At the beginning of World War II, Stanisław Frybes was sixteen-years-old and lived in Warsaw. He came from Stanisławowo. His parents were already dead, while the rest of his family lived in territory under the Soviet occupation.
Stanisław earned a living by giving private lessons and received his own education in underground classes. For short periods of time, he lived with various friends. Most often, he stayed with his father's friend Wilhelmina Skroczyńska, who was later recognised as "Righteous Among the Nations". Her apartment became a hub for underground activity, where help for fugitives from the ghetto was organised. Stanisław also became involved in the aid activities.
"My host brought in her own children and me to help - as much as we, as teenagers, could do”
Read the story of Stanisław Frybes in the exhibition "A Good Address - Stories of Jews in Hiding in Occupied Warsaw”
In the autumn of 1940, he helped two women to leave the closed-off ghetto and brought them to Wilhelmina Skorczyńska's apartment. The survivors were an employee of Social Security Union named Pauszer and her mother. The rescuers found them an apartment on the “Aryan side”.
Stanisław took an active part in the help organised for other Jews who were hiding from their persecutors. He either delivered food supplies, documents or correspondence or found them new places to live.
In March 1943, new fugitives moved into Wilhelmina Skroczyńska’s apartment located at ul. Mickiewicza 25. They were the married couple Bella and Maksymilian Wyszewiański, together with their adult sons, Leon and Samuel.
Apart from them, other Jewish survivors also found shelter at this address. Soon, the hiding place became too crowded. For this reason, Stanisław Frybes, who lived in an apartment at ul. Mickiewicza 27, persuaded Julia Baranowska, the owner of the apartment, to accept under her roof one of the fugitives, Leon Wyszewiański.
Regarding Samuel, he was placed in Choszczówka to live with the Sikorski family. Władysława Sikorska and her three daughters - Jadwiga, Joanna and Kamila - cared for him and treated him as a member of the family. In the summer of 1944, Samuel married Kamila. All four women were honoured with the title of "Righteous Among the Nations".
The apartment, belonging to Baranowska was the place where underground education was organised. On the night of 19th January 1943, the place was denounced. German military policemen arrested Leon, a Jewish woman called Stanisława Trytes and some boys staying in the apartment, including Frybes himself. Both Jews were murdered, while the Polish prisoners were imprisoned, but were released a month later, when a ransom was paid.
According to an account given by Stanisław Frybes, among all the people who were helped at that time, those who survived the War were Bella, Maksymilian and Samuel Wyszewiański (who, at that time, used the “Aryan” name of "Zadrożny"), a child from the ghetto called Janek Kaczyński (in Israel Szlomo Gezit), Eugenia Watt (under the "Aryan" name of "Chwattowa"), the members of the Szereszewski family and the relatives of the Wyszewiański family.When the War ended, Frybes continued to maintain close contacts with the Wyszewiański family.
