Code Name: Zegota: Rescuing Jews in Occupied Poland, 1942-1945: The Most Dangerous Conspiracy in Wartime Europe by Irene Tomaszewski;Tecia Werbowski

Author:Irene Tomaszewski;Tecia Werbowski
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2010-12-24T10:50:00+00:00

THE KRAKOW COMMITTEE

The wartime capital of the Generalgouvernement was Krakow where the German Governor Hans Frank installed himself in the ancient Wawel Castle. While the city itself was spared destruction, the population was severely repressed. In the first months of the war, the educated classes were particularly persecuted. Many fled to Warsaw, but in time the situation there was even worse.

Before the war, the Jews of Krakow had been more integrated into Polish society than they were in most other centers. Even the Orthodox Jews had frequent contact with Poles and spoke Polish fluently. Individual actions of help to Jews came about spontaneously, either by Poles seeking out their Jewish friends or by Jews coming to their Polish friends for help. The ability to help was restricted or limited, however. Many Poles had been evicted from their homes which had been taken over by the officials and profiteers who arrived from Germany and Austria.

By 1941, Jewish aid was organized by various political parties but it was not until March 1943, that some form of unified action was agreed upon. The next month, Zegota treasurer Ferdynand Arczynski got the Krakow cells to come in with Zegota. The new organization started out with only 91 people under its care. Within a few months, there were a thousand, 570 of them receiving total protection, the balance getting false papers and other help as needed.

The Krakow cell was headed by Stanislaw Dobrowolski, a lawyer with a wide acquaintance of Jews from before the war. Apart from the individual rescue of Jews, Dobrowolski attempted to bring help and hope to those in the forced labor brigades and concentration camps in the area. His contacts in the camps were people that he knew and respected, people who could be entrusted to distribute help to the poorest and most vulnerable inmates, many of whom wrote pathetic notes on dirty bits of paper and poked them through the barbed wire fences.

Zegota bought flour, beans, oats, and other provisions, including medicines, and delivered them to Jewish workers in three German firms run by Julius Madritsch, Raymond Tisch, and Heinrich Bayer. These illegal deliveries were made in a German car driven by Zegota member Antoni Kozlowski. Madritsch, a profiteer quite at ease with making a fortune out of slave labor, was otherwise amenable to enabling Zegota to carry out its work. In Krakow, as in other places, Zegota also distributed funds directly from the Jewish Underground as assigned. Marian Poleski of Montreal recalled the deliveries of food by Kozlowski. He was told only that they were from an "organization."

A number of escapes from various camps in the region were orchestrated by Adam Ryszkiewicz of the Krakow group. Among them was Szymon Zajdow, a member of the Polish Communist Party who had been arrested in France and deported to Auschwitz. The camp was only 75 kilometers from Krakow, but it was in the Incorporated Territories, out of bounds and very dangerous for Poles. Zajdow was placed in the care of the council's secretary, Wladyslaw Wojcik.

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