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How Roman Polański hid during the Holocaust - the Story of Jan and Stefania Buchaław

Roman Polański is a director and screen writer, film producer and actor, winner of the Palme d'Or at the 55th Cannes Film Festival and Oscar-winning director of The Pianist (2002). He survived the Holocaust, in occupied Poland, with the help of many people.

From the summer of 1943, after escaping from the Kraków ghetto, he hid on the farm of Jan and Stefania Buchała, which lay on the Mosiórka mountain, in the village of Wysoka (Wadowicki District), not far from Kraków.

This poor peasant family sheltered this ten-year-old Jewish boy until the autumn of 1944.

About the help which he received from Stefania Buchała, in a testimony for the Yad Vashem Institute, in 2018, Roman Polański wrote, "She provided me with shelter at the risk of her own life and the lives of her family. In requesting that she be posthumously honoured with the title of Righteous Among the Nations, he added, "She was a sensitive, gentle and hard-working woman”.


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Paris and Kraków - the  pre-War life of Roman Polański's family

Roman Polański (formerly Raymond Thierry Liebling) was born on 18th August 1933 in Paris where, from the end of the 1920s, his parents had lived. His parents, Mojżesz Liebling and Bella (Bula) Katz-Przedborska, were assimilated Jews from Poland. His father, a former director, was painter and, in the following years, became an entrepreneur:

"My father often hurt my pride over simple matters, but he never raised a hand against me, even when I dared to violate the only taboo in our house - against his strict prohibition of me using his amazing Underwood typewriter - my father's pride and joy. At an impressive speed, he would type out his business correspondence. I would only be allowed to stand and watch and eventually, with his encouragement, I would point to the keys on the keyboard, which was how I learned the alphabet”, wrote Roman Polański in his memoirs, published in the 1980s. "I have vivid memories of my mother and, at the same time, somewhat hazy. I remember the sound of  her voice, her elegance and her precision [...]. Later, many people told me that she was strikingly beautiful. As she showed during the war, she was also a resourceful and proud woman. I often think that I inherited my stubbornness and perseverance from her”.

At the beginning of 1937, the Liebling family moved to Kraków, where they lived at ul. Bolesława Komorowskiego 9. Romek, as the young boy was called after returning to Poland, recalled that the first film he saw was Sweethearts (1938), directed by W.S. Van Dyke. He went to one of Kraków's cinemas with his half-sister Anette, his mother's daughter from her previous marriage.

"One summer, my parents rented a cottage in Szczyrk. Looking back, I realise that those were the last truly, carefree days which we spent together. It was also my first contact with nature. That mountainous, densely wooded landscape seemed to me like something out of a fairy tale.””.

The Kraków Ghetto - Roman Polański During the German Occupation

"Once, in Planty, my father and I came across a stallholder selling some drawings. When he folded a sheet of paper with the images of four faces, it created a pig. The drawing flowed like water. My father told me that the four caricatures were of Hitler, Himmler, Goebbels and Göring. He explained that there were Nazis, who were threatening our country. More and more often, those names would come up in conversations.”

In the summer of 1939, due to the threat of war, the Liebling family decided to separateć. Mojżesz remained in Kraków, but he sent his wife Bella, son Roman and stepdaughter Anette to Warsaw, where they settled into an apartment in the suburbs.

"My grandmother was a fatalist, she refused to move, regardless of the course of events”, recalled Polański. Soon, however, the entire Liebling family moved together in Kazimierz, in Kraków, in the home of Mojżesz's mother Maria Liebling.

For a short time, Roman started going to school. He then became keenly interested in an opaque projector, "with the help of which the teacher would display illustrations on a screen in the school hall.I was not interested in any of the explanations or in the pictures themselves, but only in the method. I wanted to know how the devices worked. During the 'seances', I was constantly fiddling with the lenses and the mirror, which angered everyone”.

In March 1941, when the Germans established the Kraków ghetto, the Liebling family lived in the closed-off district of Pogórze, on the corner of ul. Parkowa and ul. Rękawka, where they shared an apartment with other families. Roman's mother obtained permission to leave the ghetto, as she worked on the "Aryan side" of Kraków.

In the ghetto, Roman became friends with Ryszard Horowitz (he who, years later, became a world famous photographer, a precursor of computer graphics). They would often leave the ghetto for the "Aryan side", since they each had a "good appearance". Sometimes, he would watch propaganda displays and German film newsreels. 

On 13th March 1943, the future director witnessed the liquidation of the ghetto. Bella and Maria Liebling were transported to Auschwitz-Birkenau, where they perished shortly thereafter. Mojżesz Liebling ended up in the Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp.

Help from the Wilk and Putka Families -  Roman Polański in hiding on the "Aryan side" of Kraków

In March 1943,  just before the Kraków ghetto liquidation, Mojżesz Liebling enabled his son to escape. Using his savings, he arranged for a shelter for him in Kraków. Initially, the boy hid with Henryk and Kazimiera Wilk - a family to whom he was "related". He then moved in with Bolesław and Jadwiga Putka. He had false documents under the name of "Roman Wilk”. About those times, he wrote,

"Cinema became my passion - the only escape from  the depression and despair which, so often, overwhelmed me. On these expeditions, my guide and companion was Mietek Putek. He was my age, slim and brown-haired. Mietek and I were inseparable,mainly because we all lived  in the one room.”

Soon after, the Putka family decided to change Roman's hiding place. The boy then lived in the village of Wysoka, about thirty kilometres from Kraków. There he was cared for by a distance relative of the Putka family, Stefania Buchała. 

