Jadwiga became part of the underground as early as 1939, initially operating in Rzeszow, her husband’s hometown. This was where she first saved Jews.
The man, for whom she had obtained papers in the name of Stefan Lisowski, had clearly Semitic features. Despite her warnings, he would not remain in hiding and often left the house. This proved to be unwise in the small town that Rzeszów was at the time. In 1942 he was arrested on his way to his fiancée. After his forced confessions the Gestapo found their way to the fiancée, her mother and aunt, and Jadwiga’s husband. They all died.
Warned by the underground, Jadwiga made her way to Warsaw. She found lodging in a tenement house near the ghetto. Through acquaintances she met the Rozenholc siblings: Stefania and Aleksander and hid them in her apartment.
Attempting to retain at least the pretence of normality, Stefania offered to do the cooking and the cleaning. From time to time she left the house to do some shopping. Not for long, though. Jadwiga recalls: “I walk into this small grocery store opposite our house, and the owner says to me: ‘You should tell the Jewish girl staying with you to stop shopping here’.”
Before the outbreak of the Warsaw Uprising Jadwiga placed Stefania in the Child Jesus Hospital. She remained there until the end of the war. Jadwiga found her in the intermediary camp in Piastów. They went on to live together in Chylice near Warsaw. Later the woman were joined there by Aleksander.
The siblings never forgot Jadwiga’s sacrifice. Until their death, they remained in contact with her.
