The Skowronek Family

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The Story of the Skowronek Family

During World War II Janina and Stanisław Skowronek and their two daughters, Basia and Hania, lived in Warsaw. Initially, they lived on uł. Łucka and, later, at ul. Żelazna 64.

Stanisław worked in the power station, while Janina sold soap in Hala Mirowska (Mirowski Hall).

The girls would usually spent their holidays with her cousin in Biała Rawska, a village of about 70 kilometres south-west from Warsaw. There they made friends with a young Jewish girl named Hania, daughter of Zysla Kuperszmid. “Some kind of bond had developed between us”, recalled Hanna Gałązka.

Zysla worked as a dressmaker and, in the first years of the War, she sewed clothes for German women, from whom she received food in return.

After the liquidation of the ghetto in Biała Rawska in October 1942, Zysla and Hania escaped to Warsaw. For a long time, they could not find any refuge. So, in January 1943, they came to the Skowronek family, asking for help. However, the family’s apartment on, ul. Łucka, was not suitable as a hiding place - an elderly woman lived, in one room, with the Skowronek family.

Janina suggested that the fugitives stay in the apartment at ul.Żelazna 64, where the Skowronek family were to move within three months. But first, the apartment had to be made habitable as it was in a very bad condition. Throughout this time, the family provided Zysla and Hania with food every day.

Eventually, in March 1943, the Skowronek family moved into the apartment to live together with their Jewish friends. “We got on very well with each other”, recalls Hanna. “There was (…) always warm soup on the table.There was always somebody at home, somebody who would do laundry, who had time and wanted to do it. Nobody was forced to do anything”.

"They lived with us for a year and eight months”

See the tenement at ulica Żelazna 64 in Warsaw, in which, during World War II,  the Skowronek family his Zysla and  Hania Kuperszmid.


Zysla and Hania stayed in the apartment on ul. Żelazna until September 1944. Together with the Skowronek family, they lived through the Warsaw Uprising. Together, they were deported to the transit camp in Pruszków. Then the women were transported to Senftenberg, where they worked in the factory, manufacturing lamps for the airplanes, until the very end of the war. In 1945 they all returned to Biała Rawska.

Stanisław was deported to the  concentration camp. He survived the War, came back to Biała Rawska and joined his family.

For a certain period, Zysla and her daughter stayed in the transit camp in Łódź, then departed for Israel. Straight after her departure, Zysla Kuperszmid lost contact with the Skowronek family. However, in time, she renewed contact - she telephoned, wrote letters, sent packages.

In 1972, Zysla Kuperszmid wrote her memoirs from the time of the occupation. As a result, the story “Przyjaciółki z ulicy Żelaznej” (“Friends from Żelazna Street”) was published in the Polish language in 2002:

“(…) she described so much heart and gave so many facts in this story that it constitutes a sort of gratitude no money could express. We never accepted any money from her. She writes, in that story, that it was to be with such a family, so much selflessness… and the fact that she could survive… it was only together with us”, says Hanna Gałązka.

The Rescued made every effort to ensure that the Skowronek family was awarded the honorary title of Righteous Among the Nations

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