yugoslavian

consul and his wife, Janka Glocer, was a cousin of Roma Rozencwajg’s. Olczak says, “I used to
go there often for help, and he gave me this job at 21 Plocka Street.”

81

Olczak was employed

there at a pen and office supply factory. Through this employment she also managed to get a
formerly Jewish owned apartment with two rooms, including a kitchen, on Ciepla Street. The
income from her employment and an apartment of her own were not only important for Olczak
to survive on her own now that she was no longer living with her family of origin or her
employers and being paid by them for her services, these were vital resources that allowed her to
aid her former employers. This connection with the extended family members of the Zakrzewski/
Rozencwajg family were vital to allowing Olczak to carry out her rescue efforts.
Renia Rozanman would not stay with Olczak long because she was able to obtain false
documents to pass as a gentile under the name of Helena Siekierska. After a close call, the adults

79

See Chapters One, Four, and Five.

80

In videotaped testimony of Bianka Kraszewski, File no. 13723-4, Tape 4, USC Shoah
Foundation Visual History Archives, Bianka explains that the Germans did not realize that his
wife, and thus, their child, were Jewish.
81
Testimony of Genowefa Olczak, 6.
225

that had been hidden in Rozencwajg’s apartment all left for fear that they were endangering
Roma’s child, Gabriel. The Germans came through the building searching for arms but they did
not discover that there were Jews instead of arms hidden in Olczak’s apartment. After this
incident everyone was frightened. Olczak recalls, “I am running here and there to acquaintances
looking for a place to hide them.”

82

She says, “We had a German woman acquaintance, married

to a Jew. She knew all about us. So I went to her and asked her, ‘what am I to do?’”

83

The

woman replied that Olczak could bring them to her. Olczak clarified, “‘there are three people!’
and this women replied ‘Bring them over, I’ll manage.’”

84

This woman’s home was on

Kochmalna Street, not far from Olczak’s apartment so in the evening she ferried them (Roma,
Estka and Karol) to their new hiding place, leaving her with only Gabriel in her apartment.
Despite the danger, Olczak took Gabriel to this hiding place several times so that he could see his
mother.
Olczak says “we had a German woman acquaintance,” above. She clearly felt the
Zakrzewski/ Rozencwajg family to be her own and she connected her own fate to theirs. She
used the family’s connections to aid them while they were living in the ghetto as well as when
she was assisting them in hiding outside of the ghetto. She went to a mutual acquaintance of the
family’s when she was in desperate need of help to protect them. This pattern of using the
resources of the former employers, the human as well as financial resources, was a common
measure taken by rescuers like Olczak.

82
83
84

Ibid., 7.
Ibid., 7. Emphasis added by me.
Ibid.
226

Roma Rozencwajg’s niece, Bianka Kraszewski, stayed with her parents for a time but
when it was too dangerous Olczak placed her elsewhere.

85

Initially, she moved Kraszewska to a

small apartment with a mother, her teenage daughter and the daughter’s friend. She only stayed
there for one night because the janitor of the building immediately started harassing the
86

mother.

The woman gave the blackmailers some money, but the next day Olczak had to move

Kraszewska so she went to Janka Puncuh (Glocer), Roma Rozencwajg’s cousin, who was
married to the Yugoslavian consul. Kraszewska stayed with them in the city for a couple of days
and they then took her to their villa in Konstancin where she stayed with their housekeeper,
passing as her niece. Bianka became ill while staying with the housekeeper and the woman had
to bring a doctor out to treat her. As a result, Kraszewska had to be moved again. Bianka
Kraszewski believes that it was Olczak who found a young couple, Karol and Niusia Zubrzycki,
to take her into their home. They lived in a ground floor apartment and worked all day so it was
imperative that Kraszewska remain silent so that it would appear that no one was home. Olczak
brought her books to read to occupy the long days when she had to sit still and silent.
Olczak became an important intersection point in this web of aid that was compromised
of her own contacts, the extended family members of her employers, and the connections these
family members had from prewar life. When she took Gabriel from the ghetto, Olczak obtained
papers through the help of Mr. Karol Pedowski, an acquaintance she had who was working in an
informal network that later became part of Żegota.

85
86

87

The papers stated that Gabriel was her

She was initially in a room rented from Mrs. Sobelewska, a member of Żegota.
Videotaped interview of Bianka Kraszewski, File no. 13723-4, Tape 4.

