“We were living on Twarda Street in Warsaw. My parents, my brother, and I. The apartment had it all: the underground resistance, the underground education, trainings of the Home Army Officer School, the liaisons were bringing in stacks of underground publications.”
In March 1942 Zofia Kossak-Szczucka asked them to hide two Jewish fugitives from the Kraków ghetto: Róża Feldman and her nine-year-old daughter Janka; both were exhausted and suffering from tuberculosis. They were given forged certificates from Vilnius in the name Kwiatkowska.
Maria’s mother placed Mrs. Feldman in the Child Jesus Hospital, while Janka was sent to the children’s sanatorium in Otwock. Mrs. Feldman’s condition was grave – she died several months later.
“Mom promised to take care of Janka.”
She got the addresses of Mrs. Feldman’s brothers from her. One lived in the US, the other in Israel. They would help with the child’s education after the war.
“We visited Janka in Otwock every week, bringing food and sweets. After a couple of months she returned home. Our acquaintances were told she was a child rescued from the Zamość region. In our house even the caretaker was part of the underground and everybody was covering everybody. Janka treated me like her older sister. I taught her to read and do math and my dad taught her English.“
During the Warsaw Uprising the two girls followed the trail of battles of the “Odwet” battalion. Mom was a women’s platoon commander.
The whole family returned to the city in 1946. Janka graduated from the English Studies department at the Warsaw University.
“We are a family.”
