During the war, Sister Andrzeja Górska, of the Ursuline Order, actively participated in rescuing Jewish children. She had a secret order from her superiors, by which she was to seize the children being escorted out of the ghetto and place them in the orphanages ran by the Ursulines. If a boy or girl was in danger in one institution – Sister Andrzeja was to take this child to another. For this, she regularly obtained false documents issued by both church and state to children and adults, with the help of the Żegota Council for Aiding Jews.
The Sisters of the Ursuline Order ran two orphanages during the war. One was in Warsaw, at the address Tamka 30. One of the girls who lived there was Hanka Litwińska-Avrutzky, rescued from the ghetto in 1943. The second orphanage was in Brwinów near Warsaw. Among the thirty or so children at least several came from Jewish families. The sisters had other homes for minors as well, in Zakopane and Milanówek.
After the war, it was discovered that the sisters had custody of more than thirty Jewish children, who eventually ended up in Israel. Sister Andrzeja’s service was described in the book by Zofia Rozenblaum-Szymańska, MD, entitled I Was Just a Doctor.