87

For more on Żegota, see Irene Tomaszewski and Tecia Werbowski published their coauthored, IreneTomaszewski and Tecia Werbowski, Code Name Zegota, Rescuing Jews in
Occupied Poland, 1942-1945: The Most Dangerous Conspiracy in Wartime Europe.
227

illegitimate son, Ryszard. Roma Rozencwajg’s sister, Regina, passed under the name Helena
Siekierska using false papers that she procured through another Żegota contact, Mrs.
Sobelewska, who also rented her a room as well. When Bianka Kraszewski first was smuggled
from the ghetto she stayed as well there until Olczak moved her because it was too dangerous for
the girl to stay there given the woman’s underground activities. The web of aid of which Olczak
was a part was rather extensive but even with a considerable number of participants and all their
efforts only Bianka Kraszewski and Gabriel survived the war.
Often these prewar domestic servants became a part of their employer’s world; they lived
in their home, cared for the children, and became familiar with the family and acquaintances that
came to their employer’s home. Just as sending a child with a maid was a natural solution to the
need to get a child from the ghetto for some but a mode of last resort for others, so too was the
decision to seek out resources from among the prewar employers contacts. Approaching the
extended family members and friends of her prewar employers was a logical solution for Olczak.
She knew the family, knew she could trust them, and needed them to augment her own gentile
acquaintances. Sometimes, there was a real lack of any resources for a rescuer and they had no
other good options. If a woman could not go home and take her charges to her family of origin
such as Sapetowa or Zillow, she might just be going through a list of potential resources.
When she was in need of shelter for Bernhard and Anita, Franczeska Ziemiańska also had
to use her employer’s family and acquaintances to care for her charges. The children’s aunt and
uncle, the Gruenburgs, had their own domestic, Rozalia Natkaniec, who worked for them before
the war. During the Nazi occupation, Natkaniec actively attempted to provide assistance for her
former employers and brought them food and information when they were imprisoned in
Płaszów. When Ziemiańska was forced to leave her village for fear of denunciation she brought

228

the children back to Kraków where she immediately sought the assistance of the Gruenburg’s
former maid, Natkaniec. There is no indication that these women were in any way close, but
they were acquainted through their work for these family members. Natkaniec allowed the
children to stay the night in her apartment and helped Ziemiańska decide how to best protect the
children at that point.

88

The children would end up in a convent for a time before they were

denounced and imprisoned at Montelupich and then sent to Plaszów where they were protected
by that same aunt and uncle. Ziemiańska was able to let the Gruenberg’s know the children were
being sent to the camp through Natkaniec and could sometimes obtain news of the children
through her. There is no sense in the testimony that Ziemiańska had the same time of familial
relationship with her employers extended family as Olczak did, but these family members and
their maid were one potential resource she used while trying to protect her charges. The interwar
household was a place where Polish gentiles could become acquainted with Polish Jews and
where meaningful, such as those of Olczak and the Rozencwajg family, as well as very less
meaningful connections were made, as in the case of Ziemiańska. During moments of crisis and
desperation, any connection that could help a rescuer protect her charge and not get caught and
killed in the process was one to potentially be explored and exploited.
Polish-Jewish Relations
The Nazi occupation of Poland completely upended the social structure placing workingclass women of low education in a new position of power over their former employers. Given
what we understand about Nazi racial laws, this is not terribly surprising. In this new position of
increased power, a considerable number of these former servants used their new social positions
to persecute their former employers and gain financially from their persecution. However, many

88

Anita Lobel, No Pretty Pictures, 49.
229

others, such as those in this chapter, directly defied the Nazi directives and the pervading social
norms of the period and placed themselves, and sometimes their own families, in danger as they
linked their own fates with that of their former employers. For these women, the policies,
propaganda and threats designed to separate Poles and Jews, could not sever the ties that were
firmly rooted in prewar life. In addition, some middle-class Jewish parents turn to their former
servants, sometimes because she was the only option and they were desperate, but often because
she was the best option when they were desperate. She loved their child, she could be trusted,
and she had already proven herself a capable caregiver. As parents, they could not guarantee the
survival of their child themselves because they were targeted by the regime for destruction
themselves, so they had to find the next best person to protect their children if they chose to send
them away as a means of survival.
Emmanuel Ringelblum, a Polish Jewish historian of the interwar period, wrote that at the
outbreak of the Second World War there was a moment of cooperation between Poles and Jews
but after the invasion there was “a revival of antisemitism in the full sense of the term.”

89

Ringelblum observed that it was difficult for the Nazi occupiers to, “distinguish between Jews
and non-Jews,” and it was anti-Semitic Poles that “came to their aid and obligingly pointed out
the Jews to the Germans.”

90

This was what he calls, the “first bond sealed between the Polish

Anti-Semites and the Nazis” and by early October of 1939 there were, what he described as “a
considerable number of anti-Semitic elements who collaborated with the Germans in waging war

89

Emmanuel Ringelblum, Polish-Jewish Relations during the Second World War (Evanston:
Northwestern University Press, 1974), 37.
90
Ibid.
230

91

on the Jews.”