The Buchała family from the village of Wysoka near Wadowice

The couple, Jan Buchała and Stefania nee Putka, lived on the slope of the Mosiórka mountain, in the village of Wysoka (Wadowicki District). They ran their own farm and raised three children - Marcin (born before 1932), Jadwiga (b. 1932) and Ludwik (ur. 1937). The family lived very modestly, cultivating a small field, a kitchen garden  and an orchard. They planted tobacco, but the yields were low. Jan worked part-time as a shoemaker.

In the summer of 1943, despite their difficult material situation, bordering on hunger, the Buchała agreed to take, into their home, ten-year-old Roman.

"Stefania, without a second thought, risked her own life and the lives of her husband and children, by hiding me in their home for almost two years. During that time, she made sure that I was hidden and fed", Polański wrote in his testimony to the Yad Vashem Institute.

Roman Polański in hiding - living conditions on the Buchała farm

"The day began when, as she lit the  fire, Mrs Buchałowa would recite  When the morning dawns. We never sat down at the table without the sign of the cross”, wrote Roman Polański, describing everyday life on the Buchała family farm. Stefania held a special place in his memories:

"Family life was totally concentrated around Mrs. Buchała. She was strong and energetic, despite being a slim woman. She wore a scarf around  her head and had a toothy smile. She brought a breeze into the house which made life bearable. She was a deeply religious person, although she did not overly display that. She was gentle and understand and was almost as illiterate as her husband. The kindness, which she showed was all the more astonishing, because the Putka family paid her almost nothing f or my upkeep. It seemed that most of my father's unofficial deposit had disappeared along the way.”

Roman lived in a shed at the back of the farm. The poverty and of the backwardness of the Buchała farm made an impression on him:

"The Buchała farm was set in idyllic surroundings, with rolling hills. Here and there were thatched cottages, whitewashed in bluish lime. However, their life was a daily struggle.

"They grew wheat, rye and potatoes. Our daily diet consisted of boiled, salted potatoes and hand-made noodles - sometimes, if the family could afford it, with a little milk. bread from the baker was too expensive, so Mrs Buchałowa, herself, baked wholewheat bread with bran. We would grind the grain by hand on primitive millstones, which could be considered as medieval relics. […]

"In the summer, we ate better.The Buchała family had a kind of orchard and the  forests were full of mushrooms and berries. We stuffed ourselves with cherries and plums. When I was sick with hunger, I ate unripe plums […]. We protected ourselves from the flies - with better or worse results - by placing saucers full of poisonous toadstool juice. I became a real expert in collecting mushrooms.”.

Over time, the boy was entrusted with more and more new tasks. He took care of the cow, fed the chickens and rabbits and peeled potatoes. During harvest season, when the entire village engaged in the work, together with the other children, he collected, from the harvesters, the remains of the ears of corn and took part in the threshing.

Górny Śląsk and Hollywood - the post-war fate of the rescuers and the rescued.

In November 1944, Roman returned to the Putka family's apartment in Kraków. After the entry, into the city, of the Red Army in 19th January 1945, he moved in with his uncle, Stefan Liebling, whom he met by chance on the street. He then moved in with another uncle, Dawid, who was sharing an apartment with the Horowitz family, including Ryszard.

Mojżesz Liebling survived the concentration camp. On 21st December 1946, he married Wanda Zajączkowska, who persuaded him to change his surname to "Polański”. For some time after the war, Roman continued to use the surname "Wilk" and then took his father's new surname.

Annette also survived the War and, following the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, left for Paris.

Roman, who was closer to his mother and was accustomed to being independent while in hiding, did not maintain a close relationship with his father.

Jan and Stefania Buchała died in 1953. Their children sold the farm and left Wysoka for Górny Śląsk. When Roman Polański was already a world-famous director, he attempted to locate the Buchała family. Twice he returned to Wysoka, but any trace of the Polish family could not be found.

Roman Polański's search for the Buchała family

"She provided me with shelter, risking her own life and  that of her family", wrote Roman Polański, about the help he had received from Stefania Buchała, in a testimony for the Yad Vashem Institute in 2018. In requesting that she be posthumously honoured with the title of Righteous Among the Nations, he added, "She was a sensitive, gentle and hard-working woman”.

To the testimony, he attached photographs and an excerpt from a film with the working title Polański, Horowitz. Czarodzieje z getta [Polański, Horowitz - Wizards of the Ghetto]. It was thanks to the creators of this picture Anna Kokoszka-Romer and Mateusz Kudla, that an extraordinary meeting took place on the  set of the film in 2017, which prompted the Oscar winner to testify about his survival from the Holocaust.

" For several years, we searched", said Anna Kokoszka-Romer.

"We talked talked with the villagers, but they could not say where the Buchała family went. We checked the parish records and looked through old telephone books. Finally, we found the trail of Jan and Stefania Buchała's grandson. We agreed to meet”, added Mateusz Kudła:

"Stanisław found out, from us, about how his grandmother had hidden Roman Polański. He was totally surprised by this. During our discussion, he took a bundle of photographs from his shirt pocket, These were taken seventy years previously and in them was Stefania Buchała - the woman whose courage had saved a little boy's life.”

Honouring the Buchała couple with the title of "Righteous Among the Nations".

On 3rd September 2019, the Yad Vashem Institute in Jerusalem posthumously honoured Jan and Stefania Buchała with the title of Righteous Among the Nations. At the presentation ceremony, on 15th October 2020, the medals and certificates were accepted by the heroes' grandson, Stanisław Buchala. The venue for the ceremony was the Domu Pamięci Żydów Górnośląskich in Gliwice.

"I think back about Ludek [ed.: Ludwik Buchała, Stanisław's father] who, then, was six-years-old and with whom I spent most of my time at the Buchała home. It was difficult there. The poverty was terrible. But, thanks to that, I am here today”, said Roman Polański, during the only Righteous ceremony conducted in Poland during the COVID-19 pandemic.

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