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Sophia
Mr. Hawkins
World History - P3
8 April 2016

The Stories of Rescued Jews

The Holocaust was hell to the Jews and many others. They would be sent to
concentration camps where they were starved, tortured, and killed. However some had either
escaped the camps or hid so they wouldnt be trapped in there. These Jew rescue stories are what
gave faith to humanity once again. These rescuers came from every religious background:
Protestant and Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and Muslim (Website 3). Many may believe
that all Jew rescuers helped these people out of the kindness of their heart but some did it simply
for the money. It was considered very dangerous for helping the Jews because people would
most likely be executed for it.
On July 1944 police raided [Karolina] Juszczykowska's house and found two Jews
hiding in her cellar (Website 1). The Jews were shot on the spot, but the police arrested
Karolina and brought her in for interrogation. While being interrogated she stated that about six
weeks before she was arrested she had met the two Jews. They then asked her to shelter
them, and promised to pay her 300 Zloty per week for both of them (Website 1). She had
known that they were Jews and that by sheltering them she put herself in a lot of danger, but she
was in a very desperate need for the money. She then took them into her home and they slept on
her floor. Since Karolina was being accused for hiding Jews she chose to say she was

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motivated by greed rather than by the wish to undermine Nazi Germany's persecution of
the Jews (Website 1). In fact during the war due to the economy 300 Zloty was a nice amount
of money to receive. Sadly in the end this reasoning from Karolina was not enough to save her
life. She was transferred to the Frengesheim prison in Frankfurt am Main, Germany,
where she was executed on January 9, 1945 (Website 1). This just showed how dangerous it
really was to help Jews back then.
On July 1940 Jerzy Bielecki, a prisoner, moved from Tarnow, Poland to Auschwitz.
During his four years as an inmate at Auschwitz, Jerzy worked in several places, including
the grain warehouse (Website 2). It was there where Jerzy fell in love with the Polish Jew
Cyla Cybulska. They both made the effort to try and talk to each other a little each day since men
and women were not allowed to make contact. During the winter of 1944, Jerzy decided to
attempt to escape from Auschwitz (Website 2). He had begged Cyla to join him and in the
end she agreed to do so. It took him several months to prepare and made necessary arrangements
to do something so dangerous and risky. On July 21, 1944 the day had come for them to make
their escape Jerzy, dressed in the stolen SS uniform, arrived in the laundry room where
Cyla worked (Website 2). They then began walking through the camp until they reached the
guard house where an SS guard stopped them. Jerzy simply showed him a stolen pass
authorizing one guard and one prisoner to return to a nearby work farm (Website 2). At
that point Jerzy and Cyla had passed the guarded parts of the camp. However they were still in
danger for if someone saw their serial number tattoos they could be easily shot on the spot for
escaping the camp. After walking for ten days they safely reached one of Jerzys relatives home.
Jerzy had found Cyla a permanent hiding place with a Polish family (Website 2). After that

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they both lost touch and just assumed that each other were dead at the end of the war. In the end
these two were extremely lucky for making it out alive the way they did.
In 1942 a young teacher, Jeanne Daman, was in Brussels when the Jewish community
was creating their own kindergartens since the Jewish children were no longer able to attend
school with non-Jewish kids. Fela Perelman who was a leading figure in the organized rescue
efforts for Jewish children, needed trained and qualified personnel for the many children
who were left without schools (Website 1). She had decided to ask Jeanne to join her staff.
After some thinking Jeanne decided to join Perelmans staff and help the Jewish children. Once
she became head mistress she witnessed something that would change her life forever. She
witnessed the mass arrest of Jews coupled with the brutality shown towards them
(Website 1). Every school day kids would become absent because the families were being
gathered like sheep and taken away. Some kids lost their parents because they were being taken
while their children were at school. After some thought it became clear that the school had to
be closed in order to save the children, and that the children were to be moved to private
Belgian families (Website 1). In the end Daman was able to bring all the children to safety.
Once the school was closed for sure Perelman asked Daman if she wanted to continue her rescue
efforts, and she agreed to do so. Since an ever-increasing number of children became instant
orphans and someone had to accompany them to their hiding places (Website 1). That was
exactly what Daman would do. In the end she would help so many Jewish children to not
become Nazi targets.
It took lots of courage and bravery to help Jew out during this dark time period. If caught
death was most likely the punishment. Although most of the Jews did end up going to
concentrations camps and dying there was also a significant amount of Jews that were saved. For

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as many as 20,000 Jews were living in hiding in Warsaw and its environs with the help of
Polish civilians (Website 3). Sadly however, the number of people that were saved does not
nearly come as close to the number of people that were killed during the Holocaust which is
estimated to be about 5-6 million Jews. The people who risked their lives to help save another
were true heroes.