So, on the one hand we can see the actions of these maids and nannies who

engaged in rescue activities and did come to the aid of their prewar employers as acting in
defiance of this trend of escalating antisemitism and on the other we can also understand their
actions in spite of this increasing trend to be even more dangerous.
Ringelblum points to instances where Nazi policy and existing anti-Semitic attitudes
separated Poles and Jews. However, we can view the webs of aid that joined Poles and Jews in
the protection of Jewish children as one challenge to Nazi policy and the social pressure to
conform by either participation in anti-Jewish activities or at least not oppose the persecution and
murder of Jews. Polish-Jewish collaboration was often not only vital in the efforts to protect
Jews from Nazi persecution, sometimes it was a natural extension of Polish-Jewish relations
during the interwar period for many of those involved in these efforts. It was natural for Olczak
to reach out to her employers’ family members and acquaintances when she needed assistance
with her rescue efforts just as it was natural for the family members themselves to reach out to
one another. It made sense for Gabriel’s family to work with his gentile protector to try to
preserve his life while they were all fighting to keep themselves alive.
In Conclusion
The war had changed relations and relationships between caregivers and charges, former
employers and employees, and Polish Catholics and Polish Jews. Abnormal became normal;
safety was turned into insecurity. The end of the war did not bring an end to these changes or to
the connections between these particular groups of Poles and Jews. Aid providers and recipients
were forever changed by their experiences. Children and their caregivers became closer through
their participation in their mutual conspiracies, although their relationships became far more

91

Ibid., 37-38.
231

complicated. Caregivers suffered consequences for their decision to shelter children and had to
reaffirm their decision day after day as new difficulties arose. Children lost track of their prewar
identities, aspects of their identities, and suffered emotional damage even when they were in the
care of someone who loved them so much she was willing to risk her own life to try to keep them
alive. When the Nazis were pushed out of Poland, the happy endings still did not come. Children
were emotionally scarred and their protectors were reluctant to have their wartime secrets
exposed. Many of the children they risked their lives to keep were reclaimed either by family
members or Jewish organizations leaving the caregivers grieving.

92

Even in cases when the

children were reclaimed by a parent, with the blessing of the protector, such as was the case of
Sarah Wall, children and their protectors were left damaged. Wall recalls:
If your whole life is fractured….everything you were, you’re not, there
wasn’t anything me, (that was) the same. Because my nanny would bleach
my hair, she wanted me to look Aryan, and blond, I had a different hair
color, I had a different mother, I had a different name, a different religion,
a different family, everything was different. So when I found out later, that
everything I was, I wasn’t, it was like everything became crystalized, like
93
you know a camera that, you stop, and it’s frozen.
Wall’s caregiver had remained in contact with the girl’s mother throughout the war and even sent
her a few letters telling her about “the flower” growing in the garden to let her know that the

92

For postwar plight of children, see Emunah Nachmany Gafny, Dividing Hearts: The Removal
of Jewish Children from Gentile Families in Poland in the Immediate Postwar Years; Nahum
Bogner, At the Mercy of Strangers: The Rescue of Jewish Children with Assumed Identities in
Poland; Joanna Michlic, “Rebuilding Shattered Lives: Some Vignettes of Jewish Children’s
Lives,” in Early Postwar Poland, in Holocaust Survivors: Resettlement, Memories, Identities;
Joanna B. Michlic, “Who Am I? Jewish Children Search for Identity in Post-War Poland;” For
postwar plight of rescuers see Joanna Michlic, “The Stigmatization of Dedicated Polish Women
Rescuers During the Second World War and Its Aftermath,” East European Memory Studies, no.
13 (2013), 1-6.
93
Videotaped Interview of Sarah Wall, File no. 42189-1, June 14, 1998, Tape 2, 24:05.
232

child was doing well.

94

After the war, Rodziewiecz traveled with the child to meet her mother in

Łódź, knowing that she was going to give her over to her mother. The two women, both of
Wall’s mothers, lived in a small apartment together with some other ladies (they were actually
Wall’s mother’s relatives), with no one explaining to Wall that this woman was her real mother.
Wall was six years old and this woman was a stranger to her. This went on for two months until
one day she was playing with some children who said to her, “you must really be stupid, you
don’t even know your own mother,” and she says, all of a sudden, “things cleared but it became
muddled in other areas.”

95

She felt disbelief when she was told and when it was confirmed by

her mother and Rodziewiecz but at the same time she says it was as if “the two had come
together,” and everything finally made sense.

96

While this brought Rodziewiecz, Wall and her mother back full circle, again placing
everyone in their prewar roles, these roles were altered by Nazi-occupation policy were forever
changed. The relationships between caregiver and charge, between the child and her mother, and
between the caregiver and her mother were altered by their wartime experiences of conspiracy to
save the life of a child.

