The village of Brzózka – about a dozen miles from Treblinka. „On quiet days in that area, when the wind blew from the right direction you could hear screams, whimpers, and human yelps, ‘Help, help, help!’ they would cry,” says Tadeusz Karczmarczyk, recalling the years of the War. His family saved a number of Jews.
Ewa and Tomasz Karczmarczyk worked the land of a nine-morgen farm. They had five children – Tadeusz, Stefan, Bolesław, Halina, and Stefania. But the family wasn’t poor. „For some people there was scarcity, but never in our home,”says Tadeusz.
During the War, the family expanded further. From the summer of 1941 to the summer of 1942 the Karzmarczyk house was also home to the Wróblewiczes, the Szczupakiewiczes, and the so-called „Majors” – Jews who, after the fourth partition of Poland in 1939, had fled across the newly-established border into the Soviet-occupied region, and who after Hitler’s attack on the U.S.S.R. found themselves lost and trapped in Nazi-controlled territory.
According to Tadeusz, they were originally sent to Brzózka by administrators at the municipal headquarters in Stoczek. Sharing a home brought the Karczmarczyks and their Jewish tenants close. When the Nazis began exterminating Jews, the Karczmarczyks offered to help their friends.
Not everyone took them up on this offer.
The four-person „Major” family chose to believe German assurances and moved into the Kosów ghetto, which was liquidated shortly thereafter.
Tadeusz and his brothers prepared hiding spots for the Wróblewiczes and i Szczupakiewiczes: „In a small room in the house, under the floorboards; in the cellar, where they kept potatoes, and where I had rats jumping all over my head; in the shed, where they stored wood for the winter; in the barn, under the hay; oh, and one in the attic,” survivor Aida Wróblewicz (today, Midzińska) listed off in a recording for Yad Vashem.
The hiding spots in the Karczmarczyk household were also inhabited by Aida’s father Icchak, her sister Chaja, Chaja’s husband Mosze Szczupakiewicz, and their two children – Srulek (Izrael), Josek (Józef), and Chawa (the cousin(.
Fortunately, most of them had „good appearances,” so they did not have to remain hidden all the time. Tadeusz was resourceful enough to find work for Chawa and Josek with family friends in the village of Wilczogąb nad Bugiem. They now went by the Christian names Hanka and Józek.
„And then, every time I rode out to Wilczogąb the mayor would say, ‘Tadek, who’s that undocumented girl at Wycech Zygmunt’s? And over at the Kowalczyks’ there’s this boy – also without documents – and he keeps saying you’re the one who sent him there,’” remembers Tadeusz, adding, „So then, I’d say, ,They had documents, but their village burned down. I’m getting around to having them reprinted.’ And I just kept putting it off like that … until the Ruskis came, and then the documents weren’t necessary anymore.”
Tadeusz did, however, have documents made for Aida (called Idka or Irka) – and at a time when that should have been the last thing on his mind. He was sent to a camp in Warsaw, from where he was to be deported for forced labor in Germany. Thanks to his mother’s efforts, he was able to avoid the deportation. Nevertheless, during the episode, they managed to ask a young woman to make a set of fake identification papers for them. At home, Tadeusz pasted on a photo of Aida, and after that she could move around the neighborhood more or less freely. A few times she was even cleared by German patrols.
Not everyone was so lucky, though. Aida’s father Icchak did not survive the War. He died in unknown circumstances – as did Aida’s brother-in-law Mosze Szczupakiewicz, who was captured along with his youngest son, Srulek.
Aida and her sister Chaja remained in the Karczmarczyk home. They helped with planting, and with harvests. On the side, they made money by knitting sweaters. But they too had their scrape with death.
It went as follows. A Jew named Chaim was also hiding in the area. He seemed to be a tailor from Kalisz and had probably escaped one of the transports to Treblinka. He slept in the forest and on farms – doing sewing jobs in exchange for assistance. He also made use of the Karczmarczyk’s hiding spots.
Hearing that the front was approaching, he decided to head back home. He figured that the Germans would now have bigger worries than hunting down Jews to keep them busy. He was mistaken. Denounced at the train station in Sadowno, he was arrested by soldiers. Before dying under torture, he revealed where in Brzózka he had hidden – and with whom.
Aida, Chaja, and the Karczmarczyks were saved by the mayor. As he led the Germans towards the farm, he made a great deal of noise. The Jewish women had enough time to dash into the house and hide under the floorboards, and Ewa Karczmarczyk was able to conceal the hiding spot entrance with a trunk.
The mayor was not the only person in the village to catch on to what was going on at the Karczmarczyks.’ „Hey Karczarmczyk, what are you up to?” neighbors would ask Ewa. But she would only drop her gaze and continue on her way. No one made a denunciation, though. No one betrayed them.
Yet the end of the War did not bring with it an end to the tragedies.
Aida, Chaja, and Chaja’s children Chawa and Josek returned to Małkinia, where they had lived before the War. Once there, Chawa entered into a relationship with a Soviet fighter pilot with whom she eventually left the country. It is not clear where they went, though it is likely they ended up in Brazil.
Aida and Chaja moved to Ostrowia Mazowiecka. The latter entered into business with a Jewish group that traded livestock and assorted seeds, bulbs, and other agricultural products. She must have crossed one of her competitors at the market: in 1946 she was shot dead. A year later, her son Josek died of diabetes.
Together with her husband – Mosze Medjinsky – whom she met in Wrocław, Aida emigrated to Israel. She maintained a correspondence with the Karczmarczyks. Then, in the ‘90’s, they began receiving letters from Mortek Szczupakiewicz, Chaja's middle son. He had survived the war. Someone had sheltered him – raising him as their son – in the Stoczek area. Mortek emigrated to Israel, served in the Israeli army, got married with Miriam. They have two sons (Moshe and Yehuda) and one daughter named Haya.
In the '80's Mordechai left Israel and went to US. He lives in North Philadelphia.
