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| Father Adam Sztark with his father and brother. During a Gestapo Aktion, he collected Jewish children to hide in a convent. The children were discovered. They and Father Sztark were murdered by the Nazis. |
How one Jewish man survived the Holocaust:
"My brother in the bright day, at noon, left Krosno
wearing a priest's cassock in the company of Jadwiga Niepokoj and other known
person called Cichocka. When they were walking on the street women approached
my brother – and according to the custom – kissed his hand. It did not even come
to their mind who was this priest.
In the village is a tradition that a new priest
celebrates a Mass. Fr. Chodorkowski had to find an excuse to save my brother
and himself from this problematic situation. He said that my brother is a
refugee from the Poznan area, who suffers some kind of nervous instability as a
result of German repressions. They did not even think: who was this priest? My
brother stayed with Chodorski certain time and then, with Aryan documents, left
for Krakow."
Peter Sean Bradley sent me a link to an online article,
"Priests and the Jewish People at the Time of the Holocaust" by Pawel
Rytel Andrianik.
It's a good paper, well worth reading. Polish priests
were persecuted unto death by the Nazis. Among those who lived, many helped
Jews. In some cases, their aid was so anonymous that even a priest researcher
who lived nearby was unaware of it.
You can read the full paper online here.
I have read the article, and it is a moving one.
ReplyDeleteI have previously reviewed many books on Polish rescuers of Jews under the German occupation. To see the list of these books, complete with links to my review of them, please click on my name in this specific posting.