94
95
96

Ibid., 8:09.
Ibid., 16:37.
Ibid., 21:58.
233

CONCLUSION
Before the Nazi Occupation and Holocaust, domestic servants were without a great deal
of formal power or social standing. Often they were poorly paid, uneducated, and had very little
recourse for the abuses they suffered at the hands of their employers. However, the war and
occupation turned the world upside down. People were just trying to survive; subverting the law
became socially acceptable, and in some cases these women who had been on the very bottom
rungs of the social ladder found themselves enjoying a new status with the occupying authorities.
Still members of the working class, they suddenly found that their status as gentiles, while still
viewed by the Nazi Occupation forces as lowly Slavic peoples, was still significantly better than
that of the Jewish population. Their ethnicity now trumped class in every way that mattered. For
those domestic servants who had been employed in Jewish households before the war, this was
particularly important.
Irene Faitlowicz escaped from the Warsaw ghetto and stayed briefly with the family’s
former washerwoman and she worked in a photography studio to earn money until her hiding
1

place was burned. Forced to leave, she went to another studio in Włochy that she heard was run
by a young woman who did not have any experience with photography and might need help.
Before the war, it was owned by a Jew who was taken away and now a young Pole, Ola, was
running it. It is likely that this Ola was probably cleaning the shop before the war and managed
to convince someone to leave her with it, either the owners or the authorities. Ola was beautiful
and blond and she took Irene in and she protected her and her identity for two years. People
started coming to the studio and Irene helped Ola by working in the lab and with the retouching.
Ola did everything for her, washed clothes, cleaned, and just wanted Irene to do the professional
1

Taped interview of Irene Faitlowicz, File no. 12272-3, February 20, 1996, Tape 3 of 4, USC
Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive.
234

work to keep up the façade that she was running the business. After the Warsaw Ghetto Rising
some Germans came and told Ola they wanted the women to take pictures of a block that was
destroyed. Ola was so bold, that even though she was not even sure exactly what they wanted
from her she agreed because they promised her photo supplies if the women came and they were
getting low. Irene did not want to go because it was dangerous, but Ola threatened her into
compliance. The Germans gave them a large stock of supplies for their work.
Ola knew nothing about photography and was merely the cleaning lady for the studio
before the war, but somehow the beautiful blond convinced someone to leave her in charge. This
moment of upheaval turned a lowly maid into a businesswoman, even if she did need to find
someone to actually do all of the professional work. This happened as a result of the changed
social landscape. Many prewar domestic servants lost their positions as a result of the occupation
and had to engage in other activities to support themselves. For many this would mean engaging
2

in illegal trade in the black market that developed as a result of the occupation. These women
did not get rich as a result of this activity by any means, but it did demonstrate a willingness to
take risks, to be assertive and took them outside of the domestic realm. Some of these women
would use this altered social situation and new status to betray their former Jewish employers
and benefit economically or to just stick it to a former Jewish employer that they felt deserved it.
Others would use this new situation to subvert Nazi authority not to just secure their own
economic security, but sometimes to save a Jewish child or aid a Jewish family that they had
worked for before the war.

2

Perhaps the term “second economy” rather than black market would be more appropriate here.
Black market implies illicit activity and in reality this trade was made illegal by an occupying
power. This term was proposed by Dalia Ofer in 2013 at the annual Saul Kagan Claims
Conference Academic Scholars workshop at the USHMM.
235

These women took great risks when they participated in rescue and aid activities. Entering
the ghettos, passing goods into the ghettos, ferrying children and adults out of the ghettos,
obtaining housing, legal documents, or employment for Jews living clandestinely outside the
ghetto walls, or concealing or passing off a Jewish child as their own were tremendously risky
endeavors. These activities required a great deal of knowledge, the ability to seek out and take
advantage of resources, and the ability to exploit a situation when needed. Sometimes when these
women were essentially caught, their brazenness and quick thinking was all they had to rely on.
This could mean feigning outrage or becoming aggressive when confronted by someone
suspicious of their activity, being able to stick to a story and tell it over and over under extreme
stress, or knowing who to contact when they needed emergency aid. The women who engaged in
this behavior had already become empowered to some degree as a result of leaving their families
of origin and assuming responsibility in their employers’ home but this new situation pushed
them even further.
The act of rescue and protecting a Jewish charge built on this newfound independence,
empowering former domestic servants even further. This would result in a new set of
expectations for their lives postwar. Many of these maids would come to believe they earned the
right to raise the children they protected independently and that the extended families of these
children should be grateful to them for their efforts, but often this did not happen. Former maids
who had been working in other capacities may have also felt like they had transcended the social
barriers that kept them in the lower class before the war but when they went abroad they were
expected to become maids again. We can readily see these disappointments in the postwar
experiences of rescuer, Janina Zillow.

236

Elizabeth Grotch lived as Janina Zillow’s daughter until liberation. After liberation,
Zillow’s entire family was arrested for their pro-Nazi activity during the war. Zillow tried to get
them out of jail by saying they helped save a Jewish child and implored her young charge to
testify on their behalf. Zillow was extremely upset that the girl could not or did not convince the
prosecutor that the family protected her. Upset, Zillow accused, “After all I did for you, you
couldn’t do this for me?”

3

Elizabeth remembers being very sorry and upset with herself for not

being persuasive enough to convince the prosecutor of the family’s good deeds. This was
extremely difficult for Zillow yet she continued to care for Grotch while attending the trials and
dealing with the stressful situation. Both of Grotch’s parents died during the war so she stayed in
Lublin, Poland until 1946 with Zillow.
Soon, Grotch’s aunt found her name on a World Jewish Congress survivor list and
contacted Zillow, asking that the child come to live with them in the United States. The family
did not wish to separate Grotch from her caregiver or to have the child travel alone so they also
requested that Zillow come with her. In 1946 Grotch traveled to Sweden with her caregiver but it
was difficult to get Zillow admittance into the United States due to the immigration quotas. The
family was adamant about not separating the two so the child and caregiver waited in Sweden for
two years. During this time Grotch attended school while they lived in a boarding house for other
refugees. Zillow and Grotch then traveled from Sweden to Cuba, where they stayed for almost
another two years before arriving in the United States at the very end of 1949.
When Zillow and her charge finally reached the United States, all was not well between
the caregiver and Grotch’s extended family that brought her and the child there. The family
anticipated that Zillow would resume her prewar occupation as a domestic servant working for
3

Videotaped testimony of Elizabeth Grotch, File no. 26284, Tape 3, The USC Shoah
Foundation Visual History Archives, 14:20.
237

them and caring for Grotch. Before the war Zillow was very close to both of Grotch’s parents
and for many years remained very upset that the couple died. She was angry that the child’s
parents who she, “was close to,” died while Elizabeth’s grandparents survived someplace else.

4

Zillow blamed Grotch’s grandfather for the death of Grotch’s father because he sent him back to
Poland and she talked frequently about the ordeal which exacerbated tensions. Spending years
under Zillow’s care, Grotch also became a devout Catholic. The two of them talked at length
about the fear of the uncertainty that they were left with after their wartime experiences. Zillow
was religious and superstitious, steeped in what Grotch described as peasant Polish Catholicism,
5

meaning she did not attend church regularly but she saw signs. Zillow also remained antiSemitic all of her life. These factors would all further complicate relations between Zillow and
the child’s family.
These issues were compounded by the new living arrangements. As a Polish Catholic
woman she had a hard time fitting into this new world. She left her home country with the child
that she loved and found herself in an alien landscape and this was likely quite difficult. At first
they lived with the child’s aunt and uncle but the arrangement did not work well because Grotch
says the former nanny did not get along with them. Zillow felt like those “well-to-do people
6

didn’t seem to have much use for her.” They then moved to New York and lived with Grotch’s
mother’s sister. Grotch explained, this was still very hard for nanny, who had been very free and

4

Videotaped testimony of Elizabeth Grotch, File no. 26284, Tape 3, The USC Shoah
Foundation Visual History Archives, 20:02.
5
Ibid., 22:00.
6

Ibid., 19:49.
238

7

used to making decisions to go back to being the domestic.” This woman had cared for
Elizabeth from the time she took her from the ghetto until 1949. She had been independent and
the primary decision maker during this period, and had successfully protected her charge. They
tried for some years to make arrangements that work but it just did not so Elizabeth and Zillow
parted company when Elizabeth was thirteen. Grotch stayed with her aunt and Zillow moved to
Long Island but they kept in touch, until Zillow died five years later.

8

Zillow had moved from the home of her family of origin and found work with Grotch’s
family. She may have worked in other households prior to working for this one. Grotch recalls
of their prewar life, “She was literally the mother I knew. My mother was, well, before the war
9

she never took care of the children. I was just taken to say hello and goodnight.” In her position
as a nanny this woman was trusted to care for her employers’ child, following the directives of
her employers and charged with making the decisions involved in the day-to-day hands-on care
of them while their parents were away. Grotch recalls that her nanny also behaved in a motherly
fashion toward her employer, “My nanny was actually taking care of my mother and me. My
mother was like her oldest child.”

10

When the war broke out and Grotch’s father was deported,

Zillow stayed with her former employer and charge traveling with them to Lwów, earning
money alongside her former employer by knitting items and selling them to benefit them all.

7

Videotaped testimony of Elizabeth Grotch, File no. 26284, Tape 3, The USC Shoah
Foundation Visual History Archives, 24:30. Emphasis mine.
8
Lillian Trilling, Elizabeth Grotch’s cousin that Zillow removed from the ghetto and sent to
Warsaw also survived the war and was reunited with the women in New York.
9
Videotaped testimony of Elizabeth Grotch, File no. 26284, Tape 1, The USC Shoah
Foundation Visual History Archives, 9:10.
10
Ibid., 9:14.
239

When the Jews were ordered into the ghetto, Grotch and her mother traveled to Warsaw
to join her extended family in that ghetto and the nanny still continued to try to look after them,
eventually taking Grotch and her cousin from the ghetto. Grotch had her own apartment and was
prepared to attempt to support these girls, along with a Jewish baby until they were denounced
and the plan had to change. Zillow then, despite the tension and discord it caused between her
and her mother, brought a Jewish child into her family or origin and stood her ground to keep
this child. After she had to leave, she continued to keep the child even after the war, continuing
to be responsible for this child emotionally and financially.
I argue that this increasing responsibility that began when they left their families of origin
helped prepare Zillow, and rescuers like her to assume the role of protector.

11

She had left home

and been independent, finding employment and assuming an important role in the household of
her employers. In this home she became attached not only to the child she was caring for, but
also to her employers. Socialized in an anti-Semitic household growing up, this woman still
came to see this Jewish family as her “own.” She grieved for their deaths and risked her own life,
as well as the lives of her entire family to protect her prewar charge. She loved her charge as a
mother loves their child. They became like family to her, no longer “others” but rather members
of her community of moral obligation. The independence and confidence she gained through her
employment coupled with these feelings of attachment to her charge made her decision to
attempt to rescue the child a natural choice. While we can certainly see her activities as heroic
and risky, they also seem to be a normal extension of her prewar behavior.
When Zillow arrived with her charge in the United States she had not only had the
experience of employment and developed an intimate relationship, and taken incredible risks to
11

It also prepared women to display their agency through the persecution of their former
employers as discussed in chapter four.
240

protect this child; she had successfully supported herself and the child for an extended period of
time. She had become Elizabeth Grotch’s mother in the absence of her deceased mother. Now,
after leaving her entire former life behind to bring this child through Sweden and Cuba to the
United States, this family expected that she would again take her place as “the help.” The change
in the social and political situation under Nazi-occupation in a way let this woman, and other
domestic servants turned rescuers like her, out of the box so to speak and this family was asking
her to squeeze herself back in. And she just did not fit there anymore.
Former domestic servants who saved their charges were also disappointed when after the
war they were often not allowed to keep the children they had protected. In the case of the
Foxmans and their nanny, Bronisława Kurpi from the previous chapter, both parents survived so
they had a natural claim to the child they placed in her care even though she felt justified in
keeping him. In cases where a child’s immediate family was murdered during the Holocaust,
many Jewish children were still removed from their wartime rescuers even though she was the
only parent figure they had left. Sometimes they would be sent to extended family members but
other times they were removed from the care of their rescuers to be placed in an institution either
in Europe, Palestine, or the United States. Prior to the Holocaust there were roughly a million
Jewish children under the age of four in Poland.

12

According to a Report of the Central Jewish

Committee of Poland only about 3 percent of those children survived. Polish Jews were amongst
the hardest hit of all of the victims of Nazi persecution with only about ten percent of the once
thriving community surviving.

13

All Jews who found themselves within the reach of Nazi racial

policies were targeted for persecution and death, and children were especially vulnerable in all
12

Nachum Bogner, At The Mercy of Strangers: The Rescue of Jewish Children with Assumed
Identities in Poland, (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 2009), 15.
13
Ibid.
241

these countries. The Holocaust devastated the Jewish population and the restoration of the
remnant was very important to many Jewish organizations after the war. Children were
especially hard hit and so the recovery of these children to the Jewish community was a top
priority for many groups. The wishes of the children and the efforts of their wartime protectors
was not however taken into account by organizations such as Jewish organization such as the
Zionist Koordynacja for the Redemption of Jewish Children and often their efforts stood in direct
opposition of the wishes of the caregivers and their charges.
Jose Lefkovich traveled around the Polish countryside after the war seeking out surviving
Jewish children. “Poles didn’t want to part with them, but we had tremendous powers,” he
recalls.

14

He removed the Jewish children from the Polish homes where they were hidden during

the war not to reunite them with their families, but rather for authorities, meaning Jewish
organizations. He characterizes his activity as an effort to “save Jewish little children that were
thrown away in the moment of anguish, in the moment when the parents were taken to the gas
chambers.”

15

Sometimes he and his colleagues faced difficulty retrieving the children because

“the Polaks didn’t want to give them up. They wanted to have free servants,” so they used all
sorts of methods to take the children.

16

Mala Orbach was involved in the efforts to recover

Jewish children from Polish homes and she said she once used gold and vodka to reclaim a set of
twins from a peasant woman who had them.

17

14

Videotaped testimony of Jose Lefkovich, File no. 27260-4, March 19, 1997, Tape 5, The USC
Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive, 28:23.
15
Videotaped testimony of Jose Lefkovich, File no. 27260-4, March 19, 1997, Tape 6, The USC
Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive, 0:35.
16
Ibid., 1:16.
17

Videotaped testimony of Mala Orbach, File no. 29242-40, May 4, 1997, The USC Shoah
Foundation Visual History Archive.
242

The women of my study knew their charges from before the war and then expended a
great deal of energy protecting them from harm during the Nazi Occupation and Holocaust. They
risked their own lives, sometimes the lives of their friends and family, they sometimes had to cut
ties with people they cared about and lived with the stress of knowing they could be caught at
any moment. Often, the bond between the caregivers and their charges grew even stronger as a
result of their participation in this conspiracy. It was, after all this hard for many of these women
to return children to their a parent when they survived but must have been harder still to
surrender children to extended family the children may not have been familiar with and even
more difficult to give them over to total strangers who were planning to send them to an
institution. Many of these women felt like mothers to these children and their separation was
heartbreaking. Genia Olczak, who appears frequently in this dissertation willingly sent her young
charge with his extended family and would never have biological children of her own. Young
Gabriel was the only son she would ever love and she would think of his son, Paul as her
grandson.
And finally, rescuers received no recognition for their efforts if they remained in Poland
because people were not discussing rescue in the postwar period and saving Jews was certainly
not looked up as favorable wartime activity. These women who went to great lengths to thwart
the Nazi authorities and hide their activities from potential denouncers, could not freely talk
about their experiences after the war and they received no real praises for their efforts. Joanna
Michlic argues that in the post-war period dedicated female rescuers were unable to reveal their
wartime activities because it would result in stigmatization for their efforts.

18

18

During the

Joanna B. Michlic, “The Stigmatization of Dedicated Polish Women Rescuers During the
Second World War and Its Aftermath,” in East European Memory Studies No. 13, March 2013,
1-6.
243

interwar period ethno-nationalistic press labeled ethnic Poles who defended the rights of the
Jewish minority against anti-Semitic violence or persecution as “Jews,” “Jewish uncles and
aunts” or “Jewish protectors and Jewish saviors.”

19

These people were, according to Michlic,

perceived and treated like traitors to the Polish collective by ethno-nationalists and were thought
to have violated cultural codes.

20

She argues that during the war, aid to Jews was perceived in

the same fashion. By choosing to assist and thus violating the cultural code, Polish helpers were
stigmatized as not belonging to the national body as a result of their association with Jews and
their transgression.
After the war, there was also still this stigmatization for rescuers for their attachments to
Jews. Rescuer accounts of their activity also served as a reminder that rescue was a minority
activity among ethnic Poles and a reminder of Polish persecution of their Jewish population (and
their Polish helpers) by many while under Nazi occupation.

21

Violent acts of antisemitism

occurred regularly in Poland after the war, such as the Kielce pogrom that was perpetrated on
July 4, 1946. As a result, rescuers would have likely perceived that it could be been dangerous to
talk openly about their activities during the war which meant that they had to continue keeping
secrets from people and continue to mask their wartime lives and suffering. More practically,
hiding a Jewish charge during the occupation put others at risk including members of a
household. Sometimes these household members were a part of the conspiracy and sometimes

19
20

Ibid., 2.
Ibid.

21

In Jan T. Gross, Fear: Antisemitism in Poland After Auschwitz. An Essay in Historical
Interpretation (New York: Random House, 2007), Gross argues that the guilt and shame of
Polish behavior towards their Jewish co-citizens was manifested by acts of violence towards the
Jews who survived the Holocaust and remained in Poland immediately after the war. He credits
these feeling of guilt and shame as the real root cause of the Kielce pogrom on July 4, 1946.
244

they did not know they were actually hiding someone. The idea that a Pole would knowingly put
their own family at risk to save a Jew was seen as questionable behavior by many. Furthermore,
putting others at risk without their consent could have been viewed in very negative ways. In
addition, it was believed by some, that hiding a Jewish charge in a building or a village could put
all the residents at risk for retribution even if they were unaware of the activity. Regardless of
whether this would have actually come to pass, the idea that it was possible could have been
enough to make those who felt they had placed at risk feel resentment against the aid provider if
they found out later about their wartime activities. In short, rescue and aid activities, while they
did serve to thwart the aims of the occupiers, were not viewed in the same way as other
clandestine resistance because it was associated with the protection of Jews, not ethnic Poles.
Many rescuers would be disappointed with their treatment after the war. Either because
they were expected to resume their lives as domestic servants like nothing had changed, or
because they were separated from their charges after the war, or because after the war they had to
continue to carry the burden of their clandestine activities for years to come, often without their
co-conspirator. These women made great sacrifices to engage in rescue activities and after the
war were often left without their charge in a country that was devastated by war, and facing stark
economic conditions. Later, the situation in Poland would improve and discussions about rescue
and wartime activities would begin to open up, but this was a slow process.
So, at the end of the day what does this all mean and why are these rescue efforts so
important? First of all, because they bear witness to the fact that rescue of Jews by their Polish
co-citizens did occur. And, it occurred not only among social equals like neighbors, professional
colleagues, prewar schoolmates and so on, but also among the lower classes. The Polish peasants
and working class are often viewed as particularly anti-Semitic but the maids and nannies of my

245

study were all from either peasant or working class backgrounds and they not only crossed the
ethno-religious boundaries that existed in Polish society, they also managed to overlook class
distinctions that separated them.
Jan T. Gross argues that antisemitism was a constant in Polish society that can be traced
back well before the outbreak of the Second World War and just as easily found after the war.
He uses the example of the Kielce pogrom and the peasants who after the war went searching the
mass Jewish graves in search of “post-Jewish gold” as examples of this.

22

I cannot argue that

against this assertion generally. One can readily find examples of antisemitism throughout Polish
history. The reluctance to disclose their rescue activities of the domestic servants in this study are
evidence of this. Many of the children that remained in the care of their rescuers, either for good
or for an extended period until they were reclaimed by family after the war, kept their Polish
Catholic identities while they were in Poland because it seemed safer.

23

However, this study

illustrates that assumptions about Polish anti-Jewish attitudes does need to be nuanced and
problematized. The overwhelming majority women of this study who did rescue and aid their
former charges did not with no expectation of compensation for their activities. They most often
supported these children out of their own meager wages or with some support from the families

22

Jan T. Gross, Fear: Antisemitism in Poland After Auschwitz. An Essay in Historical
Interpretation (New York: Random House, 2007); and Jan T. Gross with Irena Grudzińska
Gross, Golden Harvest: Events at the Periphery of the Holocaust (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2012).
23
For example, in videotaped interview of Milla Tenenbaum, File no. 33627-4, September 16,
1997, Tape 3, The USC Shoah Foundation Visual History Archive, Tenenbaum is hidden by her
prewar maid and takes on her last name going by Milla Krzeminska while passing as her
daughter during the war. When the war was over she was afraid to admit she was Jewish and she
just wanted to be able to do the same things the other children were doing. Her caregiver enrolled
her in the third grade under the last name of Krzeminska as her daughter and Milla did not admit
to the other students that she was Jewish.
246

when it was available.

24

For the most part, these rescuers did not even see their activities as

anything heroic or out of the ordinary. When asked about her motivations for her rescue
activities and why she demonstrated such loyalty to the family she aided, Genia Olczak replies,
“How could one leave a family to the cruel fate, leave a weak woman with a small child, while
the father went to war to defend his country? There were many people like me.”

25

She did not

see her activities as heroic, she felt like she was just doing what was necessary to take care of the
people she cared about. This behavior was absolutely rooted in and an extension of the prewar
relationships that had developed in the intimate zone of the household before the war. This
Jewish family had become part of Genia’s community of moral obligation and they were not
seen as “others” or as merely members of a flattened category of “Jews,” they were her own; her
family. While out on the streets and in public, Polish society often was made up of “Poles” and
“Jews” that may not have felt attachments or obligations to one another, in cases like this where
rescue or attempted rescue was carried out by a prewar domestic servant, in the intimate zone of
the family and the household, Poland was often a coherent community where mutual aid
happened.

24

This can be seen in the case of the Foxman family. Mr. and Mrs. Foxman paid Mrs. Kurpi to
care for their child, Abraham and she regularly asked them for more money, threatening to turn
the child in if they did not pay. While we do not know her motivations for her behavior, we do
know that she went had the child baptized as her own and went to great lengths to try to retain
custody of him after the war. So, while she did to a large degree extort money from her former
employers, she also offered to take the child and clearly wanted to keep him as her own, so this
is not a simple case of rescue for payment. We can also look at the case of Genia Olczak and her
protection of the Rozencwajg family. She did not accept payment for her efforts but the family
did contribute financially to her efforts in order to make them possible. This was absolutely not a
case of rescue for payment in any way, shape, or form.
25
Testimony of Genowefa Olczak, October 4, 2005, conducted and transcribed, with
commentary by Bianka Kraszewski, 5.
247

The Second World War meant harsh occupation and devastation in Poland. The end of the
war, that moment when the German army retreated, the Soviets arrived and the fighting ended is
referred to as The Zero Hour.

26

This is the moment that most historians designate as the

beginning of the communist control of Eastern Europe.

27

Anne Applebaum writes, “To those

who lived through this change of power, zero hour felt like a turning point: something very
concrete came to an end, and something very new began. From now on, many people said to
themselves, everything would be different. And it was.”

28

For the subjects of this study, the end

of the war was the zero hour. Nothing was the same. The Nazi threat was removed but replaced
with new uncertainties rather than happy endings. Hidden Jewish children found out the truth
about their prewar identities, found out that their mothers were not really their mothers, learned
that they had not always been Polish Catholics, and most soon realized that they would not spend
the rest of their childhood with this caregiver in Poland.
For the rescuers themselves, everything would change as well. Most would lose their
charges, either voluntarily relinquishing them to surviving parents or family members, giving
them up because they could not afford to care for them, or through the forced removal of the
children as they were reclaimed by the surviving Jewish community. Family life and friendships
and relationships had to start over, often without full disclosure of the rescuers wartime
experiences. Often new housing or employment had to be sought. Many of these rescuers had
been independent and relied on their own wits, street savvy, and sometime outright brashness to
not only survive, but also to protect their charges. Many had engaged in illegal activities and
26

Anne Applebaum, Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe, 1944-1956 (New York:
Doubleday, 2012), 2.
27
Ibid.
28

Ibid.
248

trade and worked in new professions to support themselves and had transgressed from their
prewar social status. The shifting status of these lower class women in many cases would lead to
higher expectation in the postwar period. They had been independent and left the domestic
realm, and some of them may not have wanted to go back. This desire to have more that was a
result of their wartime experiences may have also been experienced by other Poles. During this
Zero Hour, amidst the devastation and disappointment there was also possibility for change and
for new lives. It was during this moment of potential that the communists came in and sought to
come to power and dictate how that change would occur.

249

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250

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